Research

At this time CIRGE remains the only research center strictly devoted to generating and analyzing data on doctoral education in the nation and in the world.  Research into graduate education is necessary in order to: a) monitor trends; b) assess changes and innovation; and c) understand forces that impinge on graduate education.  University presidents, provosts and deans are increasingly being asked to report not only on the efficiency of doctoral education (using conventional indicators of time-to-degree and doctoral completion), but also on the impact of doctoral education on society.  Public and private agencies funding higher education are asking for evidence that their investment in graduate education has made a difference.  By failing to systematically analyze the actual career paths of their students, universities are missing information vital to the improvement of their doctoral programs.

Local IGERT Assessments:
CIRGE works with the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) programs at the University of Washington to chart the innovations of this important attempt to bring change to doctoral education. In order to evaluate the learning process of these innovative doctoral programs, CIRGE developed an evaluation plan, conducted web surveys, focus groups, interviews and prepared reports on our findings as well as on the sustainability and best practices of IGERTs. CIRGE facilitated a collaboration between the UW Urban Ecology IGERT and a similar innovative program in Germany.  Working with the IGERTs has offered CIRGE a unique opportunity to study innovations in doctoral programs and to develop our expertise in evaluation and assessment of these important programs.

National Surveys:
In order to understand the quality of graduate education (and postdoctoral education) we need to find out what PhD recipients are doing after completing their university education and we need to investigate how career paths are linked to the quality of doctoral and postdoctoral education. CIRGE houses the data of the three national career path studies, PhDs-Ten Years Later (which surveyed PhDs in biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science from 64 institutions); Art History PhDs-A Decade Later (which surveyed all PhD recipients who graduated from US art and architectural history programs during the academic years 1985 to 1991; and(which surveyed PhD recipients from 65 institutions in anthropology, communications, geography, history, political science, psychology, and sociology). Social Science PhDs-Five Years Out

Our analysis of this data examines the transition from education to more stable employment, evaluates doctoral programs, assesses the doctoral degree’s usefulness for career and life, and analyzes respondent recommendations for improvements in doctoral programs. An important part of our research focuses on doctoral program assessment from the perspective of the PhD recipients who went through the program.

International Collaboration:
As doctoral education is transforming from a national to a global system, it is being confronted with rapid and radical changes.  Existing research on patterns of these changes is minimal and little information on the rapidly changing forms of doctoral education around the world is available.  Recognizing the need for U.S. policy makers, researchers, graduate deans, and other higher education administrators to be aware of developments in doctoral education globally, CIRGE has created a unique international network of scientists and higher education researchers devoted to sharing up-to-date information on current reforms, as well as synthesizing existing research, producing new knowledge, and communicating information about doctoral education innovations to relevant policy audiences. This group is the “Forces and Forms of Change in Doctoral Education Worldwide” network (”F&F network”). Participants are top-level university administrators, higher education researchers, and scientists. Disciplines represented by the scientists in the network include biochemistry, comparative biology, economics, engineering, geography, mathematics, neuroscience, physics, psychology, social psychology, sociology, urban studies and planning.  Scholars from twenty countries are currently involved including Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, South Africa, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A.  The network is a vehicle for exchange and centralization of information and research findings, and a means of stimulating the production and synthesis of knowledge about innovations in STEM doctoral education.

Future Directions:
Building on our previous work, CIRGE is now in a strong position to be a contributor to, and catalyst for, change in graduate education.  In our upcoming research projects, we will concentrate on the how people become researchers and on trying to understand the competencies that graduate students learn when they are involved in international activities.  In the United States, research in these areas barely exists, yet these are questions critical to continued innovation and improvement in doctoral education.  Researchers outside of the U.S. (Australia and the UK in particular) have begun to pose related questions, and there’s an increasing international interest in investigating research pedagogy of doctoral education systematically. In collaboration with experts on campus, nationally and internationally, CIRGE plans to develop a better overall concept of graduate education, updating the existing apprenticeship model and answering the complex question of how students become researchers in a global context.