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Renate Simpson.  The Development of the PhD Degree in Britain,
1917-1959 and Since: An Evolutionary and Statistical History in
Higher Education.  Foreword by Harold Silver. Lewiston  Edwin Mellen
Press, 2009.  xxxiv + 707 pp.  $159.95 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-7734-4827-8.

Reviewed by Liberty Sproat (History, Purdue University)
Published on H-Education (June, 2011)
Commissioned by Jonathan D. Anuik

For many PhD students today, the thought of completing their degree
in only three years seems absurd. Between 1917 and 1959, however, the
median time taken for PhD students in Britain was three years. This
is only one of many statistics brought to light in Renate Simpson's
2009 book, _The Development of the PhD Degree in Britain, 1917-1959
and Since_. In it, Simpson disseminates twenty years of research that
emphasizes the variety among programs and students and shows that
despite all of the developments in the PhD over the period covered in
the book, it is not so different from the typical PhD program today.

Rather than responding to other scholars' work, this book expands
upon Simpson's earlier research. The_ _book_ _is a sequel to her 1983
book _How the PhD Came to Britain: A Century of Struggle for
Postgraduate Education_, which focused on the years 1917-20. This new
work highlights the years 1917-59, about which the least is known.
She begins in 1917, the year of the creation of the PhD in Britain,
and ends right before the "Robbins Report" on higher education
(1963), which set a turning point because the chair, Lord Robbins,
compiled data on universities. Simpson refers to this report
frequently and calls for others to build upon her work, researching
the post-"Robbins Report" years of PhD degree history in Britain. In
addition, although she focuses on the PhD in Britain, she also refers
to programs elsewhere, particularly in Germany and the United States.
The author's frequent comparison of the PhD in Britain to that in the
United States, whose own PhD was still young though more established
than that of Britain, provides readers with greater social and
historical context. Additional research could not only expand the
chronological but also the geographical scope.

In terms of her approach, Simpson's work is an addition to
statistical history, but Harold Silver's foreword argues that it is
much more than that. It is also "careful, meticulous detective work
which addresses issues and implications" (p. xxiii). Indeed, the most
impressive aspect of _The Development of the PhD Degree in Britain_
is the years of investigative labor required to create such a notable
volume. The book does not set out with a clear argument but instead
responds to the complete lack of official statistics about English
and Scottish universities, both nationally and within most
institutions, regarding numbers and types of PhD students. Simpson
was inspired to create this piece after the Economic and Social
Research Council requested, in 1987, that she provide a historical
contribution to their report on submission rates for PhD programs in
the social sciences.[1] This book takes the concept of the report,
known as the Winfield Report, and shares data, including completion
rates, age, gender, home or overseas origin, prior educational
experience, subject area of study, and supervisory and examination
rates over a period of four decades. Particularly remarkable is that
Simpson is careful to include part-time and staff students, women,
returning or non-traditional students, and international students so
as not to assume all students were of one variety. To compile this
data, Simpson used student record cards, files, and registers,
carefully maintaining student anonymity in the work. In addition, she
relied on university conference proceedings, committee and senate
reports, and research by Ernest Rudd, Lionel Robbins, and the
University Grants Committee, which oversaw funding among universities
in the United Kingdom during the period covered.

Simpson did not set out to compile data that included all PhD
programs and students within her time period, but her sample is
nevertheless impressive. The study includes data from seven
institutions: the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge,
the University of Edinburgh, the University of Manchester, the London
School of Economics, Imperial College, and University College London.
Her sample of 9,600 includes approximately half of all PhD students
enrolled in British universities from 1917-59 and demonstrates the
variety of schools and specializations in the seven institutions.
Readers get the sense that certain trends regarding student age,
areas of study, and PhD requirements permeated the nation, while they
also sense the variety within; Simpson presents a nuanced rather than
a monolithic analysis of the PhD program. Throughout the book, she
continuously compares and contrasts the seven institutions. For
instance, she notes that Cambridge and Oxford did not permit
part-time study whereas one-fifth of students at Edinburgh and the
London School of Economics attended part time. Additionally, Oxford
stood out as more hesitant to support PhD work, particularly in
English, whereas Edinburgh gained a reputation for admitting a large
number of U.S. students. Simpson divided the students into so many
different categories, based on age, country of origin, gender, and
more that the reader is left to believe that all factors have been
thoroughly considered. By presenting overall statistics, too, Simpson
allows readers to notice general trends rather than getting lost in
the divisions and intersections of her data. For instance, readers
understand that approximately three-quarters of PhD students who
enrolled ended up completing their programs. We know, further, that
this trend changed slightly based on students' age and gender.
Overall, the management of this vast amount of data is remarkable.

The book is divided into two parts with several chapters in each.
Part 1, "Evolution of the PhD in Britain," is a historical overview
of the creation of PhD programs, courses of study in these programs,
and expectations of students. Part 2, "The British PhD in Numbers,"
investigates specific characteristics of PhD students, including
gender, age, area of study, completion rates, and country of origin.
The two sections of the book complement each other, demonstrating not
only the requirements for completion of a PhD but also the types of
students in PhD programs. With frequent headings and logical
progression of topics, the book's organization presents a thorough
and easy-to-follow discussion of the subject matter. Additionally,
Simpson's prose is concise and readable though repetitive at times.
Despite the technical nature of the research, Simpson utilizes a
conversational tone at times, sharing her own experiences as a
student, which reminds readers that the work is about people--not
merely numbers.

Rather than focusing on the chronological history of the PhD program,
part 1 identifies specific aspects of PhD work and how these aspects
came about and were solidified in the seven institutions under
review. Simpson provides an overview of the creation of the degree,
requirements for admission, and what the typical course of study
entailed. Additionally, she discusses debates over the management of
a thesis, inclusion of examinations, and the results of PhD study.
Throughout this portion of the text, readers gain a greater sense of
how PhD programs today do not differ dramatically from those of
earlier years. For instance, Simpson points out professors'
frustrations with underprepared students; the difficulty in balancing
the demands of supervising PhD students while maintaining one's own
research and teaching; debates over the balance of course work and
individual research; foreign-language requirements; and the push to
encourage students to finish within a reasonable amount of time while
not hindering thorough qualification for bestowal of the degree.
Throughout these discussions, Simpson shows that PhD requirements
were not only not uniform but were also hotly debated among and
within institutions. Part 1 is thus a story about the nature of the
PhD itself, situated in a historical context.

Simpson reminds readers that this work is about individual students,
too, and not simply about programs of study. For instance, while the
number of copies of the thesis a student was required to submit and
the required length of the thesis may seem trivial matters, Simpson
argues that "they certainly mattered to the candidate" (p. 115). In
that spirit, part 2 analyzes the make-up of students and their PhD
experiences. Simpson states, "The aim here is to provide as full a
profile as possible of the PhD student population in Britain during
the first 40 years or so of its existence" (p. 215). Through her
data, Simpson profiles the most common PhD student: British, male,
aged nineteen to twenty-three years, studying chemistry, and
completing the PhD in less than three years. Certainly, this is a
simplification of Simpson's data, but readers are enabled to draw
conclusions based on the numbers that Simpson makes available. She
describes both typical and atypical students in the arts, sciences,
and social sciences, part-time students, female students, overseas
students, and others. By placing her data within historical context,
she concludes that elements such as war and family responsibilities
likely influenced when, where, and how students enrolled in PhD
programs. For example, she gives reasons why more PhD students
studied science rather than the arts, noting the greater access to
funding in science, a fact reminiscent of today's realities. Simpson
thereby illustrates typical students while reminding readers of the
variations within the student population.

Perhaps the most helpful contribution of this book is its analysis of
completion rates in PhD programs. Most of the data Simpson
encountered pertained to those who completed PhD degrees but did not
consider those who began a program but eventually dropped out.
Simpson's work filled this gap in knowledge by comparing enrollment
and completion data at the seven institutions and analyzing results
based on faculty, department, age, gender, previous degrees, and
country of origin. Certainly, such findings can help institutions
today determine how to encourage greater success and higher
completion rates among students by addressing the concerns of the
past. For instance, Simpson notes the predilection of women toward
the arts; their decisions to not enroll in PhD programs, at least as
young adults; and their tendency to begin PhD programs at a later age
and experience greater difficulty than men in completing programs at
these later ages. Administrators and faculty in contemporary
post-secondary institutions may now look at these statistics to
provide greater support to female students struggling to manage
school and family responsibilities and to target adolescent females,
encouraging graduate education.

A drawback to Simpson's book is that it ends abruptly. Rather than
simply concluding nearly every chapter, and the book itself, with
data, it would have been helpful to have brief conclusions at the end
of each chapter and, indeed, a conclusion for the book itself. These
additions would also have helped develop an argument, showing the
data's significance. The reader is left with summaries of data but
not a thorough analysis of it. Conclusions would have reviewed
findings and noted both historical and current significance of the
statistics. Additionally, apart from a couple of brief anecdotes,
including one about Nobel laureate Peter Kapitza, the author focuses
on statistical summary and analysis rather than social experience.
The book allows the statistics to speak for themselves, but it would
have been helpful for Simpson to provide further analysis and to draw
conclusions from the data.

The book includes over two hundred tables and figures, mostly in part
2. Lists of tables and figures, a bibliography, and an index all aid
readers in using this work as a source for further research. Simpson
herself calls for additional investigation of the topic, noting her
chronological constraints that have left the past fifty years
unexplored. A task of this size is daunting, though Simpson's work
shows that it is possible. By providing statistics on the PhD program
in Britain, in addition to outlining the program's development,
Simpson emphasizes the importance of graduate programs within the
history of education and the place of Britain's PhD program in the
development of graduate studies worldwide. Additionally, her book
reminds scholars that educational statistics are about a diverse
group of students, who may not be so different from PhD students
today.

Note

[1]. Graham Winfield and the Economic and Social Research Council
(Great Britain), "The Social Science PhD: The ESRC Inquiry on
Submission Rates: A Report" (Swindon: Economic and Social Research
Council, 1987).

Citation: Liberty Sproat. Review of Simpson, Renate, _The Development
of the PhD Degree in Britain, 1917-1959 and Since: An Evolutionary
and Statistical History in Higher Education_. H-Education, H-Net
Reviews. June, 2011.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32983

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.