Doctoral Education: Student and Faculty Perspectives

Dr Ian Kinchin & Dr Camille KandikoKing’s College London

TRANSCRIPT

CONCEPT MAP

CONCEPT MAP-Mediated interview

CONTENT

PROCESS

Participants Focus Activity Artefact

PhD student

PhD supervisor

CONCEPT MAP-Mediated interview

TRANSCRIPT

CONCEPT MAP

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Joseph Novak: Concept mapping

INVERTEBRATE

ANIMALS

VERTEBRATE

can be

MARINETERRESTRIAL

e.g. crabs, lobsters

e.g. beetles,flies

FEATHERSFUR

e.g. robins, penguins

e.g. sheep,cats

COLDBLOODED

ARTHROPODS WARMBLOODED

can be insulated with

aremostly can be

TEACHING

ACCEPTED KNOWLEDGE

REPRODUCTION

ASSESSMENT

transmits

to students for

for

LINEAR CYCLIC

TEACHING

PERSONAL UNDERSTANDING

DISCIPLINESTUDENTS

constructofa basis for

responsive to

of

starts with

use study

within aPRIOR

KNOWLEDGE

relates to

PhD

Writing

Presentation skills

Management of frustrations

Fun, exciting, enjoy, engaged

Experience in supervision of younger students

Prepare to be independent scientist

Transferable skills

A piece of original research

An expert in a specific field

An expert in the literature

Understand the literature and come up with testable hypothesis

Design an experiment to test hypothesis

Evaluate results of experiment critically

Relate it back to the literature and generate new hypotheses

Involves

Overall aim

Is

To become

Through becoming

To

Then

To

Eventually

Continuous process

- Lab - Department - Meetings - Thesis

- Papers

Organisation - time - data

Communicate findings

Interpersonal relationships; in-group team member

Faculty 1a (Senior supervisor)

Presenting project

Evolution of project Map 1a

Develop new ideas/ directions

What works

What does not work

Dead end?

Learning to make

choices

Try different things?

Skills

Strengths Weaknesses

Molecular biology/ computer-based work

Embryology/ fine manipulation

Question: Should she improve these? Is it necessary? If it is, how to improve?

Learn to read (in a technical sense)

Understand

Synthesise

Discuss/ interpret

Student often start here

Think, make her own plans

Self-reflection

Bottleneck

Students don’t understand how much work goes into reading/ researching

Faculty 1b (Junior supervisor)

Work Study

Learn about the international scientific community

Learn to work with different people

Learn in depth a certain part of a subject

Learn to communicate scientific knowledge

Publish and getting a title

Responsibility Patient Hard working

Deal with frustration

PhD is

1 5 4 6

2 7 3 4

Aim

But to publish you have to be

Creative

7

Take your time to learn

6

Learn to handle pressure

4

Work on several things

8

Learn to think on your own

Learn to think on your own

Learn the techniques

Work as a group

2 7

5

Student 1

Diet

Adult Neurogenesis in Hippocampus

Researched Molecular Mechanisms

Mood

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Intermittent fasting

through

impacts on?

impacts on? induces

moderates?

Is part of

Cell Culture

Animal Work

study with

study with

study with

study with

will lead to selection for

IN VITRO IN VIVO

Klotho

Up regulates

Up or down regulated in

increases influences

lead to

Resveratrol

induces PPAR

regulates

tested in

Molecular biology Statistics Immunohistochemistry

Microscopy involves Being used as a model of measuring

Faculty 2

AHN in dentate gyrus

Genes Klotho

Downstream genes

Depression

(Animal model) may not get to this

Up/down regulation with siRNA/ Vector

Omega 3

Diet

RSVL Resveratrol

PPAR

Inclusion(?) downstream genes

Tissue culture

Stress model

Effect Proliferation Differentiation

Student 2

“nascent cycle”

faculty career cycle

faculty view

student view

Is linearity a result of the “pedagogisation” of the PhD?

Further reading:

Kandiko, C.B. and Kinchin, I.M. (2012)What is a PhD? Process versus product in PhD supervision.Educational Research, In Press

camille.kandiko@kcl.ac.uk ian.kinchin@kcl.ac.uk