Professional Doctorates

1
Professional Doctorates

• Research capacity and changing professional
  agendas
• Ingrid Lunt, University of Oxford

2
Growth of professional doctorates

• Introduction in UK early 1990s (1992)
• Rapid growth especially in Education (EdD 45
  universities) and management and business (DBA
  35 HEIs)
• EngD introduced by EPSRC (top down initiative)
• Now over 30 different professional doctorate (PD)
  titles (reflecting professional background) and
  over 200 different PD degrees
• Proliferation of titles
• Great variation in aims, structure, outcomes,
  product

3
Great variation

• Titles
• Programme structure
• The thesis? (20k to 100k words)
• Learning methods
• Use of credit rating (and level), also APL/credit
  for Masters modules
• Methods of assessment
• Professional accreditation or CPD
• E.g. license to practise

4
What is a generic professional doctorate? Or
can we see commonality across the differences?

• a Professional Doctorate is a programme of
  advanced study and research which, whilst
  satisfying the University criteria for the award
  of a doctorate, is designed to meet the specific
  needs of a professional group external to the
  university, and which develops the capability of
  individuals to work in their professional
  context (UKCGE 2002)

5
Parity with the PhD

• Criteria for the award of the PD?
• Substantial and original contribution to
  (knowledge) professional practice
• Doctoral thesis of (100,000) 50,000 words
• PhD professional scholar/researcher vs. PD
  scholarly/researching professional
• confidence is needed that the awards are
  alternative ways of achieving the same advanced
  level of study and contribution (UKCGE 2005)

6
PhD and PD in a university

• Professional doctorates are research degrees (not
  taught doctorates)
• Useful to emphasise commonalities and differences
  with PhD
• Complementarity of programmes
• Similar QA requirements, also cf. ESRC
• Mutual and interactive influence between PhD and
  PD
• Community of doctoral researchers

7
The strategic importance of the PD in some fields

• ESRC Demographic review and the crisis of
  Education and Management Business Studies
• PD as a means of developing subject knowledge
• PD as a means of bridging the practice/academic
  divide
• PD as a means of developing research capacity and
  evidence base

8
Tensions between requirements of the university
and those of the profession?

• Nature of professional knowledge (and
  professional practice) what counts?
• Status of different forms of knowledge
• University students senior professionals?
• Who assesses professional doctorate i.e.
  assessment criteria, and nature of examiners (is
  there a role for professionals as
  assessors/examiners)?
• Who defines competences?

9
What is the relationship of academic and
professional knowledge?

• The role of the HEI and the role of the
  workplace? Complementary? Different kinds of
  learning?
• The relationship between academic and
  professional knowledge (knowledge for
  professional practice) and academic and
  professional writing?
• Reason/motivation for undertaking a professional
  doctorate?
• What counts as originality?

10
Student motivation for undertaking the PD?

• Senior professionals
• Little overlap with students undertaking the PhD
• Wish to develop their professional practice
• Evidence-based/informed practice increasingly
  emphasised
• Wish to take a research stance/perspective
  (develop research capacity)

11
Professional doctorates and their contribution to
professional development and careers

• How does the professional doctorate in education,
  engineering and business administration influence
  participants professional lives and act to
  develop professional knowledge and improve
  practice?
• What is the impact of this development of
  professional knowledge on the employment culture
  of the students?
• What is the most appropriate relationship between
  professional and academic knowledge and how can
  universities develop practice which best reflects
  this?

12
Some findings 1. Influence on Practice

• This varied both within and between programme
  types, in part because of the wide-ranging
  profile of the participants (four models of
  motivation)
• Extrinsic professional initiation
• Extrinsic professional continuation
• Extrinsic professional alteration
• Intrinsic personal/professional affirmation

13
Some findings 2. Impact of professional doctorate
on students employment

• Linked to age and stage of entry
• Often CPD rather than career progression (e.g.
  EdD)
• Linked to type of employment Public/private
  sector
• For some, linked to enhanced employment
  opportunities (EngD)
• Shift from action to reflection (DBA)

14
Some findings 3. Pedagogical and organisational
strategies for organising professional doctorates

• Structure and organisation (EngD FT, EdD and DBA
  mainly PT)
• All have substantial taught component (relative
  weighting differs)
• Pedagogic modes and relations assumptions about
  how professionals learn
• Positioning of participants senior
  practitioners, research engineers, mid-career
  professionals
• Relationship between professional practice and
  research

15
Some findings 4. Professional and academic
knowledge

• Relationship between professional and academic
  knowledge (and issues of parity and value)
• Four modes of knowledge creation
• Disciplinarity
• Technical rationality
• Dispositionality
• criticality

16
Student outcomes

• Becoming more reflective has helped me to
  achieve a better understanding of my own practice
  and an improved level of performance
• Undertaking the EdD has radically altered my
  professional practice
• The EdD has enhanced my professional confidence
  and my analytical abilities
• The thesis became a fundamental and transforming
  process in my life, both professional and
  personal

17
Student outcomes 2

• Undertaking the DBA enhanced my confidence and
  also my credibility
• The DBA gave me the time to think and forced me
  to articulate my ideas and to think analytically
  
• the DBA fundamentally changed my whole
  professional life it was transformative
• I would never have done a PhD that seemed so
  academic. But the PD has really taught me to do
  research and to be interested in a much deeper
  approach to my practice

18
Professional doctorates in the education sector

• Participants have very diverse professional
  backgrounds and include university lecturers and
  administrators, wide range of health
  professionals, NGO personnel, Local Authority
  staff, social workers, managers, inspectors and
  advisers, some (few) school teachers (mainly
  senior)
• I.e. Senior professionals in education

19
Motivation for doctorate

• To stand back and reflect on professional
  practice
• To learn with a cohort of like-minded
  professionals
• To engage in lifelong learning
• To gain additional skills especially research
• To carry out a research project based on
  professional practice
• To gain additional qualifications

20
Universities claim that the EdD

• Places research at the heart of educational
  practice and relates theoretical knowledge to
  every aspect of practitioner education
• Contributes to a culture of reflective practice
  and research
• Develops researching professionals or researchers
  of the professions
• Enhances professional practice through research

21
Proliferation of titles or generic titles?

• What is in a name?
• Growth of inter-disciplinarity
• Emergence of new inter-disciplinary PDs
• Issues of status and professional closure?
• The generic DProf

22
Some issues

• Need for greater consensus on nature of generic
  PD
• How to achieve/maintain parity with PhD
• Balancing the relationship between the university
  and the profession and their requirements
• Need for exit awards
• The issue of proliferation of titles

23
Conclusion

• Changing professional agendas
• Credentialism
• Evidence-based practice
• University agendas (including RAE/REF)
• Professional Doctorates
• Parity with PhD
• Research capacity building
• New pedagogies and modes of learning
• Knowledge creation and knowledge transfer