How might research degrees develop to improve both research student learning and employability? How should research student skills and development be evaluated? What are the skills that employers seek from research graduates? This book analyzes the development of research skills training and development and its wide-ranging impact on the UK research degree. The book examines the politics of skills training and its implications for academic culture as well as providing essential support and advice for practitioners and policy makers through examples of best practice. It also contains a thorough examination of the future of research degrees in the context of skills development and the supply of highly trained and specialized researchers to the academic and business world. Skills Training in Research Degree Programmes provides comprehensive coverage of skills training in research degree programmes in the UK, providing instructive, self-contained chapters that serve as a resource to all academics, trainers, research administrators and senior management involved in the postgraduate research community. Foreword by Professor Sir Gareth Roberts Contributors: Esat Alpay, Charlie Ball, Simon Beecroft, Tim Birtwistle, Tony Bromley, Howard Green, Ged Hall, Richard Hinchcliffe, Steve Hutchinson, Peter Lewis, Alistair McCulloch, Chris Park, Stuart Powell, Imelda Race, Julie Reeves, Al Richardson, Sara Shinton, Claire Souter, Peter Stokes, Judi Sture and Elaine Walsh.

This timely new book is based on the precepts of the Quality Assurance Agency's recent Code of Practice for the management of Postgraduate Research Programmes. It presents practical information on the QAA Code of Practice, to serve both as a ready reference source for supervisors and as a manual for research supervisor training. Examples of problems and suggested solutions, reflecting both supervisor and student perspectives, guide supervisors through issues they may face. There are also recommendations for further reading. Key areas the book explores include: Selection and admission of students Supervision arrangements Training in research and generic skills Monitoring and review arrangements Feedback Examination practice Complaints and appeals procedures How to be an Effective Supervisor is essential reading for all postgraduate research supervisors including those involved in supervising Professional Doctorates and Masters degrees, plus Graduate Deans and Associate Deans, together with programme managers and postgraduate administrative staff. Case studies also make this a key text for supervisor development programmes.

What kind of problems are encountered while undertaking postgraduate study? How are these problems best avoided or resolved? How can the student/supervisor relationship be improved? This practical guide is based on a series of successful workshops on postgraduate supervision and presents the most frequently encountered difficulties in the student/supervisor relationship. Detailed but concise case studies offer realistic solutions to the thirty issues discussed, including: Conflict Culture Distance Funding Isolation Language Management Plagiarism Priority Time Transfer Write-up Each case study raises important questions to generate discussion, and suggests solutions and preventative measures. The book also includes a section that shows how the case studies can be used in a teaching workshop setting. Effective Postgraduate Supervision is essential reading for supervisors of postgraduate degrees including those at masters and doctoral level as well as prospective and current postgraduate research students.

Developing Research Skills: Key Readings and Critical Thinking Exercises provides students with thought-provoking readings, insightful discussion questions, and critical thinking exercises designed to help them become enlightened consumers of psychological science. The text encourages students to critically evaluate psychological studies, rather than immediately accepting research findings at face value. Through identifying the strengths and weaknesses of various research methodologies, learning to understand a study's inherent limitations, assessing potential variables in the given data, and more, students learn to shrewdly assess various research methods used to produce psychological studies. The carefully selected readings provide students with concrete examples of fundamental research methods concepts, and each reading is complemented by discussion questions that bridge the gap between the learned concept and real-world practice. Emphasizing the need for highly developed critical thinking skills and astute analysis in the field of psychological research, Developing Research Skills is ideal for research methods in psychology courses. Vincent Trofimoff is a social-personality psychologist and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at California State University, San Marcos. He has taught research methods in psychology courses for over 20 years, and also has extensive experience teaching statistics, personality, and social psychology courses. He received his master's degree and doctorate, both in social-personality psychology, from the University of California, Riverside.

How can the full range of doctoral study in the UK be best described? What are the key features that are driving change to the system? What are the implications of current initiatives and the increasingly international context of research degree study? This book covers the differing kinds of doctorate award that exist currently and discusses critically issues that arise from the ways in which related forms of doctoral study are organized and assessed. It focuses on doctoral study, in all its forms, in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom, while being contextualised within an international dimension. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, the book focuses on the diversity in doctoral study. It examines the current state of the full range of doctoral awards, describes them, and then critically analyses tensions that exist. For example, it assesses the definitions and relations between different kinds of doctoral award, the pedagogy that surrounds them and the examination phases of each. The book also offers suggestions of ways to resolve the tensions associated with different forms of study and indicates possible future directions. Doctoral Study in Contemporary Higher Education is an essential text for those who manage, fund and deliver education at doctoral level.

- What are professional doctorates? - How do they change professional knowledge and improve practice? - How can universities organise doctoral programmes to facilitate professional learning and development? - What is the most appropriate relationship between professional and academic knowledge? This book examines the relationship between advanced study on higher education courses and professional practice. It explores contributions made by research on practice to professional development. The editors document and explain strategies that universities use: - in recruitment - aims and purposes of the degree - selection of content and focus - assessment procedures - curricular structures - pedagogy - teaching strategies - conditions for learning - support for professionals - relations with interested bodies and stakeholders. The book uses in-depth case studies of three professional doctorates: the doctorate in business administration (DBA), the engineering doctorate (DEng) and the education doctorate (EdD). Examining Professional Doctorates makes an important contribution to this neglected area of research. Essential reading for policy makers in higher education and anyone interested in professional doctoral study.

What is the purpose of higher education? How do teaching and research relate? Are the intellectual purposes of higher education in need of restoration? The Enquiring University explores the ways in which teaching, research and learning are related to each other and to a wider social context, one in which ideas about the nature of the university and knowledge are changing. The book is readily accessible, drawing upon insights that emerge from a wide range of disciplines. Throughout the book, Stephen Rowland develops a conception of enquiry which can play a central role in how we are to understand academic work. It is a concept which values the academic tradition of a love for the subject, while at the same time encouraging exploration across disciplinary and other cultural boundaries. While such a notion of enquiry may seem to be under threat from many of the recent developments in higher education, this book indicates ways in which the appropriate spaces can be opened up to enhance a spirit of enquiry amongst academic staff and their students. The Enquiring University is key reading for university lecturers, those studying for higher degrees in higher education and policy makers.