This study evaluated the impact of a distance education program to meet the practice learning needs of first-year doctoral students. The program, a six-session case-based telephonic seminar, was taught to 19 first-year doctoral students. Evaluation of the program included self-report quantitative and qualitative data gathered pre- and postseminar,…

This paper grows from research which focuses on the learning characteristics of PhD students, incorporating communities of practice both during their studies and beyond completion of their PhD, and drawing on theories of adult learning and lifelong learning. It shows how professional discourse enhances academic discourse through student engagement…

Due to an increasing trend among states to cut higher education funds, many universities are relying more on private donations and federal funding to keep programs afloat. Scholarship productivity in general has become an integral factor in terms of universities granting tenure to faculty, allocating resources, and supporting program goals due to…

In this essay, Leigh Hall and Leslie Burns use theories of identity to understand mentoring relationships between faculty members and doctoral students who are being prepared as educational researchers. They suggest that becoming a professional researcher requires students to negotiate new identities and reconceptualize themselves both as people…

In today's academic climate, the old adage "publish or perish" no longer applies solely to postdoctoral scholars, lecturers, visiting and tenure-track faculty members. Many masters and doctoral (graduate) students nationwide are expected to publish their research results before graduation. Many leading academic departments have required…

This study will explore student skill development and research self-efficacy as related to online doctoral students' first core research course experience. Findings from this study will be used to inform instructors in effective ways to support doctoral students during their early research experiences. This support will ensure that online graduate…

Over the past three decades, researchers have studied doctoral research training programs using large scale surveys making visible trends in numbers of and kinds of research courses required, or using focused qualitative methods to gain rich, textured accounts of graduate school experiences. Both kinds of studies fail to capture the local,…

Librarians have historically been responsible for the organization and management of the stores of human knowledge, and for ensuring information literacy among researchers. In recent years, however, librarians have become disintermediated (Boyd-Byrnes & Rosenthal,2005) or, removed from, researchers and the research process for a variety of…

This article offers an account of a doctoral insider research project that became problematic. The project was investigating mathematics teaching in a university in the UK, and by contrasting the research account with research diary entries pertaining to two interviewees, different interpretations of the interview data are evident. These…

The pressures of new agendas, new students and new degrees are challenging traditional pedagogical frameworks in doctoral education. This article draws on an ethnographic study that examined the changing nature of doctoral supervision and the pedagogic practices that support the doctoral endeavour in programs that explicitly link research with…

Relatively few studies have explored the motivations of students in pursuing a professional doctorate. The study reported in this article is based on data from 29 students pursuing professional doctorates. The findings indicate a diverse range of motivations for taking this route: a "need" for theory, deeper insight into practice for…

Although distance education courses have become commonplace in most colleges and universities, the introduction of online research methods courses in the preparation of doctoral students has been slow in developing. This qualitative study explores the online learning experiences of doctoral students who have taken 1 or more of their research…

Background/Context: At a time when educational research is recognized as capable of improving teaching and learning, it is under attack for falling short of this promise. Part of the solution lies in improving the preparation of educational researchers. Toward this goal, the UW-Madison School of Education (SOE) participated with the Spencer…

Background/Context: Although doctoral education is an important component of research universities, few investigations of doctoral education exist. Furthermore, with the push in education and in other disciplines to help beginning researchers understand multiple paradigmatic, epistemological, and theoretical orientations that define fields of…