Doctoral competencies and graduate research education: focus and fit with the knowledge economy?

The paper considers the evidence on the types of skills and abilities that are needed by doctoral students. In particular, it examines whether doctoral competencies can be differentiated from general undergraduate/postgraduate-level competencies and whether employers value the skills and abilities that doctoral graduates bring to work organisations. Surprisingly, given the cost of fourth level education, there is a dearth of existing work regarding graduate and doctoral students’ experiences (Cryer, 1997). In addition, where lists of doctoral competencies are proposed, there is little evidence of a theoretical or empirical basis for the choice of these competencies, and the lists appear to have emerged through a process of speculation, or the prior experience of students and faculty, rather than through any coherent analysis. Many commentators (Allen, 2002; Park, 2005; Mitchell, 2007) consider that PhD and other doctoral programmes must adapt and become more flexible, as students’ requirements and preferences change and that the personal skills and attributes that a doctoral student possesses are as important as any specialist knowledge or skills. The paper suggests that current conceptualisations of doctoral competencies are inadequate and puts forward a model to reframe the way in which these competencies are understood and labelled. The paper has implications for the education and training of doctoral students and for the graduate research education programmes (GREPS) that are emerging as part of the reconceptualisation of graduate education