Professional Doctorates in England

Studies in Higher Education

ISSN: 0307-5079 (Print) 1470-174X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cshe20

Professional Doctorates in England Tom Bourner , Rachel Bowden & Stuart Laing To cite this article: Tom Bourner , Rachel Bowden & Stuart Laing (2001) Professional Doctorates in England, Studies in Higher Education, 26:1, 65-83 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075070124819

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Studies in Higher Education Volume 26, No. 1, 2001

Professional Doctorates in England TOM BOURNER, RACHEL BOWDEN & STUART LAING University of Brighton, UK

This article reports the results of a survey and analysis of the professional doctorates that have been developed in England over the last decade. Its aim is to identify the extent to which professional doctorates have been adopted by English universities, the rate of growth of professional doctorates programmes, and to clarify their distinctive features. By the end of the decade, professional doctorates could be found in the majority of the country’s universities and in a wide range of subjects. The number of professional doctorates was still rising at a rapid rate. The article identi es 20 distinctive features that are common to the professional doctorates that together could reasonably be said to comprise ‘professional doctorateness’ at least as it is interpreted in English universities.

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ABSTRACT

Introduction The 1990s was the decade when the professional doctorate came to England. By the end of the decade, professional doctorates could be found in over three-quarters of the ‘old’ universities and a third of the ‘new’ universities and the rate of growth had not abated. This article surveys and analyses these professional doctorates. It goes on to explore how English universities have interpreted the concept in terms of the delivery of their professional doctorate programmes. The purpose of this article is to: (i) develop a pro le of which universities are offering professional doctorates and in which subjects; (ii) identify the rate of growth of professional doctorate programmes; and (iii) clarify the distinctive features of these new professional doctorates that differentiate them from Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programmes. We believe the article will be of particular interest to people concerned with curriculum development, those involved in the development of professional doctorates, and education researchers interested in the phenomenon of the growth of the professional doctorate in England in the last decade of the twentieth century. Doctoral degrees have been part of higher education ever since the rst was conferred by the University in Paris in the middle of the twelfth century (Noble, 1994). Thereafter the doctorate was adopted at universities across Europe. For six centuries, professional doctorates in theology, law and medicine were pre-eminent. By contrast, the modern Doctor of Philosophy, the PhD (or DPhil), originated in Berlin University in the early part of the nineteenth century. It then spread across the German universities, attracting students from many other countries, notably the USA. According to Gregory: The PhD was ‘invented’ in Germany. Its spread internationally began with the socialisation of thousands of young American students into the scholarly rigours of German university education in the 19th century. (Gregory, 1995, p. 177) The main impetus for the spread of the Doctor of Philosophy seems to have been the growth in the importance of research in the university. Until that time, European universities had ISSN 0307-5079 print; ISSN 1470-174X online/01/010065-19 Ó DOI: 10.1080/0307507002003072 4

2001 Society for Research into Higher Education


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been primarily teaching institutions preparing students for employment in the leading professions of the age. In the USA, the rst Doctor of Philosophy was conferred in 1861 (Yale University). About 60 years later, and after a signi cant amount of resistance from vice-chancellors of English universities (Simpson, 1983; Win eld, 1987), the Doctor of Philosophy degree nally arrived in Britain. It was not until 1920 that the rst Doctor of Philosophy degree was awarded by an English university (a DPhil in science by the University of Oxford). At about the same time as the rst Doctor of Philosophy arrived in Britain, the rst professional doctorate (a Doctor of Education—EdD) appeared in the USA, being awarded at Harvard University in 1921. By 1991, there were over 50 distinct doctoral degrees on offer in the USA (Ries & Thurgood, 1993). Two aspects of the US doctoral system are particularly worth noting. First, at about the same time as England was awarding its rst PhDs, the US PhD began to alter to a system based on ‘doctoral programmes’ with a ‘taught’ component in addition to a dissertation. Second, in the USA, the professional doctorate was conceived as a pre-service award rather than an in-service award for advanced professional development. In 1990, the Australian Higher Education Council of the National Board of Employment, Education and Training advocated that Australian universities should develop professional doctorates. By 1996, 29 universities had introduced them, and over half of Australia’s 38 universities had developed EdDs, with the rst students being enrolled in 1991 and the rst graduates appearing in 1994. In 1996, professional doctorates were available in education, business, law, psychology, health sciences, humanities, design, and architecture (Poole & Spear, 1997). The majority of the candidates enrolled on professional doctorates in Australia are working concurrently in their professional vocations, as ‘in Australia, unlike the professional doctorate in the USA (with its history as a pre-service award), the professional doctorate has been conceived as an in-service or professional development award, concerned with production of knowledge in the professions’ (Maxwell & Shanahan, 1997 p. 133). As with the PhD degree, England introduced professional doctorates about 60 years after the USA: the rst EdD arrived in England in 1992 at a traditional and research-oriented institution, the University of Bristol (Westcott, 1997). The Doctor of Engineering (EngD) also arrived in the UK in 1992, being introduced at the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST)/University of Manchester and the University of Wales. The engineering doctorate, which incorporates a taught component as well as an industrial research project, was designed ‘to provide engineers with business and technical competencies by applying new knowledge to industrially relevant doctoral research, employing the skills gained from an intensive programme of taught coursework’ (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, 1997 p. 1). The 1990s saw English universities offering professional doctorates in a range of other subjects, and the rst task of this article is to identify the universities and the subjects. Method The study covered the 70 universities in England listed in the Harris Report on postgraduate education (Harris, 1996): 35 ‘old’ universities and 35 ‘new’ universities. It was restricted to England primarily because of the need to draw realistic boundaries around the project. Similar considerations led to the focus on universities, per se, rather than extending the project to other forms of higher education institution. The analysis was based on information collected from three sources: (i) the postgraduate prospectuses (or equivalent) of the universities for the academic sessions 1998–99 and 1999–2000; (ii) programme lea ets and booklets; and (iii) their research degree regulations.

Professional Doctorates in England


U n i v e r s i t i e s

Bournemouth Central Lancs Bristol Durham Keele Kingston Lincs/Humber Man. Met. UMIST Ox Brookes Open Oxford Sussex Teesside 1

Anglia Bath East Anglia Kent Leeds Metro Middlesex Plymouth Southampton 2

Brunel Leicester Liverpool Warwick 3

City Leeds Shef eld 4

Birmingham East London Exeter Hull Manchester Newcastle Nottingham Surrey 5–10

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London 10 1

Number of professional doctorate programmes FIG . 1. Incidence of professional doctorate programmes across English universities at June 1998.

Collecting information from these different sources provided a check on the accuracy of the information and, in particular, con rmed that we had the most up-to-date information in each case. The purpose of collecting data for two consecutive years was to explore the rate of growth of professional doctorates. All the doctoral awards available from the 70 universities were listed and then the following were successively removed: (i) the Doctor of Philosophy awards, (ii) higher doctorates and (iii) honorary doctorates. The result of this process was a listing of doctorates which had titles referring to professional elds; these were taken to be the professional doctorates (the one exception is the award of a DProf in work-based learning—this title does not refer to a speci c professional eld but it clearly is a professional doctorate). The analysis covered only those doctoral programmes that were on offer to prospective students, that is, it excludes those programmes that were still in the process of development. Variation across Universities and across Subjects The process described above identi ed 109 professional doctorate programmes in English universities at the start of 1998. Altogether, 38 of the 70 universities offered at least one professional doctorate. We found professional doctorates in 19 subjects. The following sections disaggregate these totals by university and by subject. Variation across Universities Fig. 1 shows all the English universities that offered at least one doctorate in a named professional eld. Some universities offered only one professional doctorate award: for example, the University of Sussex. A few universities offered several awards in one professional eld: for example, the University of Exeter offered four professional doctorates in the eld of education: Doctor of Education (EdD) in Mathematics Education, Educational Psychology, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and Professional Studies. Professional doctorate programmes were available disproportionately in the ‘old’ (pre1992) universities. Twenty-six of the 35 ‘old’ universities in the survey offered at least one

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T. Bourner et al. TABLE I. Incidence of professional doctorates across subjects at 1 January 1998


Subject/title of award

Doctor of Education Doctor of Medicine Doctor of Clinical Psychology Doctor of Business Administration Doctor of Engineering Doctor of Psychology Doctor of Educational Psychology Doctor of Musical Arts Doctor of Architecture Doctor of Veterinary Science Doctor of Dental Science Doctor of Public Health Doctor of Counselling Psychology Doctor of Occupational Psychology Doctor of Clinical SciencePsychotherapy Doctor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Doctor of Theology Doctor of Fine Art Doctor of Work-based Learning

Short form of title most often used EdD MD DClinPsy DBA EngD DPsych DEdPsy DMA; AMusD DArch DVet Med; DVSc DDSc DrPH DCounsPsy DOccPsych DClinSciPsychotherapy DPsychPsych ThD DArt DProf

Total

Number of universities

Number of programmes

24 18 17 9 8 4 4 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

29 20 19 9 8 4 4 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

1

1

1 1 1

1 1 1 109

professional doctorate, compared to 12 of the 35 ‘new’ universities. Of the 109 professional doctorates identi ed, less than a quarter were accounted for by ‘new’ universities. Only one ‘new’ university offered professional doctorates in as many as three different subjects compared with 15 (43%) of the ‘old’ universities.

Variation across Subjects Table I shows how the professional doctorates were distributed across subjects. By 1998, professional doctorates were found in 19 subjects. There were ve subjects with more than ve professional doctorates on offer with the name of a profession in the title—education, psychology, medicine, business administration and engineering—and these ve subjects accounted for almost 80% of the 109 programmes available.

Growth of the Professional Doctorate in England We repeated our survey in 1999 and found 128 professional doctoral programmes available, 19 more than had been available in January 1998, a rate of growth of 16% over the year. Table II shows the subject distribution of the 19 ‘new’ professional doctorates. There has been a continued growth in the most popular areas for professional doctorates, including education, clinical psychology and business administration. But signi cantly, almost half the new courses were outside these areas and some were in entirely new areas, such as social work (DSW), and pharmacy (DPharm). In 1999, the range of subjects other


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TABLE II. Doctoral programmes introduced in 1999 by subject Subject


Education Clinical Psychology Business Administration Educational Psychology Finance Administration Pharmacy Social Work Counselling Psychology Child/Adolescent Psychology Humanities

Title

Number of programmes

EdD DClinPsy DBA DEdPsy DFin AdminD DPharm DSW DCounsPsy * *

Total

4 4 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 19

* no abbreviation given in university documentation.

than ‘Philosophy’ appearing in the title of doctoral awards rose by almost a third, from 19 to 25. There is also evidence here of differentiation within the most popular elds for professional doctorates: for example, the Doctor of Finance (DFin) and the Doctor of Administration (AdminD) have been differentiated from the older Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). Just as psychology as a eld for doctoral programmes has become differentiated as more programmes have emerged (DClinPsy, DEdPsy, DCounsPsy, for example), it appears that established species of doctoral programme may develop subspecies as they themselves develop. Some subject areas have a higher propensity to generate subspecies than others; in psychology, the propensity is strong and in education it seems much weaker, with different varieties of professional doctorate in education being contained within the title EdD. We also note a rst appearance of ‘Humanities’ as a named doctorate, where the name does not relate to an occupational profession per se. Is this the start of a differentiation of degree titles at doctoral level beyond that needed to differentiate professional doctorates from the Doctor of Philosophy? Might we see in the future doctoral programmes such as DLang., DMath., or DPhys.? A notable omission from Table II is engineering. In 1997, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) conducted an evaluation of EngD programmes that it had supported, declared itself pleased with the outcome and decided to increase the number of EPSRC-supported EngD programmes to 15 (EPSRC, 1997). These programmes should become available to potential applicants from 2000. Whereas, throughout most of the 1990s, the development of professional doctorates has taken place in the ‘old’ universities, of the 19 new professional doctorate programmes, the large majority, 14, are being offered at the ‘new’ universities. The ‘new’ universities account for almost threequarter of the new professional doctorates introduced from 1999. There is a sense of the ‘new’ universities attempting to ‘catch up’ with the development of professional doctorates which have acquired an established base in the ‘old’ universities. How Do the Professional Doctorates Differ from the PhD? This is a question that is increasingly asked and is dif cult to answer, because neither professional doctorate nor PhD programmes are homogeneous. Not only is there variation in


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professional doctorates across institutions and across subjects, but there is even variation within subjects, so that, for example, in 1995, Kay was able to say: ‘there seems as yet relatively little consensus about the core content of the DBA’ (Kay, 1995, p. 112). Since that time some degree of consensus has been encouraged by the Association of Business Schools (ABS) issuing Guidelines for the Doctor of Business Administration Degree when it became ‘apparent that a signi cant number of Business Schools are planning to introduce DBAs into their portfolios in the near future’ (ABS, 1997). However, considerable variation remains. The documents that universities have produced about their professional doctorates make clear that a comprehensive account of them would include many quali cations and references to exceptions. Our solution to this problem is to report only those features that are shared by the majority of professional doctorates. We term this the ‘majority model’ of the English professional doctorate. There is also heterogeneity within the so-called ‘traditional PhD’. There are some subjects where the dissertation may be accompanied by an artifact produced as part of the programme of studies, and there are also performance-based doctorates. However, these account for a relatively small proportion of the total (United Kingdom Council for Graduate Education [UKCGE], 1996a). Also, in many universities doctorates can be achieved by publication prior to registration or during the programme of studies (UKCGE, 1996b, 1998; Higher Education Quality Council [HEQC], 1997). Faced with the problem of variation in the forms of traditional doctorate, our solution has been the same as in the case of the professional doctorates; we have used the concept of a ‘majority model’ of the PhD comprising those features shared by the majority of PhDs. This enables us to compare the features shared by the majority of professional doctorates with features shared by the majority of PhDs. Career Focus The Government’s 1993 White Paper on Research Policy (Of ce of Science and Technology [OST], 1993) expressed concern about the narrow career focus of what it termed the ‘traditional PhD’ as follows: ‘the traditional PhD is not well-matched to the needs of careers outside research in academia or an industrial research laboratory’ (OST, 1993, p. 3). If the ‘traditional PhD’ is designed to develop academics (especially in higher education) and career-researchers, for whom are professional doctorates intended? When we examined the descriptions of professional doctorates in the documents produced by the universities offering them, we found that, apart from a minority which made no reference to the careers of potential applicants, they claimed that their professional doctorates address the career needs of practising professionals, particularly those in, or who aspire to, senior positions within their profession. For example: The degree is aimed at experienced professionals … who wish to extend their professional expertise and training, while not intending to become career researchers. (Brunel University) Increasingly the School of Education received applications from senior professionals who, while wishing to undertake advanced research, did not necessarily see this as an apprenticeship for a career in a university research department. (University of Leicester) It is clear from the documentation that most have been designed to provide research-based career development for experienced and senior practitioners in the professions. Whereas the


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‘traditional’ Doctor of Philosophy degree is intended to develop professional researchers, the professional doctorate is designed to develop researching professionals. Domain of Research Topic


While the PhD student can, at least in theory, research any topic at all within the eld of study, the candidate for a professional doctorate is usually expected to undertake research aimed at making a contribution to the knowledge of professional practice. Rather than perceiving research as an end in itself, the professional doctorates have placed research at the service of the development of professional practice and professional practitioners. This stance affects the nature of the research undertaken: [Professional doctorates] … are designed for candidates who wish to focus their research towards professional or industrial practice. (Leeds Metropolitan University) The professional doctorate is a rigorous research-based and research-driven quali cation focused on the improvement of professional practice. (University of Lincolnshire and Humberside) … to carry out original research that will make a contribution to professional knowledge and practice. (Open University) Research Type A reasonably accurate description of the research brief for most PhDs would be an ‘original investigation undertaken to gain new knowledge and understanding but not necessarily directed towards any practical aim or application’. This is actually the Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) Frascati de nition of basic research (as quoted in the ‘Notes for Guidance’ for Research Proposals produced by the Economic and Social Research Council). The corresponding (OECD)/Frascati de nition of applied research is ‘an original investigation undertaken to gain new knowledge and with practical aims and objectives’, which is a reasonable description of the research required for most of the professional doctorates. Thus, for example, the ABS guidelines state: The DBA is … concerned with the researching real business and managerial issues via the critical review and systematic application of appropriate theories and research to professional practice. (ABS, 1997, p. 2) Research Focus Most PhD candidates aim to make a signi cant original contribution to knowledge by focusing their efforts on a perceived gap in the literature in a subject discipline. By contrast, most universities offering professional doctorates expect research to be undertaken on a topic that relates to a candidate’s own eld of professional practice in their own working lives. For example: The degree of EdD will provide the opportunity for experienced professionals in education and other public services to work at doctoral level on problems that are of direct relevance to their own professional interests and institutional concerns. (University of Sussex)

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T. Bourner et al. It will equip participants in a variety of research and inquiry roles appropriate to their workplace. (University of East Anglia)

Starting Point for Research


For the Doctor of Philosophy, the candidate is normally expected to undertake a preliminary literature search and review to identify a gap. For professional doctorate research, the candidates are normally expected to start with a problem in professional practice that needs investigation and resolution. Whereas the PhD candidate starts from what is known (that is the literature review), professional doctorate candidates start from what is not known (that is, some perceived problem in professional practice).

Intended Learning Outcomes

·

The intended learning outcome of the PhD is to develop the capacity to make a signi cant original contribution to knowledge in a particular discipline through research. By contrast, the intended learning outcomes of professional doctorates are considerably broader. They include the capacity to make a signi cant original contribution to knowledge of professional practice through research, plus one or more of the following: personal development (often specifying re ective practice); professional level knowledge of the broad eld of study; understanding of professionalism in the eld; appreciation of the contribution of research to the work of senior professional practitioners. ·

·

·

Entry Quali cation The minimum entry quali cation required of a candidate for a PhD at most English universities is a ‘good’, that is, rst or upper second class, degree in a relevant subject (for those without a rst degree that is either ‘good’ or in a relevant subject, a ‘conversion’ master’s degree is normally required). For most professional doctorates, the minimum level of entry is a master’s degree in the eld of study. In some professional doctorates, the minimum entry quali cation is a ‘good’ rst degree, but in addition, the candidate for the professional doctorate is expected to enroll on the university’s master’s course in the subject or take a range of modules from the master’s programme.

Experience as an Admission Requirement The professional doctorate is intended for experienced practitioners within a profession, whereas the PhD is intended for apprentice researchers who may have no experience of the subject beyond the possession of a good rst degree in the proposed eld of study. Candidates for a professional doctorate programme are usually required to provide evidence of signi cant experience of professional practice. This is usually speci ed in terms of minimum years of relevant employment. In the materials that we examined, the range varied between 1 and 5 years, with 3 years’ experience as the median gure.


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Taught Component The professional doctorate has a taught component which is usually divided into two parts, one part focused on the eld of study per se, and the other focused on research training. The taught component usually accounted for a minority of the programmes. There is some evidence of systematic variation across subject disciplines. For example, the DBA programmes tend towards the lower end of the range, often in the region of 15–20%. By contrast, the EdD programmes tend towards the upper end of the range, often around 35–50%.


Modularity The requirements of professional doctorates were often cast in terms of modular structures. The following examples illustrate different forms of modularity in professional doctorates: Taught modules are designated either Research or Subject modules. Students have a choice about the balance of the two but the following framework applies: overall rating of 540 credits comprised of the following: ·

subject focused courses and assessment of 60 or 80 credits; · research training and assessment of 100 or 120 credits; and a · thesis of 360 credits. (University of Birmingham) The degree has a modular structure consisting of 25 units, of which ten are represented by taught units and fteen by a 50,000 word thesis related to the main focus of study. (University of Leicester). Modularity does not necessarily imply that a course is credit-rated, but most of the professional doctorate programmes that we looked at were both modular and credit-rated. This is a signi cant nding in the light of the Quality Assurance Agency’s (QAA) position statement on postgraduate quali cations (QAA, 1999), in which professional doctorates will be required to be credit-rated. The extension of modularity to the doctoral level seems to us to be a major curriculum development. Position of Master’s Level Work The evidence we have examined indicates a clearer relationship between master’s degrees and professional doctorates than between master’s degrees and the ‘traditional’ PhD. It is possible to start a PhD with a ‘good’ undergraduate degree in a relevant eld so a master’s degree may seem super uous. However, in the early 1990s it seemed likely that a master’s degree would become a prerequisite for registration for a PhD, as the so-called ‘1 1 3’ system was encouraged by government and the research councils. Since that time, however, the remarkable expansion of doctoral registrations outside of the ‘research council sector’ appears to be undermining the ‘1 1 3’ system. It is not clear what proportion of students currently registering for a research degree hold a master’s level award and what proportion are registering with a good rst degree. By contrast, there was a more transparent progression through the master’s level of studies in the design of the professional doctorates that we studied. In most cases, a master’s degree in the eld of study was a requirement for admission to a professional doctorate. In the other cases, where the entry to a professional doctorate was set at the level of a good undergraduate degree, the students were required to take master’s level units in the eld of

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study. In this way, it was clear what the student had achieved at master’s level and what went beyond master’s level. The proposed postgraduate framework (QAA, 1999) will have an important impact in this area, as it requires that all the work for a professional doctorate be at ‘D’ level. Where a professional doctorate comprises ‘M’ level work as the rst stage, there will presumably be a need for some programme redevelopment to comply with the postgraduate framework.


Initial or In-service Continuing Professional Development The professional doctorate is normally intended to be a form of in-service professional development, whereas the PhD is intended to be available as a pre-service training in research. Just as the ‘majority model’ of the British PhD deviates from the ‘majority model’ of the American PhD, so the professional doctorate in this country is deviating from the ‘majority model’ in the USA. It is perhaps signi cant that most professional doctorates have been developed at a time when ‘continuing professional development’ and ‘lifelong learning’ have had an important in uence on the policy climate, and when the intellectual climate of curriculum development has shifted from the development of initial skills and competencies to critical re ection, re ective practice and continuous professional development. Mode of Study Most professional doctorates are designed to be studied only by part-time attendance; the rest of the time the student is expected to spend in industry or a professional organisation. In some cases, candidates are registered as full-time students with the understanding that most of their time will be spent working in an industrial or professional organisation. This is the case with the 4-year EngD supported by the EPSRC. Students will be sponsored by an industrial partner who in return will bene t from having a research engineer working on a major project in-house. (Brunel University) The full EngD programme runs for four years and is based on a project or series of projects, normally carried out in a company … the work has to make a signi cant contribution to the performance of the company and thus has to be in the mainstream of operations. (University of Warwick) Whether it is appropriate to call such students part-time or full-time is a moot point, but what is clear is that the majority of their time is spent working in an organisation where their research project is located, with only part-time attendance at the university. The more fully a candidate’s professional work is integrated into their studies for a professional doctorate, the less easy is it to meaningfully distinguish between part-time and full-time study. Integration of Work and Study It is apparent from the documents we studied that most professional doctorates try to integrate the professional work of candidates into their doctoral studies. Researching the problems and practices of their own organisation can, it seems, often be accommodated within the candidates’ job descriptions. The professional doctorates that have been developed in England can be viewed as a form of work-based learning. From this perspective, they represent the coming of age of work-based learning within the higher education curriculum. Doctoral awards for work-based learning imply acceptance of work-based learning at the


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highest level of higher education. This is an issue of much signi cance for educational development in higher education and the legitimisation of alternative forms of knowledge within the academy (Barnett, 1994; Gibbons et al., 1994). Integration of Theory and Practice The PhD is concerned with making a contribution to theory per se whereas the professional doctorate is concerned with making a research-based contribution to practice:


… differs from the traditional PhD by virtue of … emphasising the integration of theory and practice. (University of Nottingham) candidates for the degree will be encouraged to produce work which provides a substantive, theoretically informed contribution to management practice (University of Nottingham). … practical approach in contrast to the more academic research of the classical PhD. (University of East London) Cohorts With most PhD programmes, students enrol individually at different points in time throughout the year as and when the admission process can be completed. By contrast, our evidence suggests that most professional doctorates recruit on the basis of cohorts of students: The cohort experience is introduced at the very beginning and is intended to enhance the collaboration and responsibility expected of high level professional practice. (Leeds Metropolitan University) its focus is on research in relation to professional practice, pursued with a cohesive group of professionals working together. (Institute of Education, University of London) Structured support is provided to the cohort and to the individual student through weekend and summer schools, in meetings with supervisors, by engagement with, and contribution to, the University’s research culture through networking of peers and through the articulation of research ndings in a culminating conference. (Leeds Metropolitan University) Enrolment through cohorts enables universities to provide the structured support that is often missing for other part-time doctoral students. It enables universities to address the problem of ‘social and intellectual isolation’, which has long been recognised (Advisory Board to Research Councils, 1982; Becher et al., 1994) as a problem facing doctoral students and particularly those attempting doctoral work by part-time study. It also addresses issues about doctoral research and ‘critical mass’ (in terms of student numbers) raised by the Harris Report (Delamont et al., 1997). Variability of Duration The duration of study for the Doctor of Philosophy usually has been speci ed as a variable. For example, the regulations of one university state:

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T. Bourner et al. for a full-time student, minimum of 24 months and a maximum of 60 months; for a part-time student, minimum of 36 months and maximum of 72 months.

By contrast, professional doctorates usually have xed duration: The professional doctorate is a part-time degree programme to be completed over 12 terms. (University of Sussex) Candidates will register as part-time students for four years. (University of Exeter)


Whereas Doctor of Philosophy regulations tend to specify minimum and maximum periods of registration, the regulations for the professional doctorate tend to specify a normal period of registration. Specifying a normal period of registration clearly resonates with the cohort orientation of professional doctorates. Form of the Research Outcomes Typically, a Doctor of Philosophy requires the production of a written dissertation of around 40,000 (science) to 80,000 words and an oral examination (viva voce). There seems to be broadly uniform practice concerning the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD/DPhil—both abbreviations are traditional and this is not thought to be a cause of confusion). This award is generally granted for a substantial body of research (a thesis of approximately 80,000 words is common) resulting in a ‘signi cant contribution to knowledge’ (some add ‘original’ contribution), conducted over an extended period. (HEQC, 1997, p. 33) We found considerable variation in the requirements of the research part of professional doctorates. In some cases, the research part is represented in terms that emphasise comparability with the Doctor of Philosophy. In other cases, the doctoral candidates were required to carry out two or more research projects. For example: The research element of the programme consists of two substantive research outcomes, each of 30,000 words or equivalent. (Leeds Metropolitan University) Sometimes, candidates were given choices: Your research enquiry will lead to either a thesis of 40,000 words or will comprise a major and minor study which will lead to two theses of 25,000 words and 15,000 words respectively. (University of Bath) We also found more radical variations. For example: An alternative to the research enquiry component of the degree is the presentation of a portfolio of four relevant papers which have been written by you and recently published in accredited journals. The four papers might be published already (in which case a fee reduction applies), or you might undertake to write and publish papers during the course of the degree. (University of Bath) Overall, the most common forms that we found in the research component of the professional doctorates were the following: (i)

a smaller scale research project than that required of a Doctor of Philosophy degree, but intended to be evaluated by the same criteria; (ii) a requirement to complete more than one research project;


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(iii) a portfolio approach which allows for the submission of a series of documents rather than a single dissertation; (iv) published outcomes.

Assessment


Doctor of Philosophy programmes increasingly contain a taught component in the form of a training in research. This is usually assessed by its contribution to the quality of the candidate’s dissertation. By contrast, the taught components of professional doctorates are usually separately assessed. The research component of a professional doctorate is usually assessed in a similar way as it is for the Doctor of Philosophy: it involves internal and external examination. An oral examination is also usually, but not always, used. Dissertations will be assessed by internal and external examiners and will normally involve a viva voce examination. (University of Bristol). Breadth of Studies Much of the literature produced by the universities stressed the greater breadth of professional doctorates compared with the ‘traditional’ PhD: enables candidates to focus their research efforts on more than one topic. (Anglia Polytechnic University) encourages a broader and holistic applied focus that can be contrasted against the more focused and highly specialised approach followed in a traditional PhD programme. (University of East London). Discussion and Conclusions Variation across Universities and across Subjects By the end of the 1990s, the professional doctorate could no longer be regarded as an aberration in English higher education. The fact that could be found in most English universities and across such a wide range of subjects is evidence that it had become a signi cant new force in graduate education. The relative lack of development of professional doctorates in the ‘new’ universities is surprising given that studies directly related to professional practice (education, engineering, business studies, health, communications and information technology, design, etc.) have a relatively larger presence there. One possible explanation is that until 1992 the ‘new’ universities were constrained in the range of awards that they could offer by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), whose regulations allowed only for a Doctor of Philosophy. It is, however, dif cult to sustain this argument as the development of professional doctorates in the ‘old’ universities has taken place since 1992. Another conjecture is that whereas the ‘old’ universities have been concerned to protect the ‘gold standard’ of the PhD by allowing the development of alternative titles for professional doctorates, the ‘new’ universities have been more concerned to avoid proliferation of new doctoral titles so that variants have been squeezed into the PhD category. This may re ect the greater self-con dence of ‘old’ universities as long-established awarding bodies.

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Growth of the Professional Doctorate The growth in professional doctorates has not been con ned to a few subjects but has encompassed a wide and growing range of subjects. This suggests that we are witnessing a phenomenon that cannot be reasonably explained in subject-speci c terms. There are many plausible explanations for this growth. One interpretation is that it is the inevitable consequence of a drift towards vocationalism. From this perspective, the rise of professional doctorates is evidence that by the 1990s the competencies approach had at last reached the highest, doctoral, level in England. Another interpretation is that the growth of professional doctorates represents the incursion of the ‘student-development’ approach at the doctoral level where the ‘disciplinedevelopment’ approach had previously dominated. Becher et al. (1994 p. 65) describe the latter as ‘the Humboldtian belief’ that academic staff and also the students are in higher education ‘for the sake of science and scholarship’. On this interpretation the new professional doctorates place the highest development of the student at the heart of doctoral study, compared with the PhD which places the highest development of the discipline at the heart. Yet another interpretation is that the rise of the professional doctorate represents a response to government direction. After years of ‘benign neglect’, growing awareness of low pass rates, long times for completion and poor employment prospects for newly minted PhDs in the 1980s prompted government to play a more directive role. According to Becher et al. (1994): the system was already moving in the early 1990s from policies of benign neglect towards a politically directed system (p. 28) We have already noted that the 1993 White Paper expressed concern about the narrow career focus of the ‘traditional PhD’. A further interpretation is that the growth of professional doctorates represents the escape of universities from the attempt by government to direct and control them. At the time of the 1993 White Paper there seemed a real danger that government attempts to exercise more control over graduate education, and in particular, its attempt to shift to master’s courses and away from research degrees, would lead to contraction of the numbers registered on PhDs. It was feared that this could put at risk the replenishment of academic staf ng and the reproduction of a well-trained academic profession. Likewise, concern was expressed that government concern with economic and social need would dominate the provision of graduate education, marginalising other motives such as individual desire for self-development. Events have proved otherwise. The years since the 1993 White Paper have witnessed the largest rise in research degree enrolments ever experienced by English universities. The majority of that rise has been accounted for by an increase in part-time research degree registrations where personal development is seen as a particularly important motive. Part-time study is a force against regarding research training as the purpose of research degrees. Most mature students enrol for doctoral studies for their own personal development and their work is project focused. (Becher et al., 1994, p. 59) According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), at the start of 1994 there were less than 55,000 students registered for research degrees, of whom less than 37% were enrolled on a part-time basis. By 1997, there were over 100,000 research degree students, of whom about half were enrolled part-time (HESA, 1996, 1999).


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As government sought to tighten its grip on doctoral education through the research councils, the uncontrolled part of the research degree sector, including part-time and professional doctorates, simply expanded instead. If it was the Government’s intention in 1993 to restrict the number of doctoral research degree registrations and to shift the balance away from research degrees, then that intention has been frustrated. Another form of explanation for the growth of professional doctorates would link it to the growth of mass higher education. For example:


Mass higher education, being more intimately associated with the wider society, allows a range of additional perspectives into the academy. Courses are being redesigned to include both action and self-re ective components. (Barnett, 1997 p. 77) Clearly, there are many competing explanations for the remarkable growth of professional doctorates in England over the last decade. However, it is not the purpose of this article to explain the growth but rather to clarify the extent and nature of the phenomenon to be explained. However, in doing so, we note that, in our opinion, any convincing explanation must: (1) account for their growth across a very wide range (25) of subjects; and (2) account for the continued rate of growth to at least the end of the decade. Burgess (1997, p. 15) said that ‘research into postgraduate education needs to cross all subject areas—disciplinary and interdisciplinary’. This is especially true in the case of research into professional doctorates. Clearly, explanations that are subject-speci c will not do, nor will explanations that are bounded in narrow time frames, nor probably will those that are con ned by national boundaries (since Australia’s experience of the growth of professional doctorates is very similar to that of England in both timing and the wide range of subjects involved). Something larger has been happening that warrants the serious attention of those interested in the development of higher education at its highest level.

How do the Professional Doctorates Differ from the PhD? In this article, we have identi ed 20 ways in which the professional doctorate differs from the ‘traditional’ PhD. The results can be construed in terms of a ‘professional doctorate paradigm’: a set of elements that together comprise ‘professional doctorateness’. An alternative way of interpreting the result is as the ends of a spectrum extending from ‘traditional PhD’ to ‘professional doctorate’. Doctoral programmes may choose to locate themselves at intermediate positions along that spectrum by adopting elements from both ends. How, if at all, will the growth of professional doctorates affect the form of the PhD? We identify two countervailing forces: 1. When the only doctoral form in England was the PhD, all variations had to be accommodated under that title. Possibly there are minority forms of the PhD, such as those involving research through performance, the production of an artefact or other creative activity that will be redeveloped as professional doctorates as the professional doctorate form becomes more common. According to an HEQC survey in the mid-1990s, there was concern about protecting the identity of the PhD as a research quali cation, assessment for which was by thesis (HEQC, 1997). In this article, we have reported on the lower propensity of the ‘new’ universities to develop professional doctorates compared to ‘old’ universities and the more recent erosion of that reluctance. We have conjectured that

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‘new’ universities have been more concerned to avoid proliferation of new doctoral titles so that doctoral variants have been squeezed into the PhD category. It is possible that the emergence of professional doctorates as an alternative to the PhD for such awards will serve to reduce the heterogeneity of forms of the PhD itself. 2. Working in the opposite direction is the possibility that innovations appearing in the elds of professional doctorates that are perceived to be successful may be adopted by PhD programmes. This would lead to greater heterogeneity of PhD forms.


QAA Position Statement on Postgraduate Quali cations After completing our survey and analysis of professional doctorates, another difference between the PhD and professional doctorates has emerged. This time the source is from outside of the universities themselves: the position statement of the QAA requires professional doctorates to have a credit-de nition whereas the ‘PhD/DPhil will neither be credit-rated nor achievable by credit accumulation’ (QAA, 1999 p. vii). We have seen that most professional doctorates in England have a modular structure, and for these courses credit de nition should be unproblematic as modularity and credit rating usually go hand in hand. Imposition of the QAA’s proposed postgraduate framework will require the remaining professional doctorates to be redrafted in terms of credits. The main effect of this will be to accelerate the incursion of modularity into doctoral studies. The more serious challenge posed by QAA’s proposed framework is the requirement that for ‘doctorates which are achievable by credit accumulation (doctorates other than PhD or DPhil) all credit required will be at doctoral level’ (1999, p. ix). Again, for the majority of professional doctorates which have a master’s level entry quali cation this will not prove problematic, but for a signi cant minority (including many in the elds of education and engineering) this will pose dif culties requiring some critical thinking about the nature of professional doctorates.

Standards Arguably, PhDs are the gold standard within higher education and this standard is believed to be secure. This is an inference that can be drawn from the QAA’s position statement. Presumably it was felt that the standards of the Doctor of Philosophy are suf ciently secure that it was unnecessary to state that all study counting for a PhD or DPhil should also be at doctoral level. Students can be assessed at the start of a course, within a course and at the end of a course. It is the standard at the end of courses that is most problematic for professional doctorates. The criteria for evaluating professional doctorates is an issue that is currently prompting considerable thought in higher education (see, for example, Winter et al., 2000). Other questions about the comparability of standards between the traditional PhD and the professional doctorate often revolve around the contrast between the single focus of the PhD thesis and plurality of learning outcomes which tends to characterise the professional doctorate. In part this is a replay of the depth versus breadth debate which has taken place concerning undergraduate degrees since at least the mid-1960s (and of which the latest manifestation is the attempt to reconcile subject-speci c benchmarking with a generic notion of graduateness).


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Motivation for the Future Development of Professional Doctorates Professional doctorates are, we judge, attractive to those who view their own personal development and academic ambition as fully integrated with their professional development and have a commitment to furthering the cause of their profession. This touches in a profound way on the responsibilities of modern higher education towards the increasing range of professions with whose professional formation they are engaged. Whilst it is important that higher education contributes to capabilities of students in terms of professional effectiveness, it is also important that higher education accepts the responsibility for producing the critical thinking and critical thinkers that will seek to surpass and transform current conceptions of practice in these professions. In this task the professional doctorate has a speci c role to play, combining a strongly grounded experience in current forms of practice with a transformative aim (in the discovery and application of knowledge), which parallels the aims of the traditional doctorate with regard to subject disciplines. It is the mutual recognition (by government, the professions, universities and, above all, the practitioners themselves) of the importance of this which, we predict, will lead to the further rapid extension of the professional doctorate over the next decade.

Further Work In this article, we have surveyed the extent to which professional doctorates have been adopted by English universities and how the English universities have interpreted the concept of a professional doctorate. The adoption of professional doctorates by English universities is an important phenomenon worth further investigation. It has been said that one of the problems faced by higher education researchers is that they are studying ‘a world with which they are very familiar’ (Burgess, 1997, p. 14). Currently, professional doctorates are relatively new in England and offer researchers opportunities to capitalise on their relative unfamiliarity. We end by suggesting lines of research which, in the light of our ndings in this article, look particularly fruitful. 1. Why did English universities resist the professional doctorates for so long and why has their adoption in the last decade been so rapid? 2. How do English professional doctorates differ from those of other countries? In particular, how do they differ from those in the USA which were amongst the earliest developed, and how do they differ from those in Australia, where they have developed in a similar period? 3. Where do professional doctorates t into the emerging story of the development of work-based learning? 4. What light do professional doctorates throw on the question of what counts as knowledge in the academy at the start of the twenty- rst century? 5. Where do professional doctorates t in the shift from an elite system of higher education to mass higher education? 6. What can we learn from the obstacles and pitfalls encountered in the development of the current professional doctorates that can assist those responsible for developing the professional doctorates of the future? 7. What is the student demand for the courses? It is dif cult to draw conclusions about ‘steady state’ demand for professional doctorates from experience to date. On the one hand, they are still relatively unfamiliar in an area where award status is likely to be a

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signi cant issue (depressing demand); on the other hand, when they are rst introduced they may release a pent-up demand that will not be sustained in the longer term. 8. What about completion rates? Again, most of the programmes are relatively new, so the story about completion rates will only gradually become available over the next few years. 9. What is the student experience on the courses? 10.Finally, we can use the unfamiliarity of the professional doctorate phenomenon as a lens through which to look at more familiar parts of higher education. In this article we have looked at professional doctorates through the lens of the more familiar PhD; it may be very instructive to examine the PhD through the lens of the unfamiliar professional doctorate.

Correspondence: Rachel Bowden, Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, Bevendean House, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH. Tel: 01273-643372 . Email: [email protected]

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