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Portrait of the grad student
Doctoral students are out of the loop about some important aspects of their lives as students and professionals, a new report shows. The new Ph.D.'s quandary of finding a job is a well-publicized concern. But "At Cross Purposes: What the experiences of today's doctoral students reveal about doctoral education" (www.phd-survey.org) sheds light on many others.
Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the survey is based on the responses of 4,114 students at 27 universities who were in at least their third year of study in the summer and fall of 1999. The point of the survey, which was co-directed by Chris M. Golde, a scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Timothy M. Dore, now an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Georgia, was both to learn what the doctoral education experience is like from the student's perspective and to identify what works and what does not in the process.
The researchers found that the training doctoral students receive is not what they want, nor does it prepare them for the jobs they take. Also, many students do not clearly understand what doctoral study entails, how the process works and how to navigate it effectively.
There is a three-way mismatch between student goals, training and actual careers, Golde and Dore found. "Doctoral students persist in pursuing careers as faculty members, and graduate programs persist in preparing them for careers at research universities, despite the well-publicized paucity of academic jobs and efforts to diversify the options available for doctorate holders. The result: Students are not well prepared to assume the faculty positions that are available, nor do they have a clear concept of their suitability for work outside of research."
The vast majority of students enter a doctoral program with the goal of becoming a faculty member. The sorry fact: No more than half will be hired in full-time, tenure-track positions. Students reported a scarcity of opportunities to explore other career options.
For most doctoral students, the primary draw of college life is a love of teaching, along with a desire to do research. The doctoral program emphasis, however, is on research, not teaching, despite the fact that only one-fourth of faculty work in research institutions.
To a lesser extent than teaching, but more than research, faculty's time is taken up with service and governance. Yet as with teaching, the students tend to be left in the dark as to the roles and practices of the academic citizen, the report shows. Only 16.6 percent of students, for example, had available to them a workshop or seminar on faculty roles and responsibilities.
In terms of succeeding in graduate school, the researchers found a "startling number of students report that they do not understand what is expected of them as students and what they can expect from their programs." Golde and Dore looked at student views on six broad aspects--the relationship with their advisor, financial support, annual reviews, coursework and examination, teaching assistantships and time to degree and graduation criteria. As the accompanying chart shows, there is a lack of mutual understanding of how these processes work.
The authors conclude that students, faculty, academic administrators and deans need to focus on ways to ensure that they are not all working at cross purposes. The most important element, Golde and Dore say, is communicating more clearly and providing better information and orientation from the outset.
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Learning the Ropes | |||||||
| How clear are doctoral education practices, and what is the most common source of students' information? | |||||||
| Customary practices regarding: | % very clear | %not clear | Advisor | Other faculty | Students | Written policy | Other |
| Fulfilling teaching assistant obligations | 63.8 | 7.2 | 8.0 | 21.8 | 13.7 | 49.7 | 6.9 |
| Funding graduate studies | 57.3 | 7.6 | 27.7 | 11.1 | 11.5 | 37.4 | 12.0 |
| Criteria for graduation | 45.4 | 12.8 | 41.3 | 5.5 | 9.7 | 39.5 | 4.0 |
| Grading student work | 42.0 | 11.3 | 10.4 | 58.3 | 17.0 | 8.1 | 9.2 |
| Funding of dissertation research | 40.4 | 20.4 | 52.8 | 9.3 | 6.6 | 20.0 | 11.7 |
| Length of time you would be a student | 30.9 | `4.6 | 27.6 | 5.2 | 35.5 | 22.2 | 9.4 |
| Time spent with advisor | 22.5 | 32.7 | 73.7 | 0.8 | 19.6 | 1.4 | 4.5 |
| N = 4,114 % saying "very clear" or "not at all clear." Other choice was "somewhat clear." Primary source of information cited by those saying "very clear" or "somewhat clear" on item. Shaded area = Most common source of information. SOURCE: At Corss Purposes: What the experiences of today's doctoral students reveal about doctoral education. | |||||||
California may scrap the SAT
The president of the University of California has proposed that the university stop asking applicants to provide math and verbal SAT scores as a requirement for admissions consideration. Speaking to a group of college presidents in February, Richard C. Atkinson said he had asked the UC Academic Senate to consider only scores from standardized tests that measure subject area knowledge, such as the SAT II.
Atkinson said that he has also recommended that the university move toward admissions policies that "look at applicants in a comprehensive, holistic way." Atkinson conceded that although it would be more costly for the university to review students on a wider range of criteria, in the long run the payoff for students, schools and families would be great. Schools and teachers could focus their pedagogy and curriculum on subject matter mastery instead of test-taking skills. Low-income and minority students, who tend not to do as well on standardized tests, would have greater opportunities to show achievement in other ways. And these changes, he said, "will lead to greater public confidence in the fairness of the University of California’s admissions process."
The UC president noted that there is widespread concern in education circles about how overemphasis on the SAT is "distorting education priorities and practices." In many ways, he said, "we are caught up in the educational equivalent of a nuclear arms race." Opting out, he added, places institutions at risk.
California institutions have been dealing with many admissions challenges in the past six years. The primary one is how to ensure that minority and disadvantaged students get a fair crack at attending UC, when the mechanisms the university is forced to use to make admissions decisions historically have favored white and Asian students. Although UC formerly had used affirmative action programs to achieve a balance in the student population that mirrored the demographic makeup of the state, those programs were restricted first by trustee action and then by a statewide voter initiative.
Atkinson called for the development of standardized tests that are directly tied to the college prep courses California high school students are required to take for admission to UC. Until those tests are created, he said, the system would rely on SAT II tests. In addition, admissions officers would continue to do more of the holistic evaluation they have been introducing of late. This entails looking at the quality of the high school and environment in which the prospective student has been reared.
