Doctoral Education: Research-Based Strategies for Doctoral Students, Supervisors and Administrators, 2011

The quality of the academics who undertake the work of teaching and research is critical to the significance, status and relevance of our universities. There is widespread evidence that doctoral students are not being properly prepared for the changing face of higher education and that once they take up academic positions, they often experience many frustrations and tensions. This book, based on a four-year-long research program conducted by four academics and four graduate students, investigates the experiences of doctoral students, new academics and senior academics as they engage in their work related to doctoral education.

Doctoral Education: Research-Based Strategies for Doctoral Students, Supervisors and Administrators offers research-based strategies for improving doctoral education in a non-technical and conversational way. Those strategies include learning to be a new supervisor alongside other academic work, developing an intellectual network during the doctoral journey, giving and receiving feedback on scholarly writing, and preparing for the oral defence. Also, based on research evidence, the book challenges taken-for-granted practices and policies surrounding doctoral education, including the gendered nature of disciplinary practices, the paradox of writing in doctoral education and the public oversight of more and more aspects of academic work.

Intended for doctoral students, academics, staff and administrators, this book provides several perspectives on the topic of doctoral education and contains the actual voices of doctoral students and new academics to illustrate its discussion.

Acknowledgments.- About the Contributors.- 1. To Be or Not To Be? The Challenges of Learning Academic Work, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- Section 1: Being … Becoming Academics.- 2. Tracking Doctoral Student Experience Over Time: Cultivating Agency in Diverse Spaces, Marian Jazvac-Martek, Shuhua Chen & Lynn McAlpine.- 3. New Academics as Supervisors: A Steep Learning Curve with Challenges, Tensions and Pleasures, Cheryl Amundsen & Lynn McAlpine.- Section 2: Writing and Speaking—Learning the Disciplinary Language, Talking the Talk.- 4. Speaking of Writing: Supervisory Feedback and the Dissertation, Anthony Parè.- 5. The Paradox of Writing in Doctoral Education: Student Experiences, Doreen Starke-Meyerring.- 6. Making Sense of the Doctoral Dissertation Defense: A Student-Experience-Based Perspective, Shuhua Chen.- Section 3: Gender, Genre, and Disciplinary Identity—Negotiating Borders.- 7. Gender and Doctoral Physics Education: Are We Asking the Right Questions?, Allison Gonsalves.- 8. Genre and Disciplinary Identity: The Challenge of Grant Writing for New Non-Anglophone Scientists, Larissa Yousoubova.- 9. Disciplinary Voices: A Shifting Landscape for English Doctoral, Education in the 21st Century.- Lynn McAlpine, Anthony Parè & Doreen Starke-Meyerring.- Section 4: Supporting the Doctoral Process Through Research-Based Strategies.- 10.       Making Meaning of Diverse Experiences: Constructing an Identity Through Time, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- 11.   Challenging the Taken-For-Granted: How Research Can Inform Doctoral Education Policy and Practice, Lynn McAlpine & Cheryl Amundsen.- 12. Moving From Evidence to Action, Cheryl Amundsen & Lynn McAlpine.