This paper unpacks how social science doctorate-holders come to evaluate overall excellence in their PhD training programs based on their domain-specific assessments of aspects of their programs. Latent class analysis reveals that social scientists 6-10 years beyond their PhD evaluate the quality of their doctoral program with one of two approaches. Graduates of elite programs rely heavily on perceptions of the program’s academic rigor; others use perceptions of diverse factors including support in meeting program requirements and efforts to foster a sense of belonging. Those currently employed as faculty tend to use the latter approach.
Early career social scientists’ assessments of the overall quality of their doctoral program are unrelated to standard measures of program faculty scholarly reputation indicating that alumni assess different dimensions in constructing their conceptions of quality.
Characteristics such as gender, age at PhD, career goals at PhD, and social science discipline are also unrelated to which approach to assessing quality respondents employed suggesting that norms about PhD quality are remarkably universal across these types of contextual variables.
Morrison, E., Rudd, E., Zumeta, W., & Nerad, M,. (2011). What Matters for Excellence in PhD Programs? Latent Constructs of Doctoral Program Quality Used By Early Career Social Scientists, Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 82, no 5, pp 535-563.
Preparing the next generation of PhDs to function successfully and contribute to the global world currently and in the future requires broadening the conceptual approaches to doctoral education beyond the apprenticeship model to a community of practice. It also requires coordinated efforts of many levels within and beyond a university. This next generation of researchers must acquire traditional academic research competencies, professional skills and intercultural competencies in order to work and function in a world of multinational teams and multinational settings. Learning at the doctoral level needs to be structured to allow for true discovery and intellectual risk-taking.
Nerad, M. (2011). It takes a global village to develop the next generation of PhDs and postdoctoral fellows. Acta Academica Supplementum – South Africa, pp. 198-216
Theories of the “knowledge economy” view knowledge, and particularly new knowledge, as a critical resource to enhance a nation’s economic growth. Governments around the world have invested in doctoral education expansion. Reforms in doctoral education are being shaped by the changing needs of society, of research modes, and of a changed labor markets for PhD holders. The reform elements strive for excellence, expansion, quality assurance, accountability, and international and inter-sector network building. The expansion in doctoral studies has gone hand in hand with an increased flow of international doctoral students, the wish to become a world-class university, and the adoption of more standardized structures and practices of doctoral education. This paper ends with a number of promising reform practices that may be useful for South Africa’s expanding doctoral systems, such as the introduction of postgraduate schools that help implement and initiate innovations in doctoral education on a campus with an eye to high quality.
Nerad, M. (2011). What We Know about the Dramatic Increase in PhD Degrees and the Reform of Doctoral Education Worldwide: Implications for South Africa. Perspectives in Education. Vol. 29. No. 3, pp.1-12.
Download: What We Know about the Dramatic Increase in PhD Degrees and the Reform of Doctoral Education Worldwide: Implications for South Africa
Since the 1990s, globalization has become a central phenomenon for all of society, including graduate education and particularly doctoral education. Globalization takes place in a context where doctoral education and research capacity are unevenly distributed and where a few research universities, mainly in wealthy countries, have become powerful social institutions. But all graduate education systems are increasingly part of an international context in which policy-makers — at every level — are aware of and responding to developments in higher education outside their national borders. For the fi rst time, conditions exist for the emergence of a truly international system of doctoral education; this openness to innovation and expansion holds enormous potential for advancing a more effective future-oriented PhD.
The ideas presented in this article are a synthesis of published and in-process research on the impact of globalization and graduate education, which was mainly inspired by two international research workshops that focused on globalization’s forces and trends in graduate education and its promising practices, rather than its best practices. One conference took place in 2005 in the United States (in Seattle) and the other in 2007 in Australia (University of Melbourne). Organized by the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington in Seattle and mainly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, these two workshops brought together top university administrators, senior members of national research councils and institutes, and doctoral education researchers from 6 continents and 14 countries.
Nerad, M. (2010). Globalization and the Internationalization of Graduate Education: A Macros and Micro View. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, Volume 40, issue 1, pp.1-12.
The expansion in doctoral studies has gone hand in hand with an increased flow of international doctoral students, the wish of universities to become “world-class”, and the adoption of more standardised structures and practices for doctoral education. This paper presents the nature of reforms in postgraduate and doctoral education in a wide range of countries (including China, Europe, Australia, Japan, Ireland, Iceland, Brazil, India, Malaysia). It also includes a number of reform strategies which may be useful for countries with emerging doctoral systems, such as the introduction of North-American type graduate schools that help to implement and initiate innovations in doctoral education on a campus
Nerad, M. (2010). Increase in PhD Production and Reform in Doctoral Education Worldwide. Higher Education Forum. Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University. Vol 7. pp. 69-84.
This paper empirically evaluates Caplow and McGee’s (The academic marketplace, 1958) model of academia as a prestige value system (PVS) by testing several hypotheses about the relationship between prestige of faculty appointment and job satisfaction. Using logistic regression models to predict satisfaction with several job domains in a sample of more than 1,000 recent social science PhD graduates who hold tenure-track or tenured faculty positions, we find that the relationship between prestige of faculty appointment and job satisfaction is modified by PhD program prestige. Graduates of high prestige PhD programs value prestige more highly and graduates of low prestige programs value salary more highly. We explain our findings by incorporating reference group theory and a theory of taste formation into our model of the academic PVS, which identifies PhD programs as sites of socialization to different tastes for prestige (a process of cultural transmission) in addition to their well recognized role in transmission of human and social capital. We discuss practical and theoretical implications of our findings in relation to efforts to measure PhD program quality and to understand the structure of academic labor markets.
Morrison, E., Rudd, E., Picciano, J., & Nerad, M. (2010). Are You Satisfied? PhD Education and Faculty Taste for Prestige-Limits of the Prestige Value System. Research in Higher Education 52 (1), pp. 24-46.
Changes in graduate education in the U.S. emerges from the bottom up: from individual departments of programs not from a ministry or a central agency that initiates reform. In fact, there is no ministry of higher education or ministry of sciences and technology in the U.S. Graduate programs and Graduate Schools –the latter are the administrators, advocates and catalysts for graduate education at a university- receive impulses and input from different constituencies and sources. These include professional associations, public and private funding agencies, employers, trends in students enrollment , and, particularly, program reviews. U.S. graduate education, as well as al of U.S. higher education, is market driven: responding to supply and demand of student enrollment, labor market needs, funding possibilities, and accountability requirements. Globalization has increased the intensity and speed with which higher education is responding to market forces. Globalization has also affected doctoral education in the U.S. and worldwide as doctorally-trained persons, particularly in sciences and engineering , are perceived as sources of innovations in the employment sector, contributing eventually to economic growth (National Academies 2007).
Nerad, M. (2009). Graduate Education and its Changes in the U.S., in Daigakuin Kyoiku no Genjo Kadai [Graduate Education, and Future]. Hiroshima: Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Japan. pp.291-305.
The meeting which was titled “The Policy Potential of Innovation and Research in Graduate Education” focused mainlyon the issue of inequality and diversity of doctoral education around the world. The participants discussed these matters in a very enthusiastic manner after the presentations of selected participants and guest speakers. Unlike pure academic meetings, we have prepared no individual papers but three larger papers were co-written by many participants, and most of our time was devoted to the discussion on these themes.”
Professor Yamamoto, an active participant in the 3rd Forces and Forms conference, reports on conference’s workshop-like style.
Today in the hometown of the Brothers Grimm (Kassel), scholars from around the world took some risks. They grappled with “Promoting Intellectual Risk-Taking Under Conditions of Globalization”—the focus of Task Force Three.
The blustery, occasionally rainy morning started with a high-risk, high-drama report from Task Force. They displayed their acting skills through three skits illustrating real-life dilemmas confronting doctoral students and faculty. The skits captured the interpersonal dynamics and emotions of how and when to pursue various types of research—or not. See it all on video:
Highlights of the subsequent Task Force draft findings:
Intellectual risk-taking is not an end in itself; it is a means to foster innovative, potentially transformative research. It is also a way to prepare doctoral graduates to respond flexibly to change in rapidly changing times.
An unresolved debate: is it advisable or worthwhile to encourage doctoral students to take risks in their research—such as studies that have not been tried before, have a high chance of failure, and/or are nontraditional or outside the mainstream?
Research funding agencies should develop a reward structure for innovation that accommodates experimentation and occasional failure—which ultimately can bring some researchers closer to success.
Task Force 3 description:
Two experts provided additional input to the work of Task Force Three:
Alex Quintanilha, Director of the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Porto, Portugal; Former Chair of the External Advisory Group of the People Programme at the European Union
Highlights from Jahn’s presentation:
“Risk taking is a mandatory prerequisite for transformative research.”
Of all the prize-winning research papers he has reviewed, he estimated that about half considered to be incremental were later seen as more transformative and substantive in advancing disciplines.
Interdisciplinarity is inherently risky—yet essential to production of new knowledge. Doctoral students may have inherent advantages to achieve interdisciplinarity in research because in general they are less encumbered with the disciplinary restrictions and norms faced by faculty.
Key issues for intellectual risk taking in doctoral education, among others: supervision of students; taking care to “distinguish between risky doctoral research and bad science.”
Highlights from Quintanilha’s presentation:
“Understanding risk and communicating risk brings different domains of knowledge together. We need to do this.”
Sustainability in intellectual risk-taking requires support from many directions. It is not enough for universities alone to foster intellectual risk-taking, “…we need to create societies that value imagination and creativity, and that will promote these ideas in a forceful way.”
“You should encourage a variety of training programs that evolve and change with the times, the needs of students, and the needs of society.”
He cited recent societal commitment to higher education in Portugal, in particular a funding model that rewards graduate students directly, allowing them to choose doctoral programs (rather than funding students indirectly through universities.)
He strongly encouraged pilot projects in doctoral research that engages risk taking. “By allowing different, small experiments everywhere, we can find at least some that work.”
Many questions and answers and a panel discussion followed. The input from the expert commentators informed the work of Task Group Three as it refined its recommendations for intellectual risk-taking. The day ended with a great deal of intense group directed at the climax of the workshop: final reports and recommendations from each of the Task Forces on Friday morning.
The dinner speaker was “Experiences with the German Excellence Initiative” from Hans-Jürgen Prömel, President of the Technical University of Darmstadt and a member of the Forces and Forms network.
“What actions could you take tomorrow as administrators to point us in a new direction for graduate education?”
– Forces and Forms III Early Career Researchers, March 25, 2009
Just as the weather warmed up today, so did the pace and intensity of action-oriented discussion about key issues in doctoral education worldwide.
The day started with constructive challenges in the early morning presentation from the Early Career Researchers (ECRs), a group of 13 scholars. The group urged participants to consider how results could become genuine action beyond rhetoric.
The primary focus of the morning was a presentation and far-ranging reactions to the work of Task Force Two: Diversity of Students in Doctoral Education in an International Perspective.
This group gathered a great deal of data from many countries to document what is known about diversity in doctoral education. In the future, the group hopes to inventory policies, strategies, and support mechanisms for diversity in doctoral education from various countries. The concept of “diversity” generated much discussion and debate within the task force and among the larger group of workshop participants. Beyond the data, preliminary group findings, recommendations, and action steps included:
Generate a narrative that takes nation-based data and commentary, and present it in thematic sections.
Define a common classification or taxonomy to allow analysis of diversity.
Conduct regional case studies to compensate for different countries collecting different data in different ways; for example, some countries gather no data at all in categories taken for granted in some parts of the world, or even forbid data gathering.
The group also encouraged study of under-represented groups and more attention to disability as a dimension of diversity.
(Video) Ian Haines introduces Task Force 2:
Expert perspectives about diversity in doctoral education were provided by:
Dr. Jean Chambaz of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Chair of the European University Association Council of Doctoral Education Steering Committee
Dr. Christiane Wüllner of the Ruhr-University Research School (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) – representing Roland Fischer, Dean of the Ruhr-University Research School
Highlights of Chambaz’ presentation:
He addressed issues about equity and inequality in doctoral education, and how diversity “expands the richness of research.”
“We need to shift internationalization from being such a means of economic production toward greater ends of serving society for those who need answers…it is the future of our world that is in question.”
Increased access to doctoral education can complement the quality of doctoral education. Discussion ensued and consensus reached on this point.
Highlights of Wüllner’s presentation:
Her comments about diversity were from the unique perspective of serving within a newly founded graduate school, funded through the framework of the German Excellence Initiative.
She presented the Ruhr Research School’s innovative approach to structuring doctoral education since its founding in 2006; key characteristics are open access and the Research School serving as a kind of catalyst and broker for fostering interdisciplinary research and teaching.
Sandra Elman, President of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (USA), responded to the work of the Task Force by expressing commendations: the group’s data collection may be unprecedented, and the possibilities for using the data are exciting. Her suggestions for Task Force Two: provide more clarification about objectives for the data gathered; develop a conceptual framework as a basis for analysis; address definitions of difficult concepts such as “ethnicity”; clarify who is defining the problem and to what end.
Early in the afternoon the three task forces met to refine their ideas, take into consideration the presentations, and refine their reports toward issuing policy recommendations and action steps;
Additional presentations and speakers in the afternoon included:
