Comments on Why and When Ph.D. Students Finish

• Hardly surprising
• Posted by Buzz on July 17, 2007 at 10:00am EDT

• In her book "Learning To Think," Janet Donald (McGill) observed seemingly-endless critiques in English programs, developing solutions in Engineering.

  With that in mind -- can it be any surprise, the academic fields have such radically different graduation rates?

  Is this information, going to be distributed to potential applications, PRIOR to application? And all that debt, being assumed?

• Compare to British programs
• Posted by Anglophile on July 17, 2007 at 10:30am EDT

• As an American with a British PhD, I'd be interested to see a comparison between American and British matriculation.

  Part of my reason for going to the UK was to avoid the inefficiencies of the American system. In the late 80s and in the middle of completing my thesis, I read the first edition, newly published, of Open University Press's How to Get a PhD. A remark near the end of the book has stayed with me ever since, words to the effect that a close analysis of outcomes in the American system indicates that the British system has little to gain from imitating what happens across the pond.

  Everything I've seen on either side of the Atlantic since then has affirmed the truth of that observation.

• Questionable findings
• Posted by Interested on July 17, 2007 at 10:40am EDT

• These basic statistics are all well and good, but it is shocking that research on graduate studies is not more robust. These authors talk of one field being more than another, but nothing about significance. Are these differences real or simply artifacts of a large N study?

• See work by Dr. LUBarbara Lovitts
• Posted by Bernhard Streitwieser , Associate Director, Study Abroad Office at Northwestern University on July 17, 2007 at 12:25pm EDT

• See the excellent work by Dr. Barbara Lovitts on the issue of PhD program completion. It is not to be missed and highly informative.

• Posted by Jayne London , Dissertation and Tenure Coach on July 17, 2007 at 1:50pm EDT

• I agree, the findings are hardly surprising. The Ph.D. Completion Project’s greatest contribution currently seems to lie in it bringing together institutions around the nation to examine and discuss the critical issues surrounding Ph.D. completion and attrition rates. This is an important topic for all of us to delve into, and the Ph.D. Completion Project is legitimating there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

  But anyone has been even following the doctoral research over the past decade or more knows that the biggest factor in completion is financial. Those students without funding are greatly hampered by holding down part-time or full-time jobs that have nothing to do with their academic programs, and are commonly in the constant process of looking for that next job, all while trying to write a dissertation. Students in the engineering and sciences, who have greater funding opportunities (through their advisors’ research grants), complete their dissertations at a higher rate than students in the social sciences and humanities.

  The second largest factor in graduate student success is mentorship, as seen in the Completion Project as well as in prior studies. Again, we’ve known “forever” that advisors are of critical importance in graduate education – a system that was built upon an apprenticeship model. While some students receive excellent mentoring, most students are often benignly (or not so benignly) neglected because of their advisors’ unavailability, which is often due to a very practical reason – the professors are tenured and promoted primarily based on their research and publication records. Anyone who has talked to a handful of graduate students quickly realizes that students are experiencing huge discrepancies in how much time, information, advice, and encouragement they receive from their respective advisors. And again, students in the engineering and sciences have more contact time with their advisors than do those in the humanities and social sciences, and hence have higher completion rates.

  The most interesting statistic to me was to see that only 39% of the students in the humanities and the social sciences report receiving adequate advice about the dissertation process from their advisors. What is happening to the other 61%? Since this is the students’ first experience independently doing a long and complex research project, who is showing them how to navigate through the numerous challenges? While some might receive advice and support from peers or from more advanced graduate students, there are too many students, isolated and painfully left adrift, trying to figure out how to write their dissertations.

  As a dissertation coach, I see a number of these “lost” students. What amazes me is how readily students who have not made progress on their dissertations for some time literally “take off” once they are given information and advice – and yes, a dose of encouragement. Yet this fact also saddens me, since how many more students could finish if they could locate and afford a dissertation coach – even for a short amount of time? If advisors don’t have the time to provide these necessities, for it does require considerable time to figure out what each student needs to know, then coaching is clearly an effective and cost effective mechanism that can fill in some important gaps.

  Jayne London
  Dissertation and Tenure Coach
  www.AcademicLadder.com

• Posted by Lee J Rickard , Program Director at UNM on July 17, 2007 at 4:40pm EDT

• The curves for social sciences and humanities do not appear to have saturated, even by year 10. Are there numbers for the final completion rates? Are they comparable for all disciplines?

• Why PhDs complete their Dissertations
• Posted by Carolyn M. Byerly , Associate Professor at Howard University on July 18, 2007 at 11:25am EDT

• I am skeptical about the picture this study paints. The most glaring error is that it doesn't seem to have measured for key factors such as the student's values, skills and experience in producing a piece of work in a timely way. My observations and present experience mentoring graduate students say that students who are product-oriented and used to meeting deadlines finish faster than those who are not. This is in spite of money. I don't want to discount the other factors, especially good mentoring, because these matter, too. Part of my own mentoring, for instance, is setting timelines for work and then asking the student to meet their due dates. It doesn't always work, but it helps enormously. I believe that the students' vision for their own work, and their passion for what they have chosen to study, also figure strongly into motivation to finish. These researchers would do well, therefore, to consider internal (personality, experiential) variables as well as external ones like money, mentoring, etc.
  Carolyn Byerly

• Yes
• Posted by Buzz on July 18, 2007 at 1:45pm EDT

• My observations and present experience mentoring graduate students say that students who are product-oriented and used to meeting deadlines finish faster than those who are not. This is in spite of money.

  ---------------

  Per my post on English v. engineering, the famous quote by Steve Jobs of Apple: "real artists ship."

  Truer words were never spoken. Except in the English, humanities, and social science departments. Contrary to tenure thought, there is not an endless amount of time and money, people.

• Free labor
• Posted by Jaded on July 19, 2007 at 1:40pm EDT

• This study is missing a key factor in why some students languish in graduate programs: skilled graduate students are a source of free labor.

  Despite considerable setbacks, both personal and professional, I successfully completed a PhD program in the life-sciences in 7 years at a public university in the South. Having met and surpassed all graduation requirements I should have been allowed to leave 1.5 to 2 years earlier than I did, but I was too useful to my 'mentor' for her to sign-off on me: I handled all of the ordering for the laboratory and kept us well-stocked and organized; I oversaw equipment purchasing and maintenance; I trained junior graduate students, undergraduates, and even new postdocs in laboratory techniques; I handled all radioisotope compliance issues (wipe-tests, documentation and reporting); I interacted with sales reps to get the ‘best deal’ or to simply get rid of them; and I oversaw our computer facilities. And I did all this while generating more meaningful research than any of the rest of my lab mates.

  Even better, all of my services cost my ‘mentor’ absolutely nothing! Why? I served as a teaching assistant for my first 2 years, before receiving a Federal Training Grant for an additional 4 years (the maximum). For my final year of service—well after I had completed my coursework, passed my orals, had published two first author articles in prestigious journals and had the bulk of my dissertation written and reviewed—I was forced to take out student loans, despite the fact that all the foreign nationals in the laboratory were fully supported off my mentor’s grants (they weren’t eligible for student loans: I was). When I complained about the situation, I was told that as a graduate student I had no rights in the department, and that I could leave any time I wished—without the degree. It was only after I threatened legal action and a new professor assumed the Chair position that I was finally allowed to defend. And the very best part is that after treating me so unethically, both the department and university seem to believe that I ‘owe’ my success to them, and as such I undoubtedly wish to donate money to them. The sheer audacity astounds me.

  Sadly, I see this practice of graduate student abuse continuing unabated.

• Re-think the Ph.D. process
• Posted by Tony Bates on July 20, 2007 at 9:15pm EDT

• As someone who has supervised many Ph.D.students in North America, Europe and Latin America, and who has worked in several universities in Britain, Canada, USA, Spain,Mexico and Chile, I have come to the conclusion that the whole Ph.D. process is fundamentally flawed, and needs to be completely re-designed for the 21st century.

  The key goals and values of a Ph.D. should remain constant, with one critical addition. As well as research, there should be much more attention paid to developing teaching skills during a Ph.D. program, especially for those who intend to work in a university or college.

  But the means by which these constant goals and values are achieved need to change. In some cases, the apprenticeship model will remain appropriate, but too often, as an earlier posting indicated, this is used as an excuse for using students as research slaves by unscrupulous professors. Alternatives would be team teaching and research, collaboration with those in the workplace with research qualifications, and more use of online social networks to support students. Instead of such approaches being exceptional, they should become the norm.

  There are now many other ways to prepare students for research and teaching than the full-time, on-campus research program (although of course this will vary from discipline to discipline). More and more Ph.D. students these days are adult students, with jobs and families yet there are almost no programs anywhere in the world where students can take a Ph.D. at a distance - at least in terms of deliberate design (in practice, many Ph.D. students are in essence often fully distant from their professors). The tools are now available to support fully students who may be a continent away.

  In how many universities are faculty advised or instructed how to supervise properly? Ph.D. supervision requires accurate knowledge of the university system and procedures,of how to motivate (or at least not discourage) students, and how to plan, design and conduct a variety of different types of research projects, as well as subject expertise.

  Too often I have attended vivas or defences where the supervisor raises criticism of the thesis that should have been addressed before the examination, or where committee members have tried to score points off each other at the expense of the poor student.

  The question of rewards for good supervision have also been raised. Once again in universities, good people are working against the system to do their job, rather than the system supporting and rewarding good teaching, at a graduate level.

  There is so much wrong with the current system - high cost, high non-completion rates, slow rates of graduation, abuse of students, lack of rewards and training for professors - that I am surprised there has not been a major revolt from students. However, too often graduate students are unable to organise or are unaware of how prevalent the abuses of process are. Sure there are many good professors who try desperately to make the current system work - but it would be better to throw it away and start again!

• Posted by FinishedinFive on July 22, 2007 at 1:00pm EDT

• As a humanities PhD, who worked quickly, I did see graduate students in my former dept languish due to teaching responsibilities and lack of direction. Buzz - can you explain what you mean in a complete sentence?

• Posted by BA on July 16, 2008 at 10:00pm EDT

• As someone who zipped through a program in 4 yrs and landed a decent academic job, i would say the best way is : HATE GRAD SCHOOL

  I mean that seriously: hate grad school. Hate it so much that you don't want to mention that you are a grad student to anyone. You are working hard, being looked down upon by the stupidest people around and getting paid less than a clerk. If that doesn't make you feel ashamed, what can?

  I used to be ashamed; so ashamed of my lowly station in life; that i would pretend to be a librarian when i met strange people. I was so ashamed of myself that I would wake up and glance at the public street to see if it was clear before i stepped on to it.

  I was determined to rescue myself from the lowly station in life I was in. I wanted to crawl out of the gutter of society and show the "8 hrs a day, 5 days a week" people (that works out to 40 hrs in a week of 168!) people who work less than 25% of the time that I could indeed ascend to greater heights than they had...

  And I am glad I succeeded. I brought with me a bachelor's degree from India (takes 3 yrs in India) and got through PhD in 4 yrs straight. I hated every moment of it, but I got to make the 40 hr week people lick their spit. And that was worth it.