It was Thomas Kuhn (1962) who raised the idea of science having ‘paradigms’.
Paradigms are ideas within a subject area that appear to stand the
test of time, are held dear by the profession and are rarely questioned.
However, there are moments in time when evidence gathers to make a particular
paradigm look a little less robust and as more evidence gathers, this
leads to eventual breakdown.
This book chronicles the early stages of a paradigm change in the PhD from
a ‘traditional’ purely research model to one including research and personal
and professional training and development. The evidence which suggests
the necessity of this change is broad, but it has four key strands:
● The academic role is very different now from what it was 10 or 20 years
ago, with more significant demands in all areas of teaching and learning,
research and administration. If the academic role has changed,
then the ‘training’ for the role of being a research student must change
to reflect this.
● The Roberts report (Roberts 2002) summarizes that ‘skills acquired by
PhD graduates do not serve their long-term needs. Currently, PhDs do
not prepare people adequately for careers in business or academia’.
● Data on the careers paths of PhD graduates (Shinton 2004) show that
around half leave research altogether and only a quarter pursue an academic
career. Therefore, the notion that the PhD experience is training
for academia does not hold.
● Finally, given the changes in the academic role, it is clear that new skills,
attributes, techniques and behaviours need to be nurtured in the next
generation of academics to meet the challenges to academia in the
twenty-first century.
This book covers these issues in three sections. Part 1 considers the politics
and cultural changes behind the paradigm shift, probes what employers
are looking for and closely examines issues in the PhD qualification
itself.