Reforming the Doctoral Program in Education Research

University of Colorado-Boulder, School of Education

This snapshot describes our new sequence of required courses for incoming doctoral students at our School of Education. In the summer of 2002, faculty in the School of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU) initiated a reform of the doctoral program in education research. The reform was motivated in part by faculty concern that the doctoral curriculum had been virtually unchanged for 10 years and in part by national concerns about the quality of Ph.D. graduates in education research (Burkhardt & Schoenfeld, 2003; Lagemann, 2000; Neumann, Pallas & Peterson, 1999; Schoenfeld, 1999). The faculty has since adopted and is in the first year of implementing a core set of courses intended to develop a common language and shared discourse about education research; to present common norms and standards for the conduct of education research; and to build an intellectual and methodological foundation for advanced, specialized coursework.


What is the issue we are trying to address?

(1) Many of our doctoral students are former teachers and lack a discipline-based research background from their undergraduate or master's preparation, i.e., they enter our program with little or no previous research training;.

(2) Prior experience as teachers and lack of research training sometimes result in students who are skeptical of the importance of research for educational improvement; in some cases, this skepticism has led to a rift between students eager to learn more about research and those with other orientations.

(3) Students' inconsistent patterns of course taking were hampering our ability to offer truly advanced courses (because almost every course included some novices).


How do we know that this is an issue?

Internal & External Research

Internal: Exit Surveys of students in their final semester of doctoral study in which they evaluated their graduate experiences along several dimensions, including scholarly development, coursework, advising, communication/collegiality, and overall climate of the School.

Whole-faculty discussions led by committee members to generate a list of issues to address and ideas to consider.

Based on this information, the committee's agenda covered many aspects of the program: coursework, research experiences, teaching experiences, advising and mentoring, program requirements (e.g., publishable papers, comprehensive examinations, dissertations), program size, student recruitment, and funding.

External: The committee examined several sources of information on doctoral education. This information included recent literature on graduate preparation in education, including reports by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Research Council, and the Carnegie Foundation, as well as numerous books and articles. From websites and phone calls, we also gathered information about the top 15 graduate programs in education, as rated in the 2002 U.S. News and World Report. This information included course requirements, degree requirements, teaching and research experiences, and financial aid packages at each school.

Exit Survey

What is the change or innovation that is intended to address this issue?

Overview of the New Doctoral Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder

YEAR ONE: THE CORE

First Semester: Big Ideas: Perspectives on Classroom Teaching and Learning (3 hrs) Qualitative Methods I (3 hrs) Quantitative Methods I (3 hrs) Specialty Seminar (1 hr)

Second Semester: Big Ideas: Education Research and Social Policy (3 hrs) Qualitative Methods II (3 hrs) Quantitative Methods II (3 hrs) Specialty Seminar (1 hr)

YEAR TWO: INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED

First Semester : Multicultural Educ (3 hrs) Specialty Area Courses/Advanced Methods Courses (3 or 6 hrs)

Second Semester: Specialty Area Courses/Advanced Methods Courses (3 or 6 hrs)

YEAR THREE: INTERMEDIATE /CAPSTONE

Specialty Area Courses/Advanced Methods Courses/Capstones (3 or 6 hrs)

Perspectives on Classroom Teaching and Learning

Qualitative Methods I

Quantitative Methods I

Education Research and Social Policy

Qualitative Methods II

Quantitative Methods II

Multicultural Education

Why did we select that approach?

In making this proposal for a CORE curriculum, we were doubling the research methods courses required (from one course to two in each methodology), but by incorporating required material from old courses with new material in the core courses, we were able to eliminate a few old courses and hold the total increase in the number of required courses to only one.

Given the emphases of our School and the expertise of the faculty, we chose "Perspectives on Classroom Teaching and Learning" and "Education Research and Social Policy" as the two big ideas courses to offer first-year students. The first course focuses on behavioral, cognitive, and socio-cultural theories of teaching and learning, along with associated empirical studies. The second course focuses on the relationship between education research findings and social policy initiatives since the 1950s. In the terminology of our old program, the first course is from psychological foundations; the second is from social foundations.

The two courses in quantitative methods focus on experimental designs and include statistics. The two courses in qualitative methods focus on interpretive designs and include various forms of qualitative inquiry and analysis strategies. Individual student research projects are part of both course sequences.

To promote students' ability to integrate their learning and "to talk" across courses, we included two "cross-cutting" topics each semester (topics taken up in each syllabus at the same time during the semester). For example, one cross-cutting topic was organized around the question: If a teacher wants to know whether one reading program is better for her students than another, how could you find out? This topic can be approached substantively (in Perspectives), experimentally (in Quantitative Methods), and qualitatively (in Qualitative Methods). A second cross-cutting topic was the 1966 Coleman report on schooling and socioeconomic status (the substance of the report and its implications; its use of quantitative methods; its use of qualitative methods). This commitment to the complementarity of research perspectives and methods was one of the guiding principles underlying our design of the core.


What is the intended effect of the innovation?

A. To develop a common language and shared discourse about education research

B. To present common norms and standards for the conduct of education research

C. To build an intellectual and methodological foundation for advanced, specialized coursework


What data or evidence will demonstrate the effect of our innovation?

Student Surveys

Faculty Surveys

1st Year Cohort Comments after 1st Semester of CORE Coursework:

"The older graduate students are in awe of our cohort and [our] classes and faculty."

"If there's one major thing I've learned, it's that I'm doing the right thing in the right place! Thank you!"

"I appreciate what's being done to revamp the PhD program. I'm impressed by my colleagues in the cohort and will miss them when we're not in class together anymore. And I've enjoyed working with the professors—they've all been excellent and inspiring."

s Faculty Survey

Student Survey

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