Doctoral Studies

Aim/Purpose: This article reports on university-funded research conducted to inform, design and implement applied industry-integrated training that could support higher degree by research (HDR) candidates in the disciplines of nursing and creative arts. Background: Doctoral candidates contribute in steadily increasing numbers to the intellectual and economic capital of universities globally, however, the quality of candidate progression and outputs has also been widely criticised. How to best support doctoral candidates for success is therefore a critical focus for universities and an ongoing area of research. Methodology: The study was framed as an action research project as it was driven by the identification of a problem embedded in professional practice that invited action and reflection as well as participation from other practitioners in the field. Contribution: This article presents a multidimensional, industry-focused model for HDR training that effectively engages HDR candi...

Professional text: The article shares learning's, experiences, and highlights of my doctoral project journey. It is process driven, written in an easy language and includes illustrations. This contribution is presented from a personal perspective, some of the issues discussed are, however,  generic. It is targeted to those who are thinking of studying and researching for a doctorate in business economics. Good luck!
A very very condensed shortcut of the full article can be found as a Strathclyde University Business School Blog
see: https://www.sbs.strath.ac.uk/blogs/SBS/post.aspx?id=1408#post

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of our study was to gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to graduate student sense of belonging and gain insights into differences in sense of belonging for different groups of students. Background: Sense of belonging, or the feeling that a person is connected to and matters to others in an organization, has been found to influence college student retention and success. Literature on sense of belonging has, however, focused primarily on undergraduate students and little is known about graduate students’ sense of belonging. Methodology: We conducted an exploratory, cross-sectional survey study of graduate students at four public doctoral and comprehensive universities in Maryland, USA. All four institutions were participating in the NSF-funded PROMISE program, which strives to support the retention and academic success of women and underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students. A total of 1,533 graduate students from these four insti...

How can we develop competence in research and professional practice? This essay tries to answer the question from the perspective of critical systems thinking, that is, through an approach that aims to promote reflective research and practice. The paper is written for research students and practitioners in different professional fields. It addresses them in a direct and personal way.

Note: This article is a considerably expanded version of the Lincoln School of Management Working Paper No. 22 of June 1998 (also available in this site).
A further-expanded and updated version was prepared for Ulrich's Bimonthly, July-August 2017 (Vol. 15, No. 4, 28 August 2017) and is equally available in the Academia.edu site, see Section "Philosophy for Professionals – on Good practice," entry "Ulrich, W. (2017)".

Studies of doctoral education have included an interest not only in processes, structures, and outcomes, but also in students’ experiences. There are often useful recommendations for practice within individual examinations of the doctoral experience, yet there remains a need to strengthen the application of lessons from research to the behaviors of students and others engaged in the doctoral process. This paper is the first to synthesize research about doctoral education with the particular aim of informing practical strategies for multiple stakeholders. In this article, we summarize findings from a literature review of the scholarship about doctoral education from the past 15 years in a stage-based overview of the challenges of doctoral education. Our aim is to apply theory to practice through the systematic consideration of how research about doctoral education can best inform students and those who support them in the doctoral journey. We first present an overview of the major st...

Since I completed my PhD at Portsmouth, I have undertaken a number of meaningful research projects and published many works with presses in the east and west. Had Bronwen and Alex been lenient with me regarding the quality of my work and had I navigated through my doctoral journey with relative ease, perhaps my PhD thesis would have remained the main landmark of my academic career with little to no further research.

Aim/Purpose: This article demonstrates how experiences of a supervisee can become foundational in carving a career identity of PhD supervisors. The purpose of the article is to analyze how South African emerging supervisors could carve a career identity as PhD supervisors. Background: This article uses an autoethnographic case study to address the problem of experiences of poverty, marginalization and scarcity towards resilience in academia. Methodology: The article followed a qualitative methodology anchored on the constructivist-interpretive paradigm. The design of the study was a single ethnographic case study. This was an autoethnographic non-traditional inquiry of the author’s PhD journey. For a period of six years, the author used autoethnography to inquire about personal experience of PhD supervision. Central to the methods used were reflexive critical and narrative analysis, and observation as action research of the culture of PhD supervision. Contribution: This article cont...

ABSTRACT This paper explores the benefits of design thinking training to enhance doctoral student problem-solving ability, creative confidence, and emotional well-being. Our team adapted the design thinking curriculum taught by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design to the challenges of developing and carrying out original research, and has taught thirteen workshops to over 240 graduate students, research staff, and faculty over two years. Using a design-based research framework, we reflect on our observation of the workshops, student debriefs, and a pre-post survey of participants to assess the value of design thinking for doctoral education. We find that participants felt the workshops enhanced creativity, productivity, and confidence, participants appreciated applying the mindsets of a bias toward action and embracing experimentation to their research, participants learned to be mindful of their research process, and participants valued the emotionally supportive, nonjudgmental atmosphere cultivated in the workshops. The research suggests (1) that creative problem solving methods can be adopted by doctoral students and (2) that there is a demand for graduate training to more explicitly treat students’ intellectual needs in tandem with their emotional needs to create happy, productive researchers.

Supervision is generally recognised as playing a crucial role in the quality of a research student’s doctoral experience and their academic outcomes and, in common with most areas of higher education, there is an oft-stated desire to pursue excellence in this important area. Excellence in research degree supervision is, however, an elusive concept and on close scrutiny most of the discussions of high-quality supervision, even those that purport to be identifying excellence,
refer to competence rather than excellence. This paper examines two potentially national authoritative perspectives from which excellence in research degree supervision might be explicated (codes of practice and learning and teaching awards) from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom but concludes that the complex nature
of the activity and the complexity of the concept itself mean that rather than identifying excellence in supervision we can only respond to claims for excellence.

Models of doctoral education in Africa remained similar to those in European universities, well into the 2000s. However, there has been an increasing realisation that such programmes
are ill-suited for the African realities. With recent efforts to revitalise higher education in Africa, considerable attention has been placed on the need to explore more effective models of doctoral education, better suited to the African context. Doctoral education is key to this rebuilding as it offers the potential for developing skilled staff for academic and research institutions, and is central to the development of much-needed
locally relevant knowledge in Africa. In the last decade, innovative programmes have emerged that make use of partnerships to achieve more than individual institutions could,
working alone. This paper examines the constraints, challenges and opportunities in African doctoral education and identifies critical elements of doctoral education that have particular nuances in the African context. We propose a framework for evaluating the suitability of the structure and practices of such programmes. We review two of the more successful collaborative Ph.D. programmes with reference to this framework.
Higher Education Policy (2014) 27, 155–174. doi:10.1057/hep.2014.1

The purpose of the research presented here is the practice of active citizenship ( understood as critical, participatory and transformative) and spaces where it is perfomed. It aims to understand how people learn to exercise this citizenship in order to elaborate educational proposals for their development.
Given the complexity of social realities that we cover, the ethnographic research method looks like the more appropriate therefore it allows an holistic and deep understanding of this reality through the meanings given by its protagonists. Using this techniques such as participant observation and in-depth interviews, plus techniques that allow the participation of people within the research itself being consistent with the subject matter.
The approach to the subject of study will be an intercultural approach, which sets the focus on the intersubjective of citizen's practice, so it focuses on relationship, communication and negotiation of several practices, spaces and agents. Furthermore seeks to make an intersectional review to know how influence the overlapping of different situations of oppression and privilege in the citizenship. The relationship between these two approaches represents the current state of the tesis development.

Aim/Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the rate of delay, explanatory causes, and coping strategies of PhD candidates at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia’s premier university, over the last ten years. Background: Delayed graduation is a common theme in doctoral education around the world. It continues to draw the concern of governments, universities, and the candidates themselves, calling for different forms of intervention. Addressing these challenges is key to resolving the many obstacles into doctoral education. Methodology: Ten-year archival data consisting of 1,711 PhD students and in-depth interviews with ten PhD candidates were used as data-generation tools. The data collection focused on progression patterns, reasons for study delays, and the coping mechanisms used by doctoral students when they face challenges. While the candidates were interviewed to narrate their lived experience pertinent to the objectives of the study, the archival data regarding the PhD stude...

Aim/Purpose: This paper contributes to the scholarly literature on intersectionality and social injustice (invisibility, hypervisibility) in higher education and serves as a model for enacting doctoral education where research, theory, and practice converge. Background: Invisibility and hypervisibility have long been documented as social injustices, but very little literature has documented how doctoral students (who are also university employees) make meaning of intersecting privileges and oppressions within post-secondary hierarchies. Methodology: This study used a 10-week Duoethnography with co-researchers who were simultaneously doctoral students, staff, instructors, and administrators in higher education settings. Contribution: This paper offers a unique glimpse into currere—the phenomenon of theory and practice converging—to offer an intensive interrogation of life as curriculum for five doctoral students and a professor. Findings: This paper illuminates rich meaning-making na...

Amidst a Europe-wide proliferation of the religious and esoteric market like never before, theology, as the scientific reflection directed towards the Christian faith, seems to be increasingly pushed into the background. Running counter to the European trend, several theological faculties were established within the universities of Romania following the 1989–90 regime change. This led to the 1996 establishment of the Faculty of Roman Catholic Theology within the framework of Babeș–Bolyai University.
The paper at hand aims to present the relevance of studying theology. On the one hand, it briefly describes the legal situation of catechesis and religious education in Romania, while, on the other hand, it outlines the achievements of religious education by presenting the history of the first twenty years in the life of the Faculty of Roman Catholic Theology and ─ with the help of a statistical survey ─ the first eighteen graduating classes who finished their undergraduate studies in this period of time.

In Africa, people who do PhDs are usually not young and at the beginning of an academic career. They tend to be older and mid-way through careers that shift in and out of academic work. In this paper I examine the life paths of
people studying PhDs at South African universities. Distinct patterns emerge from this qualitative study across four disciplines. Associated with these patterns are different ways of valuing and aspiring to an ‘academic identity’
and different relationships with academic practice. Existing models for doctoral education that centre on the academic context are inappropriate where other working environments and the associated identities and values are a significant intersecting context. I propose a model that more accurately reflects the multiple contexts of people who do PhDs in Africa and which can be used to understand and map out ways to support them in developing their academic
practice.

ABSTRACT Producing quality original research requires advanced analytic skills, but also the creative intelligence to design a project as well as the ability to handle the inevitably ambiguous research process. This study unveils important aspects of how successful interdisciplinary scholars understand their research process and how they mentor students through research. Using interviews with nine faculty members and qualitative analysis of classroom sessions, the study investigates the mindsets and behaviors that experienced scholars bring to their work. Results suggest that innovative faculty see creativity as central to their research and actively seek to balance the creative and analytical aspects of their work, use an iterative “learning by doing” approach to refining questions and methods, and view setbacks as opportunities for further learning. However, faculty varied in the extent to which they made this messiness and comfort with ambiguity explicit for their students. By uncovering the mindsets that scholars bring to their research, we hope to better support doctoral students in building not just their analytical but also their creative capacity.

Formal structures that support doctoral student socialization are limited, while formal programs for Black women doctoral students specifically are even more scarce. The purpose of this research was to examine an early career professional development program for Black women doctoral students and its influence on the mentoring relationships developed by participants. We conducted individual interviews with six Black women who participated in the Research BootCamp®, an early career professional development program, as doctoral students. Two salient features of the program were identified, including its structure and intentional focus on intersectionality. Our findings also indicate that early career professional development provided opportunities for participants to develop sustainable mentoring relationships. The formal structure of the Research BootCamp® facilitated Black women doctoral students in developing mentoring networks through continued engagement with senior scholars and p...

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this work is to develop more nuanced understandings of the PhD by publication, particularly raising awareness of the retrospective PhD by publication. The article aims to contribute to contemporary debates about the differing pathways to the attainment of doctoral study completion and the artifacts submitted for that purpose. It also seeks to support prospective graduate students and supervisors who are embarking upon alternative routes to doctoral accreditation. Background: The PhD is considered the pinnacle of academic study – highly cherished, and replete with deeply held beliefs. In response to changes in job markets, developments in the disciplines, and more varied student cohorts, diverse pathways to completion of this award have emerged, such as the PhD by publication (PhDP). A PhDP may either be prospective or retrospective. For the former, publications are planned and created with their contributions to the PhDP in mind. The retrospective PhD is ...

Increasingly doctoral candidates are attempting to complete a thesis by publication. This format varies between universities but there are common issues particularly in terms of progression, planning and timing. There are both advantages and difficulties involved in undertaking a thesis in this format. Our discussion of the supervisor/candidate partnership is framed within the requirements of a tight journal publishing agenda. Different universities have different requirements about the number of published papers to be included, the extent of candidate’s contribution as sole or joint author, the framing of the research as a unified thesis, presentation, and examination. The decision to attempt a thesis by publication must be taken early and data collection may need to be completed early. Articles then need to be written, polished, submitted, reviewed, revised and, hopefully, accepted. The thesis by publication is a juggling act between maintaining coherence and focusing on publishab...

A key aspect of the effective supervision of PhD research is the supervisor-student relationship. This interaction is affected by the characteristics and needs of students and institutional conditions, as well as the skills, attitudes, and roles of supervisors and their supervisory styles. When supervision is carried out at a distance, it entails an additional challenge, mainly concerning interaction. The purpose of this study is to improve the research process, supervision, and design of virtual environments in order to support this supervision. The study identifies the supervisory relationships that affect doctoral research conducted at a distance from the student’s academic institution. It also describes how students and their supervisors perceived the characteristics of supervision and the skills and attitudes students perceived in and expected from their supervisors. For data collection, semistructured interviews were used. The results indicate important differences between sup...

Aim/Purpose This particular study aims to contribute to the recent scholarly inquiry of doctoral student identity work within collegiate, attendee-driven writing networks. The study closely explores the implementation and impact of supportive measures in academia for novice researchers in the form of writing events. This paper draws on two case studies of doctoral students reflecting on the impact of their participation in social, academic literacy networks. The project also explores how these individuals were able to think about and mediate their own identities as they developed their reputations as experts in their field. Background Completing a doctoral degree is a rich, rewarding endeavour; however, it is also a challenging process. Novice academics are vulnerable to psychosocial and emotional stresses associated with being an academic within the highly competitive environment, such as isolation and burnout. More recently, scholarly interest has emerged regarding the academy’s p...

As interdisciplinary research becomes increasingly common in universities, new types of research culture appear to be developing. The doctoral students undertaking studies in this research climate are themselves increasingly diverse (Gardner, Jansujwicz, Hutchins, Cline, & Levesque, 2012; Pearson, Cumming, Evans, Macauley, & Ryland, 2011), coming into their studies from non-traditional pathways, from a variety of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, as well as from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Informed by interview data collected from members of doctoral writing groups, this article outlines the academic researcher identities these diverse students need to develop in order to operate effectively within rhizomatic research cultures. By considering this through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1980/1988) model of rhizomatic knowledge structures, we can begin to understand how the contemporary research environment values heterogeneous, non-hierarchical, netw...

International trends to make teacher education more academic and raise it to a Master’s level affect teacher education programmes in many countries. The National Research School in Teacher Education (NAFOL) was established in 2010 to meet these new demands, and it represents a network for the large majority of teacher education institutions in Norway. The notion of what a research-based teacher education should constitute is not unproblematic, but research suggests that educating critically reflective practitioners who are able to consume as well as produce research should be inherent aims in all teacher education programmes. NAFOL is a graduate school that offers courses, seminars and economic support for internationalisation for PhD candidates, as well as providing competence development in teacher educators working in HE institutions. This study investigated the perceived impact of NAFOL with regard to strengthening research in teacher education. The research question was “How do network institutions, represented by deans, graduates, and a founder of NAFOL, perceive the impact of NAFOL’s work in its first project period (2010-2016)?” Data were collected through questionnaires from deans (n=23) and graduates (n=44), transcriptions from a council meeting and interview with one of NAFOL’s founders, and analysed using a constant comparative method. The findings suggest that NAFOL plays a central role in developing national and international networks in teacher education in that it reaches beyond disciplinary, institutional, and national boundaries. The findings also point at NAFOL’s contribution to bridging the gap between theory and practice in educational research. The main criticism of NAFOL’s work was found to be a perceived weak focus on early childhood teacher education. Further longitudinal research is needed to examine the impact of NAFOL over time by following the professional careers of NAFOL graduates and investigating the impact of the dissertations submitted by NAFOL graduates.

In South Africa four key policy discourses underpin doctoral education: growth, capacity, efficiency , and quality discourses. This article contributes to the discourse on quality by engaging with quality assurance from the perspective of the decision makers and implementers of macro policy (national), meso (institutional), and micro (faculty/departmental) levels. We explore the perceptions that members of higher degree committees in the field of Education have of the quality assurance of doctoral education. Our data are drawn from a national survey questionnaire completed by these respondents at all public South African institutions that offer a doctorate in Education. The insights gained reside within four categories: positionality, policy, programmes, and people (stakeholders). Thereafter, we problematised the main results using academic freedom in a mode 3 knowledge production environment as a lens, which revealed thought provoking directions for future research about doctoral education.