There has been a slow but steady accretion of findings on doctoral assessment and examination processes over the past decade and a half. The study of Australian PhD examination reported here draws on the written reports on 301 theses across all discipline areas. Text categories identified in the reports are linked to other data including the…

The merger of art schools into academic institutions and the consequent proliferation of higher degree courses in the visual arts has created pressure for these courses to justify that their research content 'measures up' to more traditional research practices. This study aimed to identify the parameters for PhD examination and research practices…

As illustrated in an earlier iteration of this study, the 'Ways of Knowing' thesis of Jurgen Habermas suggests that there is a consistent pattern across discipline areas by which knowledge is revealed and further negotiated, and that this is an important thesis for a project attempting to identify and define patterns of research higher degree…

Earlier research by Mullins and Kiley (2002) [Studies in higher education, 27(4), 369-386] reported on the processes that experienced examiners go through when they assess research theses. Since that study two further studies have been undertaken, interviews with novice Australian examiners, reported here, and the analysis of approximately 100…

This paper investigates relationships between candidate and examiner characteristics, the texts of examiner reports on Ph.D. theses and examiner recommendations made on theses. The data were related to 804 examiner reports on 301 theses submitted at three Australian universities. Thesis topics ranged across ten Broad Fields of Study or discipline…