This study investigated the relationship of formal academic support systems and stage of doctoral study on persistence, satisfaction, and knowledge of resources, expectations, and customs in doctoral education. Doctoral students (N = 141) enrolled in four public institutions in a southeastern state were surveyed. An online questionnaire, adapted…

The nontraditional doctorate is a relatively recent development in the long history of the doctoral degree. Understanding what makes a doctoral degree "nontraditional" requires describing its key features in relation to those of the traditional doctorate and embedding this analysis in a historical context. In this article, the author provides a…

The road to a new degree program is rarely smooth. The author describes the lengthy and bumpy path to the successful creation of and approval for the first nontraditional doctorate offered at Georgetown University, the Doctor of Liberal Studies Degree (DLS). The new Doctor in Liberal Studies (DLS) required applicants to have a master's degree or…

This paper focuses on the ways in which mothering, work and dyslexia intersect in lived experience. The theoretical framework used to interpret these experiences draws on competing discourses variously imposed on and internalised by the individual; however, it also stresses the ability (however limited) of the individual to reframe and therefore…

A quantitative analysis of the admissions and graduation requirements guidelines of the special education doctoral programs at 20 top American universities was conducted. Admission requirements typically include an application fee, previous coursework GPA, previous field experience, GRE scores, TOEFL scores, professional writing sample(s), and…

This paper examines the key issues at stake for national economies in increasing the number of PhDs to meet expected needs for human capital in science, technology and innovation using illustrations mainly from the European Commission's "Careers of Doctorate Holders" surveys on PhD labour market outcomes; it has been shown that PhD…

This qualitative study of four executive doctoral programs for experienced educational leaders examines the relationship between specific program features and learning opportunities for students. I found that the weekend format, cohort model, and professionally grounded curriculum and assessments provided important opportunities for reflective…

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students to conduct research in other countries in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of six to 12 months. This program holds an annual competition. Institutions of higher education in the…

Grounded in literature on the miseducation of students whose native varieties of English differ most noticeably from the standard academic variety (Delpit 2006; Labov 1972a; Rickford 1999; Smitherman 1999; Wolfram, Adger, and Christian 1999; Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2006), this dissertation examines the links between the sociolinguistic…

Contemporary changes to the doctorate mean student researchers are likely to be expected to write differently, write more and more often, and yet, despite a growing interest in doctoral education, we still know relatively little about the teaching and learning practices of students and supervisors vis-a-vis doctoral writing. This paper draws from…

This article examines the stories of 24 social sciences doctoral students in three universities, one in Canada and two in the UK, who experienced challenging roads to completion. While their stories confirm earlier findings, they also provide insight into how students' agency and personal networks of relationships may be critical, both as…

The purpose of this study was to describe the life experiences of science/engineering students who had been dissatisfied with their lives during graduate school in Taiwan. This study adopted a qualitative method of phenomenology utilizing in-depth interviews for data collection. Thirteen male and five female students with an average age of 24.85…

While writing in doctoral education is increasingly visible as a focus for research and pedagogy, what remains less visible is the role of reading in the doctoral journey. This paper draws on data from two parallel research programmes in which doctoral student day-to-day experience was documented longitudinally, initially in the social sciences…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to share the reflections of a group of five academics who started supervising practice-based doctoral students at a similar time in the same institution. Design/methodology/approach: The supervisors engaged in a collaborative research process themselves, exploring their supervision practices, due in part to…

A review of 13 years of research into antecedents of university students' grade point average (GPA) scores generated the following: a comprehensive, conceptual map of known correlates of tertiary GPA; assessment of the magnitude of average, weighted correlations with GPA; and tests of multivariate models of GPA correlates within and across…