The purpose of this manuscript is to suggest strategies for advising doctoral students in an online doctoral program in educational leadership and higher education. The strategies are based on experiences with 33 doctoral students who completed their doctoral degrees 1992-2016. The strategies for doctoral advising offered in this manuscript are…

Objective(s): The focus on competency attainment by professional psychology trainees obligates training programs to assess these competencies prior to completion of an internship. However, little is known about how trainees may perceive such testing. This study examines relationships between performance on an Oral Final Competency Examination of a…

This account of practice describes the journey of an "accidental academic" through the Doctoral programme in Business Administration (DBA). It reflects on her experience of action learning and lessons learned to better embed action learning in future DBA teaching and assessment. The account is told from the perspective of a mature…

For this study of social work degree programs, data were drawn from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) website, the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GASE) website, and the websites of 841 U.S. social work programs, including the 763 programs accredited (or in candidacy for accreditation) by CSWE when these data were…

Research suggests that doctoral students' learning and experiences are influenced by their relationships and predominant organizational norms and structures, create gender inequality and discourage or prevent alternative behaviors. However, there is very little empirical information on the nature of doctoral experiences and organizational…

This survey study was designed to determine attributes of, and attitudes toward, the doctoral dissertation. Of particular interest was music education faculty awareness and implementation of project-based dissertations as alternatives to traditional dissertations. Respondents, music education program heads at doctoral granting institutions (N =…

In recent years, there have been increasing calls for an overall transformation of the nature of engineering Ph.D. programs and the way theses are assessed. There exists a need to understand the examination process to ensure the best quality outcome for candidates in engineering. The work we present in this paper uses data collected between 2003…

The consideration of the impact of the dissertation services industry on the academy is a welcome piece by Jeffry L. White. White raises interesting questions and calls on educators and researchers to think deeply about the role they play in encouraging or combating the use of this industry by graduate students. In this piece, I respond to White's…

The theme of this article is adopted from the work of leadership experts Heifetz and Linsky, who described the need for organizational leaders to balance their time on the "dance floor" (managing tasks) with time viewing from the "balcony" (understanding the bigger picture). The physical education teacher education doctoral…

This article is the next chapter in the conversation about doctoral physical education teacher education (D-PETE) programs. The author challenges PETE faculty members to continue the dialogue started in this special issue about D-PETE programs.

This study (i) explicates the sorts of ideas about science and the nature of knowing that were generated among participant graduate students who viewed the sci-fi film, "Contact," and (ii) examines the interactions between these ideas and ontic stances with which participants approached viewing the film. Eleven doctoral students of…

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) exists when examinees of equal ability from different groups have different probabilities of successful performance in a certain item. This study examined gender differential item functioning across the PhD Entrance Exam of TEFL (PEET) in Iran, using both logistic regression (LR) and one-parameter item response…

This article reports on the experiences of 104 doctoral candidates who participated in six offerings (2008-2015) of an intensive 5-day course for doctoral candidates associated with the research programme of an international research network. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate how higher education practices, like those of this course,…

The paucity of underrepresented minorities (URMs) earning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees remains an issue in revitalizing the U.S. biomedical workforce. Due to reductions in federal funding, maintaining the integrity of programs that focus on URM retention and recruitment is crucial. We present data on the…

Graduate school is a demanding endeavor for those who seek advanced degrees for reasons such as bettering their careers. An increasing number of women are pursuing doctoral degrees in various fields. With this change, the roles and responsibilities of the family also shift. This paper presents a synthesis of research findings on how women with…