Abstract
Online doctoral programs are gaining in popularity, both among students
and institutions. However, research to date on the effectiveness and
popularity of such programs has looked largely at either quantitative
measures of student satisfaction or of administrative effectiveness and
design. Further, previous research has also tended to focus on the early
part of doctoral study; in specific, the coursework. This qualitative
study reports findings from four online doctoral programs in one UK
university, contributing to the literature in two important ways. First,
we aim to look specifically at current and recently graduated students’
experiences of doing their thesis using a demographic and experiential
survey. This will be followed up by in-depth interviews to better
understand the kinds of academic experiences and knowledge they both
bring to, and receive from their program. Second, we aim to analyse the
data through the lens of cognitive apprenticeship to help us better
understand the individual trajectories of students in the thesis portion
of their programs. By so doing, this research will contribute both
theoretically and practically to our understanding of student experience
of the thesis process in online doctoral programs. In particular, we
conclude that there is a lack of knowledge and frameworks for how to
design online/distance post-graduate programmes that best support the
cognitive apprenticeship model. We suggest a shift in the research
agenda on this issue: Perhaps, the first step towards a more effective
direction is to focus less on quantitative measures for success, like
enrolment statistics or graduation rate but rather to employ qualitative
judgements for the evolution of the post-graduate experience. What
might be the guidelines for such qualitative judgments? The answer may
lie within the principles of Networked Learning: knowledge is not
confined to an individual; rather, it is distributed across individuals
within the environment. That is, learning is not an in-the-head
phenomenon but a matter of engagement with, participation in, and
membership to a community. We argue that it is through this notion of
learning that we may develop a more effective framework to
reconceptualise the theory and practice of online/distance post-graduate
education within the cognitive apprenticeship model of learning.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Networked Learning 2018 |
Publication status | Published - 14 May 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |