Zeitschrift für Hochschuldidaktik Nr. 2/1994
International Perspectives in Postgraduate Education and Training
Marie Brennan (Rockhampton Old, Australia), Rob Walker (Geelong Australia)
Educational Research in the Workplace: Developing a Professional Doctorate
Summary
Fred Hollows' brief epithet encapsulates a key problem for research in education - how can research in education itself be educational? For it implies an obligation for research to be useful, not just in its applications but in its processes and for its subjects. Yet this notion of 'use' also implies the possibility of bias and threats to the independence of the researcher. This is an enduring issue but it has been forced to a crisis by changes in the way that Education as a discipline or area of study is organised within Australian universities. In the last ten years or so, Education faculties in Australia, as elsewhere, have found themselves relocated or transposed from Colleges of Education to universities. A significant consequence of this movement has been the need to rethink the nature and purpose of research in Education. Within this process of institutional change, a keysite for reconstructing research has been in the nature of the research degree. For it is here that values are most jealously guarded.Since 1990 a number of Australian universities have offered an alternative to the PhD, usually known as a 'professional research degree' or more specifically 'doctorate in Education (EdD)', the existence of which presses the issue. In this paper we will give an account of our own thinking in attempting to realise this degree.
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