Taboo but true: PhD students 'not up to scratch'

This is quite a relevant subject at moment in academia! <p> Our market orientated education encourages most people to think about doctoral degrees even when time and ability are wanting. I have experienced situations where the supervisor is not the problem but students who believe that getting a doctoral degree --is easy so long us the supervisor cooperates and makes progress easy. Some do not even put much effort in achieving the requirements. Barely-- making the grade to the end. The problem you have described speaks volume about what type of scholars to expect in the future.

Its easy in this scenario to say that it is the students fault in some way. But clearly there is also something about the supervisors who may well have received no training in order to do supervision. Their idea of what constitutes good supervision at PhD level may be based on an assumption that PhD students are self-motivated and among the top 10% of students. This is clearly no longer the case. But this is not to say that many students previously denied the opportunity to do doctoral research will not end up with their qualification. What it requires is good training to enable students to get through their studies. I was the Director of a HEFCE funded project to enhance the teaching of research methods amongst postgraduate social science students. The results of that project are available to universities throughout the UK. Often the problem for new postgraduates, particularly those doing doctoral research, is that they have inadequate research skills.

If it is true that PhD students are "not up to scratch" in UK institutions, then the future of research in the UK, and in countries that look up to the UK for this calibre of manpower is doomed. <p>This is something that must be checked, so as to restore confidence in the British Higher Education System, and one way of ensuring this is to not recruit unqualified students whether they are home or international students.

Of course it is easy to say it's the students' fault. However, where it is the university's fault, the problem is not necessarily inadequate supervision. More likely it is that the student should not have been accepted for PhD study in the first place. <p>It should not be surprising if the more PhD places are offered the more students you will find on PhD programmes who shouldn't be there in the first place. How else can it have come about that Russell Group universities are deciding to accept students onto their PhD programmes who have third class or lower second class degrees and no postgraduate qualifications? <p>This does happen. If a university department wants to avoid the staffing costs of paying a postdoc researcher to do routine laboratory research on an engineering or biomedical project, they will advertise a PhD place to get the job done using cheap labour. If the advertised PhD project is boring and unappealing enough to fail to attract the most talented students, it will instead be offered to the most available. <p>It is a sad commentary that supervisors can no longer base their idea of good supervision on 'an assumption that PhD students are self-motivated and among the top 10% of students.' Perhaps we should stop training more PhD students than are needed for academia and industry? Certainly in the disciplines I work within (sociology and social anthropology) there are insufficient employment opportunities within academia, and industry doesn't know what to do with job applicants who have PhDs except turn them down, and seemingly would prefer not to think about them at all. <p>If there were enough PhD study places only for genuinely talented students with a real interest in scholarship, rather than as many places as there is desk space for in the department, then we wouldn't now be contemplating the PhD becoming a routine step in students' progression through higher education. <p>Who is to train PhD supervisors? Common sense would suggest only an academic who has supervised a PhD candidate before would have the experience to train a new PhD supervisor, in which case it seems reasonable to suggest the best training for the supervisor would be mentoring by another academic in his/her department. <p>If postgraduates, particularly those doing doctoral research, have inadequate research skills, it is because these were not developed by the students' undergraduate programme. A Master's degree with a research methods focus should be adequate preparation for a PhD, and the best PhD programmes already offer parallel methods training courses for doctoral students who aren't already thus prepared. The inadequate research skills of doctoral candidates should be a problem for the instution at which they are studying, and not the PhD supervisor.

Self-criticism is part of the process of self-examination and must be recommended. However, caution must be exercised to avoid a situation where the shortcomings identified are presented in such a way that the strengths become a footnote. UK Ph D students have shortcomings but that is not news to any one and it has always been the case. The same can be said of Ph D students from other countries with influential systems such as the USA and Canada. However, to conclude that the students are less qualified and brainy than their predecessors is as good a myth as the claim that good broth may only be made in old pots. Conversely, what should be averted is a situation where new wine is not put into old bottles.

This is just another aspect of across the board across the board government-driven qualifications inflation. Never put up 'hurdles'. Things are getting better all the time.

Certainly, a tired "students are worse than they were" whinge should be avoided. However, it is sensible to discuss dispassionately whether standards are being maintained. <p>I became very concerned when many institutions changed their Ph.D. criteria a few years ago. Gone was the requirement that a doctoral thesis should represent a meaningful research result. Instead the requirement was that students should have undergone "research training".

I've nearly 50, have been teaching in a university for nine years, have razor-sharp literature search skills, a first-class degree and a Masters from a major dept in a major university, write regularly and at length, and would generally seem to be the perfect PhD candidate - but I can't find a funded PhD that wants me. So I guess that the funded PhDs are the ones that attract the very best top people, and the article above is talking about the self-funded PhDs?

you know, I think the three quarters who are satisified w/ their supervisors are those who are lacking the needed skill. The supervisor give them much attention direction to get something worthy out of them. <p>On the other hand, good or exceptional candidates do all the work themselves and their supervisors give small comments now and them which make them wonder was I supposed to waste my time in a school I could do it by myself. <p>In addition a more troubling issue is the fact that at the end both exceptional and low level PhDs get a certificate from the school. There is no distinctions in PhDs so if i am exceptional why shall i do a great brilliant job let me just do the normal thing that will get me through. something need to be done.

Barb, if you're teaching part-time, I understand your frustration at not being able to get a funded PhD. But if you're teaching full-time at the same institution for 9 years, then there's something wrong with professional development at your university. They ought to be making it possible for permanent members of staff to complete a PhD part-time, parallel to their employment. <P>Abdul, your supposition doesn't ring true. Research students with the necessary skills ought to be satisfied with a supervisor who gives useful guidance in narrowing the focus of a PhD, highlighting untapped areas of the literature, managing the research process and structuring the thesis. If the student is good enough to 'do all the work themselves', they have no business being dissatisfied with their supervision if they don't actually need any! <P>It is more likely that there are at least some PhD students who are never going to be happy with the quality of their supervision because they are firstly lacking in research skills, secondly incapable of understanding the advice their supervisor gives them, and thirdly, totally lost when there isn't somebody standing behind them telling them what to do the whole time.

Nkongho Arrey-Ndip suggests that a key way of restoring confidence in this area is to not recruit nqualified students whether they are home or international students. <p>Problem is, in our market-obsessed system , PhD students can be a lucratic source of income, especially if they are non-EU, and thus pay high fees. <p>Even if academics decide that an applicant is not suitably qualified, they may well be be over-ruled by university managers concerned with financial income rather than academic standards. <p>This is an entirely predictable consequence of the 'marketisation' of Higher Education, and the introuction of a 'cash nexus' relationship betwen academics and students. <p>Dos this Government listen, though? No. Does it realy care? No.

So they want to officially change the length of a PhD from three years to four. I am not sure of the situation now, but when I completed mine about 20 years ago, it was pretty rare for anyone to finish within time, and the average probably was pretty close to four years. <p>The trouble was that the grant was only for 3 years, so for the last year you had to sign on and go to the job centre every two week to sign a bit of paper telling them you had been 'actively looking for work.'

My current experience of studying for a PhD has left me in little doubt that there are problems with the manner in which doctoral programmes are run at many universities. Whilst many of the other doctoral students I meet are bright, pleasant people, very few of them actually seem interested in actively engaging with the learning process. They see the PhD as yet another qualification in their formal education, and expect to be guided through it by their supervisor. Often they don't even seem to have any sense of why anyone might expect their work to be interesting or important; it's just something they do, and if they get paid for it, so much the better. <p>But I think supervisors and university departments are as much to blame as the students. There seems to be a rather passive approach to cultivating their students, and sometimes appear to be more interested in postgraduates as a revenue generation scheme. It seems rare to provide anything to doctoral students, beyond perhaps a little money and a termly chat from a supervisor. I personally had experience of inexpert supervision myself, with a professor who seemed incapable of providing a useful service. I was fortunately able to find another supervisor, who was capable of positive input into my project. However, the experience made clear the fact that the university in question had little understanding as to the distinction between good and bad supervision, or even that a distinction might be made.

In answer to the question: 'Do you agree that the push to increase numbers of PhDs has led to a diminution of the quality of PhD students and the standard of work required to obtain a PhD. Is the PhD still a marker of original scholarship, and a proper preparation for a career in academe?', I would say that what is happening is that PhDs (in the humanities and social sciences at least) are being pushed in two directions, partly by new technology and also by funding using that technology: 1/ towards large scale data-crunching exercises in designated 'research centres' in which the PhD is reduced towards training for a careeer as a (contract) researcher, 2/ towards hurry-quick mainly qualitiative efforts that at least still aim to contribute some original knowledge however minimal - this includes taught EdDs but not 'Research by publication' which is usually a scam to get admin professors PhDs.