With a PhD on PhDs, a former teacher is helping to reshape the image of the doctoral qualification.

When he came to ANU, Jim Cumming filled in the final blank on the list of education sectors he has worked in, from school through to TAFE and now university.

After a career focused on professional learning, Jim undertook a PhD in doctoral education as part of an ARC linkage grant with the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, the Deakin University Student Association and the ANU Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association.

“The purpose of the project was to generate a more accurate picture of the contemporary doctoral experience”, Jim said. “There are a lot of stereotypical images of PhD scholars but in reality it’s a lot more diverse than a continuing Honours or Masters student studying full-time on campus for three or four years.”

Through his research Jim found that it’s very hard to generalise about what a doctorate is. PhDs are no longer necessarily just a research project “but can incorporate professional practice and sophisticated forms of networking”. And rather than ‘sitting at the foot of the learned professor’ as he described the stereotypical candidate and supervisor relationship, many PhD scholars are enterprising, self-directed learners and managers.

Significantly, Jim found that doctoral practices embraced a range of elements including education, training, research, work and career development and involved peers, technicians, external academics and philanthropic, business and industry partners--in addition to candidate and supervisor.

With this knowledge, Jim is looking at research in a new light for a Carrick Institute funded project through the University’s Centre for Educational Development and Academic Methods (CEDAM).

The project is exploring current approaches to skills development for HDR candidates, particularly in the context of employability—within and beyond academia. In Jim’s view, building generic capability has merit, as long as it doesn’t distort the original purpose of the PhD, for example, by encouraging candidates to choose safer topics and minimize risk.

Jim is looking forward to investigating how candidates can define and articulate their skills and capabilities, with a view to demonstrating that PhD scholars are more flexible and experienced than many people realise.

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