On 12 Dec 2009, at 9:43 am, Ken Friedman wrote:
> But I am
> uncomfortable with the statement that the future is already here at
> some
> of the schools that Janet gives as exemplars. According to the
> Research
> Assessment Exercise results for 2008, only the Royal College of Art
> submission suggests more work in the top 4* range than in the lower
> ranks. The 4* rank designates “Quality that is world-leading in terms
> of originality, significance and rigour.” The rest of the schools
> range from ordinary excellence to plain good.
Without getting into who does what and how well they do it, I must
point out that there are several confusions here.
Firstly, there is the question of how one might interpret RAE results.
'World leading' is what it says it is. The next two lower categories
are still pretty good though, of international significance. Many of
the submissions for RAE2008 achieved 60-70 per cent with international
significance, more in some cases. Overall, the sector produced an
extraordinarily healthy result, and was often the best outcome of any
department in the new universities.
Secondly, simple percentages, without reference to the sample size and
type of institution, do not make for good comparisons. For example,
one cannot easily compare the RCA with UAL as the latter has four
times the staff FTE submitted, and a much wider mix of subjects at
both undergraduate and postgraduate levels (RCA is PG only). We also
do not know the proportion of staff submitted compared with the total
staff size. A few submitted nearly all relevant staff, most did not.
All the places Janet cites are excellent, though I would want a
definition of Ken's 'ordinary excellence' before I tried making
further judgement on the evidence!
Thirdly, one of the most significant category errors (that many fall
into), is relating doctoral study to RAE performance. The RAE measures
the quality of staff research outputs, the infrastructure that
supports the researchers, and makes judgements about how highly
regarded those staff are among peers. The RAE does not assess the
quality of doctoral study. Furthermore, research that would be
acceptable for RAE submission may not be acceptable for a PhD outcome.
The RAE tells us nothing about the quality of doctoral programmes, nor
even whether the institution has a doctoral programme. Much as I would
like to believe in a causal link between excellent research and
excellent teaching, investigations have found no such link or are at
least ambiguous.
However, it is perhaps implicit in Ken's concerns that some of these
'future' PhDs may not be all that good, and here I will agree
strongly. In my direct experience, I have met people with PhDs from
good universities - including at least two that Janet mentions - who I
would not employ as researchers and certainly would not let loose on
supervising PhD students. Some have had no research methods training
whatsoever and consequently no broad knowledge of methodologies, and
talk of a personal journey where they 'invent' the PhD for themselves.
Incidentally, London institutes do not have a monopoly on excellence
in doctoral training...
But here we stray into territory much discussed in the past and for
which, as Ken suggests, there is a sizeable literature. I will end by
making a related point. I have become acutely aware in recent times
that design comprises several distinct communities with very little
overlap between them. This list is one community, but it would be
folly to think that all design research views are represented here.
There may well be newcomers to this list who have no idea of past
debates on these topics. There are other communities who have never
heard of this community, and will not have been exposed to the intense
debates held here over some years. Therefore it is no surprise that
the same topics are raised every so often.
David
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David Durling FDRS PhD http://durling.tel
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