Transforming doctoral education: Preparing multidimensional and adaptive scholars
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Date
2019-09-16
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Abstract
Concerning trends in graduate education, such as high attrition and underdeveloped skills, drive toward a new doctoral education approach. This paper aims to describe and propose a transformative doctoral education model (TDEM), incorporating elements that potentially address these challenges and expand the current practice. The model envisions discipline-specific knowledge coupled with a broader interdisciplinary perspective and addresses the transferable skills necessary to successfully navigate an ever-changing workforce and global landscape. The overarching goal of TDEM is to transform the doctoral student into a multi-dimensional and adaptive scholar, so the students of today can effectively and meaningfully solve the problems of tomorrow. The foundation of TDEM is transformative learning theory, supporting the notion learner transformation occurs throughout the doctoral educational experience. Designed as a customizable framework for learner-centered doctoral education, TDEM promotes a mentor network on and off-campus, interdisciplinarity and agile career scope preparedness.This proposed doctoral education framework was formulated through a review of the literature and experiences with curricular design and pedagogical practices at a research-intensive university’s teaching and learning center. TDEM answers the call to develop frameworks that address issues in doctoral education and present a flexible and more personalized training. TDEM encourages doctoral student transformation into adaptive, forward-thinking scholars and thriving in an ever-changing workforce.
Description
This is a pre-print version of the Transformative Doctoral Education Model's conceptual paper, accepted at Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education.
Keywords
graduate education, transferable skills, mentoring, interdisciplinary, career planning, Transformative Learning Theory