Hear hear, Karel,
Ranulph
---- Original Message ----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Research through Design?
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:09:49 +0200
>Dear Terry,
>
>Thanks for your message and list of 'doctoral abilities'. Are you
>sure these are for PhD students?
>
>I would consider only two to be applicable to a PhD-education:
>- Set up and manage new research projects
>- Develop new research and theory (different from their PhD)
>
>One ability might be applicable, but this depends on the definition
>of 'high-level':
>- High-level reasoning skills
>
>All the others should have been acquired during a half-decent
>undergraduate-course:
>- Collaborate effectively in a variety of team roles
>- Good team worker
>- Sound administrator
>- Accurate and honest budget management
>- Develop quotes for work and plan workflows and resources
>- Write professional documents and reports that will stand legal
>scrutiny
>- Manage their personal and work lives professionally
>- Establish and maintain professional networks
>- Make sound professional and ethical judgments
>- Be politically and administratively effective
>
>As an external examiner for PhD-theses, I'm worried. I would not be
>able to provide much relevant feedback on any of these abilities.
>Most of it seems relevant to middle or lower-management. These are
>things that should be discussed during an annual assessment of an
>employer and do not seem to me as the relevant during a PhD
>examination.
>
>Kind regards,
>Karel.
>[log in to unmask]
>
>>>>
>
>
>On 18 Jun 2012, at 09:49, Terence Love wrote:
>
>Hello,
>
>A significant shift is occurring in refocusing the purpose and
>assessment of
>PhD study towards 'Doctoral attributes or competencies'.
>
>The nature of this change is likely to reframe and may potentially
>make
>irrelevant current debates about the relation between 'design and art
>practices and research.
>
>Prof Bryn Tellefsen and myself found evidence of this shift in
>direction
>already well established by 2001 (see, Tellefsen, B., & Love, T.
>(made
>available 2004, published date 2002). Doctoral Research in Design:
>The
>Future of the Practice-based Doctorate. International Journal of
>Design
>Science and Technology, 10(2), pp. 45-59 . Pre-print at
>http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2004/future_of_design_d
>octorat
>e.htm )
>
>By the late 1990s, it was clear that governments worldwide were
>dissatisfied
>with the value of PhD education to their societies and were already
>reconfiguring the rules by which it operated. Some of the first steps
>were
>to insist that PhDs were completed in a shorter time (3-4 years) and
>that
>PhD candidates underwent research training that was formally
>delivered. At
>street level this is now mostly implemented and is the current state
>of
>play in PhD curriculum practice.
>
>The longer term shift, however, is to a refocusing of the purpose and
>assessment of PhDs guaranteeing that all PhD candidates on completion
>have a
>certain minimum set of skills useful to societies. This marks a very
>significant shift from the idea of the purpose of a PhD as the
>production of
>'new knowledge'.
>
>Until recently, it has been assumed that the long thesis process,
>the
>US-style research training courses plus research project and the
>requirement that the PhD research would result in new findings would
>provide
>reliable indirect evidence of the PhD candidate's possession of those
>skills.
>
>The outcomes of research into PhD education and examination have
>indicated
>that 'PhD practices' and recent changes in them have meant that the
>assessment of the PhD outcomes is no longer guaranteed to provide a
>valid
>assessment of that minimum skill set.
>
>The result is an increasing shift towards assessing the doctoral
>skills
>directly.
>
>A transitional shift towards this assessing of doctoral skills is
>the
>increasingly use of checklists of PhD attributes given to PhD
>examiners.
>
>At this point, these skill checklists are very loose and generic. The
>trend,
>however, is for these assessment checklists to evolve into a more
>structured assessment of research skills independent of assessing the
>research outcomes and given priority over it.
>
>The forces and factors currently acting on the development of the PhD
>as an
>award suggest that such a refocusing of the purposes and assessment
>of PhDs
>will centre on assessing the PhD candidate's acquisition of the
>following
>doctoral abilities:
>
>Set up and manage new research projects
>Develop new research and theory (different from their PhD)
>High-level reasoning skills
>Collaborate effectively in a variety of team roles
>Good team worker
>Sound administrator
>Accurate and honest budget management
>Develop quotes for work and plan workflows and resources
>Write professional documents and reports that will stand legal
>scrutiny
>Manage their personal and work lives professionally
>Establish and maintain professional networks
>Make sound professional and ethical judgments
>Be politically and administratively effective
>
>These new directions in the purpose and assessment of PhDs are
>already
>emerging in some of the higher quality research institutions.
>
>When implemented broadly they will mark a significant educational
>and
>organisational shift towards the PhD candidates acquisition of
>practical
>high-level professional skills and doctoral professional attributes
>and
>away from the current focus of PhD candidates and supervisors on the
>PhD
>candidate's research/practice outcomes.
>
>Best wishes,
>Terry
>==
>Dr Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI
>PhD, B.A. (Hons) Eng, P.G.C.E
>School of Design and Art, Curtin University, Western Australia
>Psychology and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Western
>Australia
>Honorary Fellow, IEED, Management School, Lancaster University, UK
>
>PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks, Western Australia 6030
>[log in to unmask] +61 (0)4 3497 5848
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