Making Doctoral Degrees More Useful

Professor Inger Mewburn, The Thesis Whisperer,  has warned of a imminent economic crisis in higher education and called on those involved with doctoral education to change what they do now, before the crisis hits. While I agree we need doctoral degree graduates, changing the PhD is not the only way to do it. We need more Professional Doctorates, which are specifically designed to train people with the highest skills for industry.

Professor  Mewburn suggests more time be spent on students "developing their full professional selves". Students need to learn to present in public and be more outward looking, as they are unlikely to find a job in the department where they trained, or in any university department, anywhere.  While I agree with all of this, Professor  Mewburn has overlooked the Professional Doctorate. This is a degree at the same level as a PhD, but focused on the needs of professionals working in industry.

In a way it does not much matter if PhDs are reformulated to be professional doctorates in all but name, or genuine professional doctorate programs are introduced alongside PhDs. In either case, universities , need to make some hard decisions to make this happen, quickly. Otherwise economic conditions will make the decisions for them.

Academic or Industrial Doctorate?

Greetings from the Australian National University, where Intel fellow Dr Brendan Traw is speaking on "Academic or industrial?". He is arguing the case that a PhD is a good foundation for a career in industry. As part of his case Dr Traw showed statistics that US doctoral degree holders earn significantly more than those with just a masters. However, these statistics cover all doctoral degrees: both PhDs and Professional Doctorates. Those with professional doctorates, particularly in the medical field, have high earnings, and so skew the statistics. I suggest we need more professional degrees in other fields, not to boost the income of graduates, but to provide graduates with skills specifically tuned for industry. A PHd is intended to train a researcher, but there are very few research jobs, in universities, and elsewhere. Most doctoral graduates end up in industry, so I suggest they should be gaining skills relevant to industry, as well as research. Perhaps rather than making students decide between a PHd and a Professional Doctorate (which are both at level 10 of the Australian Qualifications Framework), at the start of their program, we should allow them to choose somewhere on a continuum between.

Masters and Doctorate of Education from Universities of Melbourne and Virginia

The University of Melbourne is offering a Masters of Education with one third of the time off a doctorate at the University of Virginia. Both programs are offered fully online. One claim made for this is less cost. However, Australians will not be able to obtain a government subsidy for a program at a US university.

Post-ac: Career Outside Academia for Graduate Students

The Australian National University(ANU) was awarded a Trade Mark for the word POSTAC (Number 1872576) on
19 April 2018). This comes out of research by Mewburn, Suominen and Grant (2017) on using Artificial Intelligence to read job ads and look for those requiring high level research skills.

The term post-ac is defined by Struve (2017) as an abbreviation for post-academic career: "any career outside of academia altogether" (citing Sayre, Brunner, Croxall & McGinn, 2015). Struve (2017) contrasts this with alt-ac: alternative academic careers in higher education, outside the traditional tenure-track teaching and research. Struve (p. 192, 2017) note:

"Most faculty members are ill-equipped to advise on alt-ac or post-ac career paths, assuming they are open to the possibility of their students pursuing a career other than a typical tenure-track position."

Higgins and Daniels (p. 238, 2015) attributes the popular use of the hastag "#postac" to a blog by Pan and Roberts started in 2011 (and that is the oldest reference to the term I could find in the literature). Pan and Roberts refer to "... practical ways the skills we gained as underpaid, overeducated academics might translate to other professions".

However, I suggest this, and most discussion of the relevance of a research degree to non-academic employment, suffers from a fundamental flaw. Discussion of the suitability of doctoral degrees for employment assume that the student is undertaking a research degree (commonly referred to as a "PhD"). It is also assumed that such students should reasonably expect to find long term employment in academia, or in a research position in industry.

However, not all doctoral degrees are focused on training research specialists. Australia recognizes this by having a second form of Doctoral Degree: Professional (commonly referred to as a "Doctor of discipline"). This requires research skills, but is intended for more practical application outside academia and research organizations. Also there is plenty of literature making it abundantly clear to doctoral students that, outside a few areas, their chances of employment in academia or research are minimal.

Encouraging students to undertake a Professional Degree, in preference to a PhD, would solve many of the problems around employment of graduates. The student would receive an education designed to provide skills and knowledge relevant to a job in a discipline. 

However, I suggest even those few undertaking a PhD and destined for a career in academia need more than just research training. University academics will spend a considerable part of their time teaching, supervising staff, making presentations to funders and administration. These are all skills not normally covered in a PhD, especially if the student spends their days working alone in the lab and only occasionally seeing their supervisor. I suggest that these skills should be included in the PhD curriculum, assessed by an e-portfolio and with formal coursework offered to the student. It should not be assumed the student will pick up these skills somehow thought extra-curricular activities.

This will result in a PhD looking not that much different to a professional doctorate. The PhD will learn in a group of students, not alone and have a team of instructors with qualifications in communications, teaching and project management, to work alongside the discipline supervisors. A benefit of this approach will be that the high rates of stress and mental illness amongst PhD students should be able to be addressed. It should also lessen the frustration and stress for PhD supervisors.

References

Higgins, S. C., & Daniels, M. (2015). Alternative Academics: Moving beyond the Academy. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies, 3(3), 238-246. URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jeasmedarcherstu.3.3.0238

Mewburn, I., Suominen, H. & Grant, W. (2017, August). Tracking Trends in Industry Demand for Australia's Advanced Research Workforce, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS), ANU. URL http://cpas.anu.edu.au/files/Mewburn%2C%20Suominen%20and%20Grant%202017%20Tracking%20Trends%20in%20Industry%20Demand%20for%20Australia%27s%20Advanced%20Research%20Workforce.pdf?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_detail_base%3BHIDfXv5tQAiEIkfPicniBQ%3D%3D

Struve, L. E. (2017). Tenure-track, alt-ac, or post-ac: understanding career choice for women doctoral students in the social sciences (Doctoral dissertation). https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/60415/STRUVE-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Hidden job market for higher degree graduates in Australia

Mewburn, Suominen and Grant (2017) report on research which used Artificial Intelligence to read job ads and look for those requiring high level research skills. They conclude there is a hidden job market for PhD graduates in Australia. However, the authors' assumption that these skills are indicative of a PhD is flawed. Australia has two forms of Doctoral Degree: Research and Professional. The former is commonly referred to as a PhD, the latter as a "Doctor of discipline". Both forms of doctorate require research skills, but the latter is intended for more practical application outside universities and research organizations. It is likely that almost all the hidden job demand the report found suits professional doctorates, not PhDs. In addition, for most jobs a Masters, not Doctorate, would be sufficient.

A more refined version of the AI might be able to distinguish between real PhD jobs in university and research organizations, those in industry requiring Professional Doctoral level skills and those where a Masters would be sufficient, but this would be difficult.

"There is a large ‘hidden job market’ for PhD graduates in the Australian workforce. Only 20.7 per cent of non-academic job ads (2,770 of 13,379 unique job titles) in our dataset asked for a PhD qualification, yet as many as 43 per cent (210 of 483) of the unique job ads that were analysed 3 required a high level of research skills and capabilities, indicative of a PhD. ...

The Machine revealed some interesting
patterns regarding demand for research skills, particularly in industries traditionally assumed to have low demand for PhD graduates, such as manufacturing, transport, logistics, marketing and communication. In addition, other industry sectors were shown as potentially ready to embrace more graduates with research skills, echoing the thinking of the innovation agenda."

From Mewburn, Suominen and Grant, p2, 2017

Reference

Mewburn, I., Suominen, H. & Grant, W. (2017, August). Tracking Trends in Industry Demand for Australia's Advanced Research Workforce, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS), ANU. URL http://cpas.anu.edu.au/files/Mewburn%2C%20Suominen%20and%20Grant%202017%20Tracking%20Trends%20in%20Industry%20Demand%20for%20Australia%27s%20Advanced%20Research%20Workforce.pdf?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_detail_base%3BHIDfXv5tQAiEIkfPicniBQ%3D%3D

Improving Professional IT Doctorate Completion Rates

Burmeister (2015) reports the results of  interviews with 44 students and staff involved in post-graduate IT education at Charles Sturt University (CSU). While focusing on professional IT doctorates, Burmeister points out that CSU has three exit points: Graduate Certificate, Masters and then the Doctorate. The program has coursework in the first two years, but students are also "guided to develop an article and
submit it to a conference or journal" in each of these two years. Other masters programs might benefit from this approach.

In the Masters of Education I have been undertaking I have been producing a conference paper each year, as a byproduct of assignments. However, I have not mentioned this to my tutors, for fear of it being seen as overly ambitious for a coursework student. This caused a problem when one conference paper was published before the assignment I had based it on had been marked and so was flagged as possible plagiarism.

Burmeister  suggests that flexible delivery can
improve work-life-study balance and so improve retention of students. However, this suggestion seems almost redundant.  Pye, Holt, Salzman, Bellucci and Lombardi (2015) found that students expect an on-line environment to be used. I suggest that it is time for Australian universities to assume their students, particularly post-graduate students, will be on-line and off-campus for most of their studies. Programs should be designed for on-line delivery, and then adaption made for on-campus components, rather than the reverse.

Burmeister  suggests that student engagement with
supervisors should be enhanced with weekly or fortnightly contact. This would result in a high workload for staff if done using conventional techniques, such as face-to-face meetings. I suggest it could be done using on-line asynchronous communication. Students don't need a supervisor taking at then for half an hour each week, then just need a couple of lines of pertinent text.

Reference

Burmeister, O. (2015). Improving professional IT doctorate completion rates. Australasian Journal Of Information Systems, 19. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v19i0.1073

Pye, G., Holt, D., Salzman, S., Bellucci, E., & Lombardi, L. (2015). Engaging diverse student audiences in contemporary blended learning environments in Australian higher business education: Implications for Design and Practice. Australasian Journal Of Information Systems, 19. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v19i0.1251

Fund Research Not PhDs

A media report suggests that the leading Group of Eight Universities in Australia has proposed that funding of PHD students be limited to the world ranked universities: "Fund PhDs at the best unis and forget the rest, say elite universities" (Tim Dodd, AFR, 5 September 2015). I suggest instead that universities charge student fees for PHDs, as for other postgraduate degrees. Universities can then compete for research grants to cover the extra cost of any research facilities the PHDs need.

The Go8's proposal would cut funding in some disciplines from Macquarie, Flinders, La Trobe, Newcastle, Western Sydney, Curtin, James Cook, Bond, Murdoch,  Griffith, Tasmania, Murdoch and RMIT universities. Instead I propose abolishing the Research Training Scheme, Australian Postgraduate Awards and the International Postgraduate Research Scholarships. The funds from these schemes should instead be awarded to universities on a competitive basis for research.

The current system conflates funding of research training and research. I suggest these be separated.  University and departmental rankings are not a good way to select the best research to fund. A better alternative would be to have the tuition costs of research students covered by fees and the research paid for by competitive research grants. Those universities with a good research track record, and good research proposals, would be able to attract more research funding and so be able to have more PHD students. Those universities unable to attract research funding could still offer PHDs in fields which do not require expensive equipment and offer "professional" doctorates, paid for by fees.

Also I suggest "flipping" the approach to research training. The Go8 submission assumes there should be a few PHDs and everyone else has to have an inferior "professional" degree. I suggest reversing this and assume a professional degree is normal and a PHD is a specialized subset of this. All doctoral candidates would be required to start with a professional style program, where they have to take courses in communication and innovation, as well as research techniques. These courses would be paid for by the student through fees (with the usual government loans and subsidies available for domestic students). A small proportion (perhaps 10%) of those students who show the greatest aptitude for research would go on to a research degree (partly funded by research grants), most would complete a professional doctorate (paid for by the student fees).

The current PHD funding scheme is flawed in that it pays universities to produce far more research graduates than there are jobs for (about ten times as many) and does not fund the best research. If funds were moved from these unnecessary PHDs, there would be more for quality research and more graduates with useful skills.