This Postgraduate Issues Network event (organised by Dr Richard Race, Visiting Professor, Sapienza University) invites participants to reflect upon domestic and international issues concerning doctorates. Steered by presentations by Professor Gill Forrester (Staffordshire University, England), Professor Jane Jensen, Jill A. Perry (both of Kentucky University, USA), we will discuss good practice and increasing understandings of doctoral processes, as well as focusing on the challenges and opportunities of present and future professional practice in relation to doctoral systems.

Abstracts of each presentation can be found below, along with speaker biographies and the event schedule - times are listed in GMT.

Presentations

Professor Gill Forrester (Staffordshire University, UK): Navigating the pathway to a doctorate; why education practitioners should consider undertaking an EdD

The presentation will reflect upon undertaking a Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) from the perspective of an EdD programme leader who is also an experienced doctoral supervisor and examiner. The presenter will offer insights into how education professionals can make an important contribution to their practice through their doctoral research. The presentation will consider the advantages and challenges of conducting  research in one’s own education setting, learning as part of a cohort, managing the independent research stage and the importance of reflexivity throughout the research process. 

Dr Jill A. Perry (University of Pittsburgh , USA) and Dr Jane Jensen (Kentucky University, USA): Developing the Scholarly Practitioner: The Education Doctorate

The discussion of the Education Doctorate will center around an international effort to improve the degree to better serve educational practitioners in addressing the problems of practice they encounter daily. The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate is a consortium of over 125 universities in the US, Canada, and Ireland that collaborate to define and distinguish the programmatic components that make up a professional degree in education. In such degrees, research and inquiry are taught for applied use and dissertations in practice are aimed at addressing and improving problems of practice. 

Schedule

Speaker biographies

Professor Gill Forrester is Professor of Education Policy in the Institute of Education at Staffordshire University. She has over 20 years’ experience of working in higher education.  Gill leads the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) and supervises EdD and PhD students.  Her main research interests lie in education policy, policy processes and the lived experiences of pupils, parents, teachers and leaders in schools, and students and academics in higher education. Gill is co-author of Education Policy Unravelled published by Bloomsbury in 2016.  

Dr Jane McEldowney Jensen is the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Kentucky and the former director of the department’s EdD in Educational Policy Studies, Measurement and Evaluation. An anthropologist by training, Dr. McEldowney Jensen conducts research on ways that college students reflexively negotiate academic capitals. Current projects focus on the ways in which students understand and access the undergraduate curriculum and co-curriculum, particularly in the area of aesthetics and creativity. She has supervised over 40 PhD and EdD students writing collaborative dissertations, manuscript dissertations, and traditional monographs.

Dr Jill Alexa Perry is the Executive Director of the Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED) and an Associate Professor of Practice in the Educational Foundations, Organizations and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh.  Her research focuses on professional doctorate preparation in education, organizational change in higher education, and faculty leadership roles. Currently she is researching the ways EdD programs teach practitioners to utilize research evidence. She teaches and coaches how to design EdD programs and teach Improvement Science as a signature methodology. Her books include The Improvement Science Dissertation in Practice, The EdD and the Scholarly Practitioner, and In their own words: A journey to the stewardship of the practice in education. She is a Fulbright Scholar (Germany) and a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Paraguay).