Achieving a doctorate presents candidates with certain challenges--undertaking the research, writing the thesis and defending both at their viva. Throughout that doctoral journey, candidates are expected to display doctorateness in their thesis via the characteristics of high-quality scholarly research. The blockages that occur and prevent…

Reliable and valid assessment of individuals who are English language learners (ELL) has presented a dilemma to psychologists, and school psychologists in particular, as it is complicated by the small number of professionals qualified to serve as bilingual examiners. Some psychologists use ancillary examiners during testing when no bilingual…

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…

A total of 51 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) protocols, administered by graduate students in training, were examined to obtain data describing the frequency of examiner errors and the impact of errors on resultant test scores. Present results were generally consistent with previous research examining graduate…

When New Hampshire's 13 newest lawyers were sworn in to the state bar in May, the ceremony took place a day before they actually graduated from law school. This speedy swearing-in as officers of the court was part of an unorthodox program at the state's only law school, Franklin Pierce Law Center. And while their classmates and thousands of other…

It is crucial for teachers to communicate effectively about educational objectives to students, colleagues, and others in education. In 1956, Bloom developed a cognitive learning taxonomy to enhance communication between college examiners. The Bloom taxonomy consists of 6 hierarchical levels of learning (knowledge, comprehension, application,…

This article is about the struggles to sustain identity as writers while accommodating the demands of the university experienced by Arianto and his thesis supervisor, myself. It shows how critical EAP was the on-going conversation between us about how to negotiate norms, voice and creativity in our writing and in the negotiations Arianto had to…

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…

Purpose: A randomized controlled trial was conducted to compare the language and auditory processing outcomes of children assigned to receive the Fast ForWord Language intervention (FFW-L) with the outcomes of children assigned to nonspecific or specific language intervention comparison treatments that did not contain modified speech. Method: Two…

In 2002 the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) implemented a revised version of the Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE). CPE, which is the highest level of the Main Suite of Cambridge ESOL exams, comprises five modules, "Reading," "Writing," "Use of English," "Listening" and "Speaking," the latter of which is the…

This is a mixed methods investigation of consistency in PhD examination. At its core is the quantification of the content and conceptual analysis of examiner reports for 804 Australian theses. First, the level of consistency between what examiners say in their reports and the recommendation they provide for a thesis is explored, followed by an…

This paper explores the examination procedures and protocols for the DBA degree through a survey of universities offering the degree in Australia. The findings indicate general consistency among institutions in understanding the differences between a DBA and PhD, and a relatively uniform acceptance of key criteria for assessment of the DBA.…

The findings obtained from previous research indicate that test anxiety has significant effects on the foreign language learning process. Thus, this paper aims to present a synthesis of research results on the "sources" and "effects" of test anxiety among foreign language learners. The results of the studies reviewed in the…

The conceptual framework is alluded to in most serious texts on research, described in some and fully explained in few. However, examiners of doctoral theses devote considerable attention to exploring its function within social science doctoral vivas. A literature survey explores how the conceptual framework is itself conceptualised and explained.…