Massifying doctoral programs

Ross Woods, 2024

I was recently asked how a particular US institution had been able to confer so many earned doctorates. Based on my interactions with many of its students, I see that it has used various strategies to massify its doctoral programs.

Characteristics that attract students

First, as a full-fee institution, its listed fees are quite low compared to other US fee-based institutions. However, these fees only apply if students finish in the minimum time. As the institution charges fees per semester, programs are much more expensive for students who do not finish in the minimum time.

As a fee-based institution, it can accept all qualified applicants. (This constrasts to funded programs that have a limited number of places and a competitive admission process; applicants must compete for a limited number of places, and being suitably qualified does not ensure admission.)

Second, it has a fairly wide base for recruiting students:

  1. It has a wide geographical scope, holding residential courses and commencement ceremonies in various US states.
  2. It also seems to have a wide social scope, attracting students from a broad demographic profile.
  3. It also has a wide professional base, with a wide range of doctoral programs representing professions that employ large numbers of personnel.

Third, they have designed their programs to work fairly well for part time and distance students.

Finally, it is regionally accredited. This suits students who will go into the professions, and the institution seems to attract students who have this goal. Many dissertations require a section on practical benefits and implementation. I gather that their graduates do not try to get academic positions in upper tier universities, even though their qualifications are formally suitable. However, the university is not a higher tier institution itself, so graduates are less desirable than graduates of top-tier insitutions.

Getting larger numbers of students successfully through

It also uses several strategies to get larger numbers of students through to graduation:

  1. They maintain a strict five-chapter format for dissertations: Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Analysis, and Conclusion. Of these, the introduction is usually structured quite prescriptively. This is helpful, but not abnormal; most research protocols are similar.
  2. Students start research with a mini-proposal, which they call a prospectus. Students might have to revise it many times to get it accepted. This has two aspects:
    1. It is the student's responsibility to write it and get it correct. (It is not primarily a time-consuming dialogue with a supervisor.)
    2. It acts as early intervention to prevent students from taking a path that would not lead to successful completion. Students can't go any further with a topic that has no potential.
  3. Like many US universities, students prepare a comprehensive proposal, comprising the forerunner versions of the introduction, literature review, and methodology chapters. Students write these three chapters at the coursework stage before they actually start the dissertation, even though they will use those chapters in the dissertation in edited form. This has several advantages:
    1. The proposal is the basis for the comprehensive examination.
    2. The coursework contributes directly to the dissertation.
    3. The comprehensive proposal reduces the risk of problems during the research stage.
  4. The writing help page on their website is very good. They do whatever they can to put help on these pages, with advice and templates. Being a website, it is always available, and presumably saves faculty members lots of time.
  5. During the dissertation, students attend a residential course on the doctoral writing process. This gives students group interaction and help when they are most likely to have problems with their research and writing, and most likely to appreciate peer encouragement.
  6. Students and supervisors lodge dissertation documents into specialist software that systematically handles them through the various stages from beginning to end. Although most universities have a detailed map of the whole pathway, the software makes the dissertation process more proceduralized, and it is set up for distance students. Hypothetically, this means that the institution can “process” more dissertation students than it otherwise could, while still getting all the procedures correct, which is very important to accreditors. In a more personal program, some of their stages might not be necessary.

Other aspects

The supervisors form a committee with a chairperson. The committee members represent the range of skills necessary, but most of the work and power is vested in the chairperson of the committee. This reduces costs of faculty members, while meeting all accreditation requirements.

Students identify many dissertation topics as a gap in the literature, but, of those I have seen, their statements of significance sometimes appear to be quite thin. This seems to indicate that their personal and professional interests took prescedence over the desire to make a major ontribution to research.