A PhD program is the backbone of a research university, its most important facet, one which clearly separates it from institutions which focus on teaching. In fact, the basic definition of a research university in the Carnegie Classification Framework for Universities in the US is based on the size of the PhD programs of these institutions. In many countries, including India, PhD students are the main human resources, besides the faculty, for research in a university – while research is driven by the faculty, much of the work is actually carried out by its PhD students, who also provide a source of fresh ideas.
The PhD is a unique degree. While the goal of other education programs is to build understanding and expertise in existing knowledge, the PhD program’s goal is to mould students into knowledge creators. And unlike the other education programs where many students are taught together in a course, it is fundamentally a program where each student is “taught” individually and progresses at an individual pace towards completion. It is more like an apprentice-model for education, rather than the class-room based model followed in other programs. Due to its special nature, the program often has a loosely defined structure.
While bachelor’s and master’s programs are subjects of intensive discussions and debates in faculty bodies, boards and senates, and attract central focus in university accreditations, PhD program often do not get such attention. In this post, I will discuss the goals or objectives of a modern PhD program, and what are the desired graduate attributes of a PhD. Program objectives and graduate attributes are standard formulations for undergraduate programs, but are unfortunately not commonly articulated for PhD programs. There are some implied goals, but the way the science and the world are changing, goals of a PhD program need to be revisited.
Objectives
The main goal of the PhD program is to develop researchers who are well-equipped to undertake research challenges of the future for the benefit of the society. As it is almost impossible to claim that someone has become a researcher without a properly documented record of actual research, an important objective of the PhD program is to extend knowledge about some topic – this knowledge is generated by the PhD scholar with guidance of his/her supervisor.
To be a sound researcher, it is imperative that the researcher not only has research skills, but wide knowledge in the chosen area of research. Only with extensive awareness and deep understanding of the work done so far can a researcher claim that the work he/she has done is “new” (which is the basic premise for it to be considered research), “worthy” and “useful”. Hence, developing knowledge in the chosen area of research can be considered another objective of a PhD program. This skill of building the knowledge base and identifying the gaps in it is a fundamental research capability and is essential for a long career in research as a researcher will work in different areas during the course of her career.
These two objectives are sometimes stated as the two basic goals of a PhD program: to extend knowledge about an important topic through research, and to provide training to the PhD student to develop competencies needed to be an effective researcher. These together can be considered as research competencies.
Traditionally, PhD programs implicitly or explicitly tend to train the PhD scholars as if they are being prepared for an academic career. Perhaps this bias is natural given the supervisor of the student considers an academic career as the highest calling for a researcher. While earlier most PhDs may have joined academics, this has changed – a large fraction of PhDs in applied areas like computing and engineering, take up employment outside academia. And it is expected that this trend will continue and more and more PhDs will be employed in areas other than academia. As economies are becoming innovation-driven and new businesses emerge in newer areas that will be powered by R&D, they are likely to use more PhDs. Think tanks and policy bodies, which have traditionally employed research scholars for their work, will continue scouting for PhD graduates. PhDs are also expected to take more leadership roles in corporations, research groups, policy making bodies and other institutions.
Keeping these reasons in mind, besides cultivating their research capabilities, it is desirable that the PhD graduates also possess transferrable and translational competencies, to enable them to have a successful career outside academia, which often require skills beyond creating new knowledge in a chosen field of study. These are sometimes called professional competencies, and developing these can be considered as another basic objective of a contemporary PhD program.
Researchers have always viewed themselves as a global fraternity, with the output of research treated as quintessentially public property, available to all regardless of where the knowledge may have been produced. Research has been globalized, much before globalization became a buzz word – stories of researchers travelling and staying in different countries and collaborating with scholars of other nationalities are many. With the rise of globalization and global corporations, with the world shrinking through myriad forms of connectivity and ease of travel, this trend will only accelerate. PhD graduates are expected to be global researchers who can work in multinational teams on global challenges, staying in different countries for periods of time. To facilitate this, a PhD program should also develop suitable cultural competencies in its PhD graduates.
We can thus say that the basic objectives of a PhD program are to develop researchers who have wide knowledge about their area, strong research skills which have been demonstrated by generating new knowledge, are well equipped with translational competencies to undertake a range of careers, and have cultural competencies to work in different cultural contexts. In other words, a PhD program should aim to develop research competencies, professional competencies, and cultural competencies.
Graduate Attributes
Graduate attributes of a program define the traits a graduate of the program is likely to have. In other words, they describe the characteristics of a graduate of the program. Often these outcomes are divided into general attributes regarding general capabilities and competencies of a graduate, and discipline specific attributes which specify competencies pertaining to a select field of knowledge. Some of the desired general graduate attributes for a quality PhD program are:
- Independence: A PhD graduate is expected to be an independent researcher in her own right, capable of forming her own teams and following her own research agenda. This, in some sense, is the most fundamental difference between a PhD scholar and a PhD graduate. As a scholar one conducts research under the guidance of the supervisor, but after the PhD degree is awarded, the researcher is expected to work independently, and even guide some junior researchers (other PhD students, interns, master’s dissertations, etc.).
- Innovation and creativity: This provides the ability to identify and formulate potential research problems as well as the approaches for addressing them. Identifying and formulating research problems are the core skills of a researcher – s/he has to be creative to identify research problems which are worthy of sustained effort and which may lead to good research outcomes and/or publication(s). Formulating research problems and pursuing them, particularly in the face of constraints and challenges, requires the ability to find innovative measures. Overall, having the creativity and imagination to spot potential research problems, which is one of the most important challenges for researchers in many disciplines, is a key capability, along with the ability to evolve efficient and effective approaches for addressing the problem. A PhD graduate must have this attribute.
- Ability to develop in-depth knowledge of the research area: A researcher may have to work on different topics at different times. He must have the ability to quickly build the knowledge base and ensure that he has in-depth knowledge of related research and results. Without this, it is easy to spend time exploring problems whose results have already been published. This also requires developing a broader perspective and understanding of the different sub-areas in the research topic, including connections between the sub-areas.
- Ability to critically read research papers: In-depth knowledge can be developed in a field by a researcher only if s/he has a strong ability to critically read research papers and understand the subtleties and nuances that may be involved in the work. For a researcher, the only way to be abreast of the latest developments in her area is to read research papers – text books are of no help here. Critical reading of papers also involves identifying the limitations of the work, how it can be applied or extended, what may be the related problems, among other critical concerns. It can be safely said that for many researchers reading of research papers is also a source of getting ideas for their work, besides, of course, gaining knowledge about latest developments.
- Ability to apply suitable research methods to rigorously explore a given problem: Once a research problem is identified, besides deciding on the approach for exploring it, a lot of effort has to be invested in applying recognized research techniques which can lead to robust scientific results eligible for publication in reputed platforms. Hence, a good understanding of research methods and the judicious discretion to apply them effectively is an essential capability of a researcher. This can also be considered as the ability to implement a high-level research goal – i.e. to convert it into a sound research project and then see it through to completion.
- Aspiration to do high-quality work and publish in highly reputed venues: Without the desire to do high-quality work and submit it for publication in reputed venues, average research is inevitable. All too often, PhD students are too focused on completing the thesis and acquiring the PhD degree, opting for an easy path of doing mediocre work of greater ease and lower risk, which are then published in low impact forums. A PhD program should try to develop high aspirations in the student.
- Ability to communicate effectively: This is a critical capability of a researcher – to be able to communicate her work in writing (technical papers) as well as in oral presentation. Writing research papers is absolutely essential – without it research cannot really be recognized. Often researchers are requested to give seminars on their work in conferences, university departments and other intellectual gatherings. Hence, effective written and oral technical communication is an indispensable capability. Besides technical communication, it is also highly desirable that the researcher has the capability to communicate the problem and the results to a non-technical audience also – this is now needed not only to explain to a wider target group, but also for collaborating across disciplines to address interdisciplinary challenges.
- Integration with the scientific community: Research is essentially done by one global fraternity of researchers in an area. The union is preserved through its conferences, regular meetings, journals and digital interfaces. It is important for a researcher to be integrated in this fraternity – this will help not only being updated of the latest developments, but engagement with the fraternity can help in refining existing ideas or collecting new ones.
- Ability to collaborate with other researchers: This is the essential cultural competency, as discussed above, as a researcher works in different contexts and with different collaborators who may often be of other nationalities and different cultural backgrounds.
These are general attributes, independent of the discipline, which a PhD graduate is expected to possess. It is expected that PhD graduates have some discipline-specific capabilities as well, which have to be developed by each discipline, and will depend on the nature of the specific subject.
In the next post, I will discuss some characteristics of a high quality PhD program.
