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Chapter 12

Research issues arising from doctoral education at a distance Terry Evans, Christopher Hickey & Heather Davis

Introduction

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n recent years there has been a marked increase in doctoral candidates who undertake their work part-time and, either formally of informally, at a distance. This growth is consistent with the rise of the knowledge economy, and the attitudes and practices it privileges. Understandings of knowledge economy emerge from the rapid changes produced by globalisation, massification and the information and communication technology revolution of recent times (Drucker, 1999; Spender & Stewart, 2002). Embedded in this social change is an increasing emphasis on the need for people to develop sophisticated new literacies and advanced thinking skills in order to survive and prosper in an increasingly complex world. …As the 21st century opens, tertiary education is facing unprecedented challenges, arising from the convergent impacts of globalization, the increasing importance of knowledge as a principal driver of growth, and the information and communications revolution. The role of education in general, and of tertiary education in particular, is now more influential than ever in the construction of knowledge economies and democratic societies. Tertiary education is indeed central to the creation of the intellectual capacity on which knowledge production and utilization depend and to the promotion of the lifelonglearning practices necessary for updating people’s knowledge and skills (Salmi, 2002 p 1).

Salmi (2002) argues that education in general, and the tertiary sector in particular, must play a central role in preparing societies for the knowledge economy. The processes of research and development leading to the production and use of new knowledge have the potential to change universities (and societies). This is particularly the case of work done in doctoral programs where the exploration and generation of new knowledge is requisite. In the quest to produce new knowledge that is significant and original, doctoral candidates require research training that enables them to produce new knowledge and to engage with the sophisticated new literacies that are integral to participating in the expanding knowledge-based economy. The need to comprehend and manipulate the new communication technologies that are reshaping the ways people live are at the forefront of contemporary educational agenda. 120

Where print has been the primary repository and transfer of knowledge, the application of digital information networks has become synonymous with contemporary understandings of best educational practice. To this end, there is a symbiotic relationship between elearning and the knowledge economy. The multiple interactive opportunities of e-learning change the ways individuals, teams and organisations interact and learn. Spender and Stewart (2002) believe that e-learning provides a new independence for learners that is ‘balanced by the new desire for collaboration, peer-to-peer exchange of information and the making of new collaborative solutions (as distinct from doing your own work)’ (p 9). Here, e-learning is understood as a pedagogical device that encourages individuals to sort and share knowledge, rather than just accumulate it. In this paper we raise issues around the practices associated with doctoral education at a distance. We are all heavily involved in the management and operation of a doctoral program offered through the Faculty of Education at Deakin University. This program has been offered off-campus (and on-campus) for about a quarter of a century. In the course of our work we confront a range of matters that need to be resolved or managed in a timely, orderly and sensitive way. While many of these matters are germane both to oncampus and off-campus candidates, our means of addressing them often vary according to the circumstances of candidature. We begin the paper with a brief overview of the development of doctoral programs within distance education. Following this we present an overview of the principles and practices of our own distance education doctoral program. Rather than view the off-campus program as a compromised on-campus program, we try to identify the needs and attributes of these candidates as the basis of our planning and practice to provide quality research training at a distance. We conclude the paper by identifying some of the major issues involved in the provision of research training at a distance and some of the research issues that emerge through this work.

Background Twenty years ago, Bolton (1986) correctly identified that distance education has a long history in the schooling, college and university sectors, especially in the settler societies of North America and Australasia. (For example, in Australia, both university education and schooling have been offered since the beginning of the Twentieth Century and both have grown and developed over the past century as the needs, contexts and media have changed.) Since the establishment of the UK Open University in the 1960s, there has been a considerable increase in the range and number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses offered through distance education. During the last part of the Twentieth Century a substantial number of other open universities have emerged, across both the developed and developing world. Some of these have become what Daniel (1996) describes as ‘mega-universities’. During this time there has been a considerable increase in the range and number of undergraduate and postgraduate (especially Masters) courses offered through distance education. Deakin University—along with the University of New England and the University of Queensland—was amongst the first to offer Masters degrees by coursework programs at a distance, in particular its MBA and MEd programs (Bynner, 1986). However, 121

establishing the origins of distance education programs is fraught with definitional difficulties. It is easiest to fix precise dates for the offer of programs at new distance teaching universities, such as the open universities, or new ‘external’ or ‘extra-mural’ courses at existing ‘dual-mode’ universities. However, often universities offered programs that could be undertaken without mandatory attendance at the campus on a regular and routine basis for lectures, practicals and other classes. So, if a student skipped most or all of the classes and passed the final exam, was this a distance education student? Or if a student enrolled at the University of London, studied in a different Commonwealth country, and took their ‘finals’ (at the end of three years) in London, was this distance education? In a sense, many programs may not have been designed for distance education, but, because they had no regulated attendance requirements, many students may have used this ‘openness’ to operate ostensibly as if they were distance education students. These same sorts of problems beset attempts to mark the first doctoral programs at a distance. Arguably, the PhD has been undertaken by many candidates as a de facto form of distance education, at least for part of their candidature. Current research by one of the authors shows that some early Australian PhDs were (usually partly) undertaken ‘offcampus’, sometimes in a research institute, but also in non-research contexts (such as the military), or in overseas universities, galleries etc (Evans & Tregenza, 2004). However, it is doubtful if they were ever enrolled in a category called ‘off-campus’ (or similar). Rather, they were simply enrolled as PhD students. Indeed, the nature of off-campus doctoral study is such that it strongly correlates with part-time study. Arguably, it is the part-time/full-time distinction that is more significant in terms of the differences between candidates, than the on-campus/off-campus distinction. As Barnacle and Usher (2003), and Evans (2002) argue, there is a case for explicitly recognising the special contexts and potentials of part-time doctoral students. There has been some consideration in the literature of the matters of doctoral education and distance education, and its soul-mates open learning and flexible learning—see, for Australian examples, the work of Evans (1995, 1997), Evans and Pearson (1999), McWilliam and Palmer (1998), Pearson and Ford (1999) and Taylor (1998). More specifically, Wikely and Muschamp (2004) have recently highlighted the need for more sustained exploration of part-time professional doctorates at a distance in the UK, while Macauley (2002) has done similarly within the Australian context. An important matter here concerns the requirement that doctoral candidates show, through their dissertation or thesis, that they have made a significant original contribution to knowledge. Typically, part-time candidates both study and work in professionally related fields where their research makes a difference to their professional context. Therefore, the impact of part-time doctoral candidate’s research may be greater than that of full-time students. For the part-time, distance student, this impact could be far from the university campus, indeed, in a different nation entirely. The earliest doctoral programs formally offered at a distance we have identified were in Education at Nova University in the USA in the early 1970s. However, these programs were EdDs, not PhDs, and were based substantially on coursework, rather than on research. Such programs were seen as very problematic within the educational community, and attracted sustained negative criticism (see White 1980). However, 122

Nova’s EdD programs continue today (see http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/home.htm) and there have been many other predominantly coursework doctoral programs in the USA. Despite their longevity, EdD programs in the USA (and elsewhere) continued to lack equivalent status to that of the PhD (Osguthorpe & Wong, 1991). The bulk of the research into postgraduate distance education has concentrated on coursework Masters programs. The practices associated with doctoral research training at a distance, on the other hand, have attracted far less research interest.

Doctoral studies in Education at Deakin University Deakin University enrolled ‘off-campus’ doctoral students soon after the University commenced operation in 1977. The Faculty (then School) of Education was at the forefront of offering PhDs at a distance. This was commensurate with the new university’s passion for educational innovation and what the foundation vice-chancellor called ‘parity of esteem’ between on-campus and off-campus programs and their graduates (Jevons, 1984). Deakin’s Faculty of Education also developed one of Australia’s first Doctor of Education (EdD) programs through distance education but, unlike its American predecessor, opted for a research degree focusing on workplacebased research that would have ‘parity’ with the PhD (Brennan & Walker, 1995). There are currently about 145 candidates enrolled in doctoral programs in the Faculty. About 85% are off-campus and part-time and many candidates live overseas: in locations such as, Alaska, Europe, the Middle-East, East Asia and New Zealand. Most of the doctoral candidates enter our programs as busy mid-career professionals who work full time in the education or training sectors. Our EdD candidates, in particular, often undertake research within their own workplaces as part of their doctoral studies. Doctoral candidates must conduct research and scholarship under the supervision of a Principal and Associate Supervisor. The doctoral supervisory relationship shapes as a potentially intensive—if somewhat isolated—experience, especially—but not exclusively—for distance students. It is quite different from students’ experiences in coursework undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The Faculty is mindful of these circumstances and has built activities that help to provide a supportive environment for its doctoral candidates. From the outset it was a requirement that doctoral candidates participate face-to-face in their doctoral colloquium at which they discuss a substantial (50-55 pages) doctoral proposal with a panel of five academics, including their supervisors. This generally occurs about one third of the way through candidature and represents a significant engagement and ‘rite of passage’ for all doctoral students. Although attendance is mandatory for the candidate, occasionally a panel member may participate by teleconference or videoconference. For over a decade the Faculty has offered an annual residential Summer School in February for doctoral candidates on the Geelong campus. Over the past five years, in response to the growing number of doctoral candidates in New Zealand, a Winter School has been offered in that country. All students are invited to attend these events, but they are not compulsory. Other occasional meetings are arranged at interstate and overseas educational research conferences if significant numbers of doctoral candidates attend.

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Over the past decade, the Internet has been used increasingly to provide support and resources for doctoral students, to the extent that nowadays it is mandatory for candidates to have access and make use of the Internet for their doctoral work. A range of listservs and webpages are used to promote communication between candidates and supervisors, in both social and academic forums. However, the most substantial development in these respects occurred in 2002 with the introduction of and online seminar program, called Doctoral Studies in Education (DSE) (http://education.deakin.edu.au/dse). The catalyst for this new program came out of a review of the EdD program in 2001 wherein it was deemed that the framework of online work (‘units’) required of EdD students, whilst helpful, contained too much work that was peripheral to each particular candidate’s program. As a result, the online ‘coursework’ was revised with the principle of being purposefully and directly related to the work doctoral candidates had to do to complete their doctorates. This new program was deemed to have the potential to be very useful for PhD students, too. Therefore, both EdD and PhD students were offered the new program, with some tailoring for the different orientations of their doctoral studies. This move was also congruent with changes to government policy on research training, which brought with them demands/encouragement for more explicit ‘training’ within doctoral education. The online seminar program was designed to support the candidate/supervisor relationship and not be a distraction from it. It provides the following benefits for the candidates and the Faculty: •

it allows the expertise of academics in the Faculty to be shared by all candidates. Academics with particular expertise in ethics, reviewing research literature, the colloquium process, online research etc, now share their expertise with the whole doctoral community, not just their own doctoral candidates



it releases, to a certain extent, each supervisor to concentrate on the scholarly part of supervision knowing that some generic research training aspects are being covered in the seminars



it provides a measure of quality assurance and monitoring of candidates’ progress than is possible within the typically exclusive supervisor - candidate relationship.

Each seminar is designed around six weeks of activities where the theory and practice of the particular aspect research training are explored and applied to the candidates’ own doctoral work. For example, a seminar on ethics deals with the principles behind the ethical conduct of research, and the candidates are expected to apply this to their proposed research and to draft an ethics application and associated documents to match. Most seminars, especially the compulsory ‘Core Seminars’, are restricted to the convenor and participants, so candidates are usually participating in a private discussion with seven to fifteen of their doctoral peers. However, candidates are encouraged to share the outcomes of their seminar tasks with their supervisors; in effect, this is often necessary. During the first phase (about one third) of candidature up to the colloquium, a candidate is normally expected to undertake five or six Core Seminars; after the colloquium there are only two or three compulsory seminars (on research writing and examination) through to thesis submission. There are optional Research Seminars (on particular aspects of 124

research methods, methodology etc) and ‘Occasional Seminars’ (typically, visiting scholars presenting and discussing an aspect of their work). The seminar topics are also closely related to the work that the candidate would normally be expected to complete in order to successfully undertake their colloquium and then ultimately complete their thesis/folio. Table 1 shows the enrolment patterns from 2002 to 2004. The number of participants in a seminar is normally between eight to fifteen. Therefore, if sixteen or more enrol, two seminars are run. This enables good interaction between the participants and also enables the convenor to provide particular attention to individual student’s tasks where required.

Table 1: Doctoral Studies Online Seminars Offered 2002 - 2004 Core Seminars Introduction to Doctoral Studies Locating and Interpreting the Research Literature Reviewing the Literature Planning and conducting ethical research Proposal writing and the colloquium Issues in workplace research Re-presenting workplace research Research writing Preparing a thesis/folio for examination Research Issues Seminars Action Research Interviews Life histories Online research Perspectives and gender in educational research Researching culturally diverse contexts

Seminar total

Total participants

8 6

71 68

5 6 8 3 1 3 3

69 69 67 20 8 21 20

1 2 1 1 1

12 19 12 9 7

1

6

This nature and substance of the online DSE seminar program, which is offered to/required of on-campus and off-campus students, is something that we believe was innovative in 2002. Subsequently, there are other universities in Australia that have taken steps in this direction. However, these have usually been concerned with supporting or complementing on-campus full-time doctoral approaches, whereas we have worked on the basis of providing a service and resources for off-campus part-time students. In our view, online communication and collaboration are fundamental to the success of the online seminar program and are core competencies for a full and productive engagement with the knowledge economy. In valuing our candidates as experienced educational professionals—they comprise school principals, senior teachers, consultants, academics, vocational and professional development trainers etc—we nurture a ‘horizontal’ approach to communication and facilitation in which their experience and knowledge are recognised and incorporated as a resource for themselves and their peers. 125

As well as receiving regular reports about activities and events that operate within the Faculty, and its engagement with the wider educational community, our management of almost all aspects of their candidature is conducted online. Through the DSE site candidates can access information about other candidates, staff, research activities, research groupings, publications, ethics, funding and conference opportunities etc. In 2004 we extended our connections to include our doctoral graduates through the Faculty of Education Doctoral Alumni Network (FEDAN). Here, a monthly newsletter is circulated to all our Alumni members containing information about research and training related activities, as well as profiles and information from previous and current candidates. There are also FEDAN events at Summer and Winter Schools and at major research conferences locally and overseas. FEDAN can be seen as another subset of the Faculty’s doctoral networking activities, which has both online and ‘real’ presences. Research issues There are several researchable questions and issues that emerge from the proliferation of doctoral education at a distance. Some of these are ones that researchers in distance education will find familiar, while others are particular to the nature of doctoral research education itself. We raise them here with a view to promoting the sorts of discussion that might lead to fruitful research in the field, and produce further enhancements to the best practice in doctoral education at a distance.

Quality and standards of doctorates at a distance Distance education has long had to deal with considerable suspicion about its quality, effectiveness and even its integrity. As White (1980) noted a quarter of century ago, there were enough shonky operators in forms of distance education in the USA to make it very difficult for those who were endeavouring to provide a high quality alternative to face-toface tuition. More recently, amongst others, Noble (1997, 1998a, 1998b) extended the critique to online education and its ‘digital diploma mills’. We would argue that a similar negative predisposition pervades others’ views about doctorates at a distance, and that, as with other forms of distance education, there will be enough ‘proof by selective instance’ to confirm these negative views. However, it is likely that there are many ‘distance’ doctoral graduates in industry, professions and the bureaucracy who are not interpreted any differently from their ‘face-to-face’ doctoral peers. That is, they will be seen as worthy, doctorally qualified people and, where appropriate, good scholars and researchers. This area may well be worthy of research and exploration, and could well be usefully undertaken in international contexts. For example, some governments prohibit or restrict the recognition of degrees undertaken overseas by distance education or, in the case of doctorates, require that minimum periods of overseas on-campus attendance are required. It would be useful to have a scoping study of the field of doctoral education at a distance. What is done? Where? Under what conditions? What are the outcomes? How do they compare with face-to-face doctorates? What are the best practices? What sorts of people obtain doctorates at a distance? Why? How do they use them (both before and after graduation)? 126

Supervision at a distance One of the more enduring challenges of doctoral education is building and sustaining productive supervisory relationships. It is generally assumed that face-to-face means are important, even necessary, to build such a relationship. However, the processes and means of establishing productive relationships at a distance have occurred in scholarly communities from early times. The exchange of (written) ideas, thoughts and data, has often occurred across the seas as scholarly communities shared and debated their work. Supervision is partly about inducting a new member of the scholarly community and, nowadays, this means using contemporary communications media. We concur with Florida (2003) who argues that although modern ‘creative’ knowledge economies operate using these media in ways that almost render time and distance irrelevant, place is important to the people who constitute the societies and communities fuelled by these economies. They may well have strong professional and social relationships online, but their everyday existence is rooted in a place (or places) in which they live (eat, sleep, work, play etc). This dichotomy pervades all doctoral education, however, the balance is different for doctoral education at a distance. There is no doubt that the ‘tyranny of distance’ can be an obstacle for even the most eager student. By dint of its highly particular and specialised orientation, doctoral level research is built on a foundation of solitary reading, thinking and writing. Clearly, feelings of isolation from one’s doctoral peers and supervisors can be greater within distance education, but these also can be profound for any doctoral student. Over the doctoral years, successful completion rests as much on the capacity for sustained, systematic, solitary effort as it does on intellect. The challenge exists to explore the relational needs of distance education doctoral candidates so that appropriate connection and support strategies can be offered. We have anecdotal evidence suggesting that (some) doctoral students dislike being exposed to support and networking strategies that work well with undergraduate off-campus students. Just as providing insufficient opportunity for connection will undermine the progress of candidature so, too, can excessive demands for contact. In establishing their protocols and expectations, distance education doctoral research providers need to be able to accommodate a wide variety of needs and expectations. To this end, there can be no formula to subordinate the personalities and practices of the individuals involved in the student-supervisor relationship. A lot ultimately rests on the allocated supervisor(s) and their capacity to successfully interpret, accommodate and monitor the demands of this relationship. There is a rich vein of research here for distance education researchers which involves exploring the needs, nature and contexts of doctoral students and their supervisors, and developing frameworks for good practice that reflect the nature of doctoral studies and the diversity of the candidates’, supervisors’ and disciplinary interests involved.

Constructing doctoral communities Further to exploring the supervisory relationships in doctoral education, there is the related issue of what is involved in constructing and sustaining doctoral communities. Such communities may well be seen as a bridge into the disciplinary communities of the 127

candidates’ fields. One may assume that constructing doctoral communities at a distance is much like constructing other learning communities. To an extent this is the case, however, our experience suggests that doctoral candidates and doctoral pedagogy operate in significantly different ways in this regard. It is important to recognise that doctoral candidates are highly educated people with a strong record of academic achievement. Typically, our students hold two or three degrees, at least one of which is a Masters degree. They have undertaken at least one piece of research for assessment and have sustained Distinction grades or better. Because they are usually mid-career professionals they are often well-versed in ‘networking’ etc. As noted above, we have found from our evaluations that doctoral candidates value activities that support their doctoral work but they dislike activities that appear to be tangential to their goals. Some are also wellversed in online work and online communities; others may be novices. Our experience suggests that doctoral students are usually very receptive to communal activities that comprise authentic, productive tasks; they are usually intolerant of activities that are only about building a community. There is potential research and development work to be done here that identifies (part-time) doctoral candidates’ orientations and approaches to study, their expertise and needs, and then develops effective doctoral strategies for distance students. A strongly related feature of developing effective doctoral programs by distance education, involves understanding the nature of doctoral study and its outcomes. These are very different from those of even the postgraduate coursework students. Doctoral study has a strong individualist component, even in the laboratory sciences where a candidate’s research may be part of a team project. In essence, a doctoral student is expected to demonstrate that they have undertaken a piece of research and/or scholarship that makes a significant contribution to knowledge in the field. Although there is very important learning of existing knowledge that takes place in a doctoral program, it is this individual contribution to knowledge that is both fundamental and substantial to doctoral work. Developing ‘learning communities’ in a doctoral program needs to recognise the tension here between a communitarian scholarly exercise and the individualist imperative to produce a significant contribution to knowledge. Therefore, in constructing a doctoral community at a distance using forms of communication media, the needs and requirements of the students need to be structured into both the processes and the substance. Such matters are researchable across particular fields and disciplines, as well as the various personal, social, professional and cultural contexts of doctoral students and their courses.

Examinations In our experience at Deakin, the examination process is conducted identically for all doctoral students (oral examinations and defences are rare in Australia). Therefore, examiners are unlikely to know if the student is on- or off-campus, especially in our field of Education, where all doctoral research almost invariably has to be conducted ‘in the field’, that is, outside the campus. What is likely is that the examiner will be able to infer or conclude that the candidature was part-time, or included some period of part-time study. However, as we noted previously, the notion of what constitutes on-campus parttime study, especially in a ‘fieldwork’ discipline is problematic. We suggest that what is 128

required is an analysis of the examination processes and performance of on-campus and off-campus doctoral students in similar programs. A comparative approach would be useful here as there as some different doctoral traditions extant in different parts of the world and these may well have an effect on the examination processes and experiences for off-campus students, and on the outcomes. If there is proven to be little or no difference in the processes and outcomes, at least within some doctoral traditions or programs, then this may well help change the policies of governments and institutions that discriminate against off-campus doctorates. Concluding comment The growth of doctorates in professional areas that are undertaken part-time and, officially or unofficially, at a distance has been profound in the past decade or more in Australia, and in some cases overseas. We have explained some of the practical matters we have faced in order to offer a successful doctoral program at a distance, which Deakin University has been doing for about 25 years. The opportunity provided by the RIDE’04 Conference, and this publication, led us to consider the implications of conducting ‘research training’, as doctoral education is known, at a distance. We have selected some matters that we believe are worthy of research in distance education, and may warrant further consideration by researchers of both distance education and doctoral education. There is an increasing literature on doctoral education, in Australia and internationally (see Evans, Macauley, Pearson & Tregenza, 2003, pp. 1–2). Distance education has been an important, if implicit, part of the practice of doctoral education, especially with the increase in part-time doctoral candidates. It seems timely for research, scholarship and dcbate on doctoral education at a distance to occur more explicitly within the distance education community.

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