Transcript Research Collaboration among Academics in Asian Countries

Jisun Jung
Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong
Technology, Management and Policy Graduate Consortium 2014 Meeting
Lisbon, Instituto Superior Tecnico, June 23-‐25
Background: Doctoral Education
 The most specialized and knowledge-intensive form of education
 Socially: Fostering socially-robust knowledge and supplying talented
people
 Individually: Professionalization and socialization as researchers
However,
“Current doctoral education is the worst
designed education level among the existed
programs” (Derek Bok, 2013)
Issues arisen from Doctoral Education
 Too narrow and specialized
 Too much focus on theory, not practical issues
 Not multi-disciplinary
 Not providing broad skills to be acquired by the students
 Not allowing collaborative work
 Separates itself off from industry
 High drop-out rate
Source: Usher, R. (2002) A Diversity of doctorates: fitness for the knowledge
economy. Higher Education Research and Development, 21(2): 143-53.
The jobs doctorate graduates do
Illusion: Within universities there is
often still an implicit assumption that
the doctorate is preparation for an
academic career.
Reality: Yet for over a decade there has
been evidence in a number of
Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development
(OECD) countries that there are
increasing numbers of students
undertaking a doctorate and that
larger proportions of doctoral
graduates are taking up nonacademic
employment.(Neumann & Tan, 2011)
Is it right direction to train someone
to do research who is not going into
professional research?
Is research training in traditional
way adapted to novel modes of
knowledge production and in
dealing with uncertainty?
A case: Doctoral training in Education
Traditional doctoral training
Changes
Students
Students who seek to academic career
Teachers, teacher educators, principals,
and other professions in Education
Research
problem
From published theory and literature
From improvement needs of pragmatic
problem in their own context
Research
question
To answer a narrow theoretical question
To answer two pragmatic questions:
What’s the problem?
What should we do about it?
It generates multiple additional questions
and inquiries.
Aims
To prove a theoretical generalization to a
scholarly audience
To persuade organizational decision
makers to act on a problem in specified
ways (lessons learn, context, specification)
Format
Standardized and regular chapters
Alternative formats
Outcome
To confirm “hypothesis”
To guide changes with evidence and policy
implications
A case: Uncertainty in Education
 Student: Demographic, behavioral and cognitive responses
 Classroom, Instructional content: “unpredictability” of classroom life
 Institution: management, leadership
 Assessment: no test is perfectly reliable and valid
 Environment
 Educational study should be contextualized.
 More adaptable, not-normative
 Requires multi-methods approach mixing qualitative and quantitative
methods – often these methods alone are not enough to understand
the problem
Challenges
 ……Has not been changed.
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Requirements
Research themes
Research methodology
Still very disciplinary focused (compartimentalized)
 Why?
 Lack of programs and academics with practice and field of experiences
 Ideas, value, and culture: Against to alternative training methods
 How to change this situation?
 Development of alternative ways of curriculum and assessment
 Engagement of professions from outside university, including participatory risk
governance
Thank you !
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