Mapping the Doctorate: A Longitudinal Study of PhD Students and their Supervisor Camille B. Kandiko Howson & Ian Kinchin (Chapter 17 in L. Shedletsky & J. Beaudry’s Cases on Teaching Critical Thinking through Visual Representation Strategies. IGI-Global, Hershey, PA. doctorate.pptx

OVERVIEW This chapter reports on the results of a four-year longitudinal study of PhD students and their supervisors with regard to how they view the experience of getting a PhD; PhD students and their supervisors created concept maps to represent their understanding of the PhD experience, the purpose, content and the process of gaining a doctorate; In addition, PhD students and their supervisors were interviewed and discussed their maps every 3 to 4 months throughout the four- year period of the PhD experience; Based on both structural evidence from the maps and interview responses, it was found that students and supervisors saw the PhD experience very differently;

SOME BACKGROUND INFORMATION This study used concept mapping (Novak, 2010) 1 ; used concept mapping used concept mapping Students and supervisors represented their underlying conceptual frameworks with maps and also by interviews; Maps and interviews were done every 3 to 4 months, so changes in thinking were displayed over time; It was hoped that what conceptual structures revealed would aid in the supervisory relationship; The students in this study were all registered in PhDs at a research intensive university within the UK; In short, concept maps were used in this study to interrogate the quality of understanding held by students and supervisors in the PhD programs; This study followed up on other studies that have looked at the relationship between map structures and understanding; The types types of map structures commonly found are: Spokes [static] Chains [static] Networks Cyclic [in which concepts are viewed as continuously changing and influencing each other in a loop] Cyclic structures are thought to be more dynamic than other structures 1 Novak, J. D. (2010). Learning, creating, and using knowledge: Concept maps as facilitative tools in schools and corporations (2 nd ed.). Routledge, Oxford, UK.

Methodology Study participants were made up of 5 student/supervisor pairs; All of the students successfully completed their doctoral degrees; the pairs came from humanities, clinical sciences and biomedical fields; PhD students and their supervisors created concept maps to represent the content of the PhD, the topic of the student’s PhD, and one on what is a PhD; The maps acted as stimulants [concept map-mediated interviews] for interviews with the researcher. Interviews were conducted separately for students and supervisors; The interviews were repeated every 3 to 4 months for 4 years;

Analysis Comparisons were made within each student/supervisory pair and across student participants and supervisors; Data were explored in terms of content, process, development and knowledge structures; Interview transcripts were used to clarify terms; This chapter focuses on the structure of the maps, in particular how the links, cross-links and directionality show different conceptualizations of the purpose and process of doctoral education;

Results The concept maps showed that students and their supervisors had different perceptions of both the content of the PhD and the process of doctoral study; Supervisors saw the PhD as part of a bigger picture, in relation to their own work and to the area of study; Supervisors viewed doctoral study as a process rather than as development of a product; Students were more focused on their own studies than on the discipline as a whole; Students were product oriented; Student represented their view as a linear pathway with an end point; supervisorstudent supervisor’s view of the process

Summary Concept mapping revealed more than interviews and transcripts alone; The maps showed that supervisors and PhD students held differing views on what a PhD is and what the process of obtaining a PhD consists of; Supervisor maps tended to be more cyclic in structure while student maps tended to be linear, suggesting that suprevisors saw the PhD in more dynamic terms, more change, more interaction with the material being studied; The cyclic maps represented the ideas of drafts, feedback, edits, redrafts; Concept maps can be used as points of departure for students and teachers to talk about the PhD process and about the student’s research; The End

Chain, Spoke, Cycle back

Supervisor Map of the PhD Back

Student Map of the PhD Process Back

Supervisor’s View of the Process Back