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 student’s 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