- Title
- Individual differences that affect the quality of learning in doctoral candidates
- Creator
- Cantwell, Robert H.; Scevak, Jill J.; Bourke, Sid; Holbrook, Allyson
- Relation
- Enhancing The Quality Of Learning: Dispositions, Instruction, And Learning Processes p. 93-114
- Relation
- http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/psychology/educational-psychology/enhancing-quality-learning-dispositions-instruction-and-learning-processes
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- This chapter addresses issues relating to quality learning in the specific context of doctoral study. As the elite level of formal education, doctoral study places a high level of expectation on candidates to contribute in an important and original way to the field of study. This expectation imposes a high metacognitive load on students, in appropriately conceptualising the task, and in managing the intellectual, affective, and contingency demands that accompany its enactment. We suggest that the regulatory control behaviours of doctoral candidates may best be explained by reference to a broader conception of metacognitive knowledge than has traditionally been employed. We conclude that the sources of regulatory activity are multi-dimensional, and describe them in terms of an active multidimensional epistemic metacognitive framework that establishes the parameters of subsequent regulatory activity. This chapter is about the capacity of PhD students to manage the metacognitive demands associated with the successful completion of the degree. The PhD has historically represented the highest level of tertiary study and, presumably, the highest quality of learning outcome. Although considerable variation exists in the structure of doctoral programs internationally, the intellectual outcome implied by the degree is common across all structures (Denicolo, 2003; Powell & Green, 2003 Powell & McCaulay, 2002.) The context of the present chapter is the Australian PhD. The PhD in Australia is completed as a single research project, formally submitted as a thesis of 80,000-100,000 words. Assessment is by external examination of the thesis. There are not usually compulsory coursework components associated with the degree. The doctorate in Australia has experienced significant growth over the past decade. The Australian government, for example, reported a 4.1 per cent increase in PhD enrolments between 2008 and 2009 (DEEWR, 2010). Given the intellectual expectations associated with completion of a PhD, the increasing numbers enrolling in the degree have given rise to issues of potential attrition and/or problems in candidature (Bourke, Holbrook, Lovat, & Farley, 2004; Colebatch, 2002). With the broadening of the candidature base, there are possibilities of significant increase in the array of individual differences within the cohort. Such variation, we suggest, would affect the likelihood of problematic candidature and the potential for attrition from the degree. Cantwell (2004) reported a comment by a university tutor that students who had entered her class via a mature-aged enabling programme seemed to 'get it: that they appeared to have some sense of what the intellectual demands of tertiary study were about, and of what they needed to do to meet those demands (Cantwell, Archer & Bourke, 2001; Cantwell, 2007). The comment provides a useful introduction to the problem of quality learning in doctoral candidature. The notion of 'getting it' encapsulates a fundamental attribute of any successful educational experience, and particularly of the doctoral experience. Knowing what 'it' is that one should get, and knowing what the act of 'getting' requires appear to us to be central to understanding how the intellectual demands of doctoral candidature are perceived and managed, and through this, of understanding the underlying attributes of the individual candidate that enable the mastery of these demands to occur. In this chapter, we consider some of the individual differences that potentially influence the quality of learning in doctoral students. Consistent with our thematic notion of 'getting it: we structure the chapter around two central issues: defining the quality of learning associated with doctoral study, and defining those within-candidate factors that we see as underlying the candidate's capacity to attain and maintain that level of quality in learning. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of an epistemic model of metacognition that postulates both a multi-layered nature of individual metacognitive knowledge, and the potential interplay of the cognitive and affective sub-domains in explaining metacognitive decision making among doctoral candidates.
- Subject
- doctoral candidates; research experience; metacognitive demands
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1052646
- Identifier
- uon:15460
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780521199421
- Rights
- © Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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