Educational research and professional practice, though assuredly capable of providing reciprocal benefits one to the other, have, nevertheless, evolved into decidedly different activities. Increasingly, each has a separate and defensible technical basis. Doctoral programs in education should honor and reflect, not conflate, the differences. The…

Higher education is a field of study. It does not have an integral cognate discipline that defines its extent and borders. Contributions to understanding higher education come from, among others, sociologists, historians, political theorists, economists and students of science policy and cultural studies. These were the disciplines whose exponents…

This article describes the process by which the faculty of the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College conceived and implemented a new doctoral program designed for senior education practitioners. The authors describe the organizational context in which decisions were made. Next, they explain…

This article focuses on how critical race theory informed the author's epistemological perspective and methodological approach as she analyzed Mexican American educational narratives and formulated her identity as a scholar. Using a storytelling technique employed in CRT, the author weaves together her position as the translator of participants'…

This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the challenges experienced by nine emerging scholars of teaching at a research-intensive university in South Africa. It details three problem areas encountered during the process of becoming scholars of teaching: (1) negative perceptions about the work and related reward concerns, (2)…

The paper looks at the feasibility and value of the scholarship of pedagogy (SoP) in an institutional context where it is not a common practice. I will draw on my experience with other colleagues at our university concerning the constraints, shortcomings and achievements of SoP, and use this as a springboard for reflection on its transitional…

This paper explores doctoral students' experiences of their scholarly communities in terms of socio-psychological well-being. Further, the study examines how experiences were related to study engagement and to self-reported stress, exhaustion, and anxiety. Altogether 669 doctoral students from the University of Helsinki, Finland, responded a…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences of 12 self-identified well doctoral students at a mid-size, western university in the U.S. to develop an understanding of the positive approaches doctoral students take to their academic pursuits. With an attrition rate of up to 50 percent in doctoral education, exploring…

This descriptive study re-examines the graduate education of doctoral students in rhetoric and composition in light of the field's civic tradition. This project explores the current preparation of rhetoric and composition students in Ph.D. programs and then focuses primarily on how doctoral programs are preparing aspiring new faculty members to…

The Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations (LPO) at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, recently replaced the conventional Ed.D. dissertation with a team-produced, client-consultant oriented, culminating report. This article describes the purpose and principles associated with the "capstone" project and describes the…

Uganda is among many nations in sub-Saharan Africa that are trying simultaneously to expand higher education opportunities and to enhance the quality of higher-education offerings. These are particularly challenging goals in resource-rich environments and are even more difficulty in environments of more limited resources to include funding,…

Background: Graduate teacher education programs focus on developing professional teachers' pedagogical skills and professional knowledge, however they may also require a thesis. Completion of the thesis necessitates that graduate students have an understanding of educational research; this is often not well understood by teachers nor is it an…

The cognitive and learning styles research domain is a highly complex one which has recently been the focus of rigour-relevance debates (Coffield et al. 2004; Evans and Sadler-Smith 2006; Rayner 2006). There is considerable support for the existence and value of style as a construct (Sternberg 1996) even though further work is needed to evidence…

While politicians and other pundits may not agree on how to improve schools, there is agreement that many areas require attention from improving student achievement, to ensuring effective instruction. As school districts struggle with these and other complex issues, there is a growing demand for executive level leaders who have knowledge and…

Professional development of generic black academic staff in South African higher education is viewed against the background of increased emphasis on open dialogue and concern for upward mobility in academe. Open dialogue and liberation create new expectations and challenges for staff. This article describes professional development of academics…