Hi Johann and Ali,

Interesting discussion.


On 04/07/2018 07:42, Johann van der Merwe wrote:

PhD work should not be viewed as "learning to do research"; if design
students cannot "do reseach" at undergraduate level, why would they
suddenly become researchers later on? Who teaches them?


On 04/07/2018 11:21, Johann van der Merwe wrote:

Also: modern students can't "read" a library shelf ... how can they find
the "research" information they need to complete one of our "research
essays"?


On 04/07/2018 10:31, Ali Ilhan wrote:

Example: There are many 3-year excellent studio based design programs, with no emphasis on research. And some students continue with two more years of non-research based, mostly applied MA programs (I am not getting into the thorny issue of practice-led PhDs here). And some of these students, further along the road, decide to pursue non-practice led PhDs. How did you deal with these kinds of students when they came to your PhD program, since most of them lack the necessary research/writing skills that you are talking about. Obviously I am making a hypothetical case here.

Ali's case is not that hypothetical, I'm a living illustration of it: 4-year non-research BDes Industrial Design (Gerrit Rietveld Academie, NL), 2-year non-research MA Industrial Design (Designskolen Kolding, DK) and currently pursuing a 3-year research PhD in Computer Science (University of Bath, UK). Going by Johann's post, my educational background is an ill fit with the requirements for successfully completing a research PhD. When I decided I wanted to do a PhD, I applied for a few scholarships and in all my applications I've been very open about my lack of academic research skills. I won three scholarships at "proper" research universities. Each of the institutions motivated their award by stressing how my background could positively contribute to academic research, and that picking up research skills along the way would be no problem. Shame I could only accept one, as all three looked very promising.

My PhD supervisors have backgrounds in Cognitive Psychology, Computer Science and Engineering/ Management and I learn from them every day (there is no formal taught component to my PhD). I think that's great, because I wanted to do a PhD to expand my knowledge and skills. I don't see an issue with catching up on skills others may have acquired during their undergrad/ masters period, in fact our university has an excellent skills training programme for PhD researchers and also equally excellent math/ statistics, language/ writing and library/ information finding support. Apart from that, my BDes and MA taught me other skills that are as useful for doing PhD research (e.g. idea generation and conceptualisation, flexibility and adaptivity). I'm sure I will contribute to knowledge with my PhD, but "learning to do research" definitely is an important part of it as well. The future will prove if it works out, until then I believe there is more than one road that leads to Rome.

Johann, I'm not sure what defines a 'modern student' and if I'm one, but I can perfectly find and weigh information, with or without library shelves. Most libraries have good search engines these days and there are many other ways to get access to information. I'm curious to hear how in your opinion students have changed (at least that's what I assume you suggest has happened) and over what period of time? By the way, finding, analysing and critically weighing information are skills designers also learn in their education. Their sources and purposes may be different, but the principles are not all that different I believe.

All best,
Melle


melle zijlstra         (phd researcher | university of bath | department of computer science)
bath                   (uk)
dublin                 (ireland)

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