NEW PARTNERSHIP FOCUSING ON HIGHER DEGREE RESEARCH
Media release
Australian Learning & Teaching Council
4 November 2010
NEW PARTNERSHIP FOCUSING ON HIGHER DEGREE RESEARCH
A new project focusing on the challenges facing doctoral education in Australia will see the ALTC form an exciting partnership with the Australian Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies (DDoGS) for the first time.
The pilot project will investigate higher degree research (HDR) graduate pathways and outcomes, which was identified as the primary challenge for Australian higher education by a recent Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR) report.
Dr Margaret Kiley, a researcher within the Centre for Educational Development and Academic Methods at the Australian National University will lead the pilot, funded by a $10, 000 grant from the ALTC.
While the Graduate Destinations Survey allows institutions to see where candidates go after completing their degrees, questions still exist around the rising age of candidates and how they get to doctoral education from previous academic work. The project, titled Where are our doctoral candidates coming from and why, will aim to provide some answers to these questions and outline a more extensive study into the pathways in, through and out of doctoral programs.
“The value of such a study is that the findings will help to position Australian higher education to be forward looking with regard to research education,” said Dr Kiley.
The study will take place over the next twelve months, and will collect data from a number of institutions across the country.