Research On The Development Of Professional Doctorates Education In UK

Professional Doctorates,though have the same level and status with the Ph D,are practice-orientated and they are aiming to,through group-learning of the curriculum courses and the research of practical professional problems,cultivate high-level professional talents who can make unique contribution to the development of both knowledge and practice.The Professional Doctorates education in the United Kingdom began in 1992 and after undergoing three different developing periods,it has nowformed a profession-orientated teaching model and has become the useful supplement of their Ph D education.This dissertation,taking the development of UK's professional doctorates education as study object,from the perspective of education history,by means of literature analysis,history study,case study,and comparison,analyzed the historical development of UK's Professional Doctorates education,explored the background and motivation of its development,and induced the main characteristics of its development and evolution,to provide lessons for China's Professional Doctorates education's improvement and perfection.The Doctor degree education of the United Kingdom can be traced back to the 13^thcentury,when the doctor programme were only majoring in theology,medicine and law.At that time,a Doctor's degree is a qualification for some special vocations,and thus the Doctor education then had a clear professional education characteristics.The year 1917 saw the UK's introduction of Ph D system,which makes the beginning of its modern Ph D education.The Ph D education since then is academic-led,centering on academic research,and aiming at cultivating the future college teachers and scientific researchers.In the 1980s and 1990s,with the social and economy development and changes of the United Kingdom,and with the accelerated pace of the popularization and marketization of higher education,there was an increasing demandfor high-level talents in non-academic industries at that time,thus the development of Professional Doctorates education to parallel the Ph D education became the trend of higher education.In 1992,University of Bristol established the degree of Doctor of Education,and started the history of Professional Doctorates education in the UK.Generally,the years between 1992 and 2000 is thought to be the first period of UK's Professional Doctorates education.The education program in this period was featured in“courseworkplus dissertation”and the major difference between Ph D and Professional Doctorates lied in the different names for each degree as well as the different courses.In this period,the Professional Doctorates education just imitated the Ph D education,and it was still academic-led.The barrier between Professional Doctorates education and the practical need still existed.After entering the 21 century,the Professional Doctorates education was greatly influenced by the professional specialization in the UK,the change in the knowledge production model,and the higher education reform of the then Labor Government.The academic circle gradually form consensus on the problems eisting in the first period's Professional Doctorates education.The International Conference on Professional Doctorates held in 2000 formed the teaching model of“hybrid curriculum”,which marked the second period of UK's Professional Doctorates education development.This period was featured in the teaching model of“hybrid curriculum plus combinedoutcomes”.The relationship between the University,the profession and the working place was closer through the new teaching model of“hybrid curriculum”;and the combined ways of students'outcome make it possible to evaluate the students more flexibly and comprehensively.The Professional Doctorates education in this period focused more on professional life and training than on academic training,and thus it was more professional and practical.The problem of this period's Professional Doctorates education was the not-so-close ties between the university and the working place,and the insufficient guidence of the supervisors.The Fifth International Conference on Professional Doctorates in 2004 had a positive consensus on the United Kingdom's“work-baesd”Professional Doctorates education,and this conference marks the beginning of the third period of UK's Professional Doctorates education.With the closer and closer ties between the university and workplace,as well as the influence of the idea of“unification of general and vocational education”and the promotion of Bologna Process and the UK government's policies,the UK's Professional Doctorates education gradually formed the new“Workplace plus Self-reflection”teaching model.In this period,attention is paid to the students'practice and research in working places,and stress that the students should improve themselves through self-administering and critical reflection,and solve complex professonal practical problems.Its main features are that the working-place-orientated practice and reflection goes through the whole teaching program,and the interdisciplinarity of knowledge production.The Professional Doctorates education in this period is mainly profession-orientated but it also integrates students'professional and academic development.The problems existing in the United Kingdom's Professional Doctorates education lie in the different views on the content of Professional Doctorartes education,the lack of individual evaluation critiaria for Professional Doctorates education and too much and too detailed specialities,thus it is still on its way of developing and improving.The main characteristics of the United Kingdom's professional doctorates education lie in three aspects.Firstly,the main force of its change comes from the interaction and mutual game among the Government,the university and the market.Second,the value orientation of UK's Professional Doctorates education goes through a way from focusing on academiy to focusing on profession.And thirdly,its quality assurance system was mainly based on exteranl guanrantee,but now it is mainly based on internal guanrantee with the assistance of external guanrantee.Based on analyzing the historical development of the UK's professional doctorates education,this dissertation,from the perspective of higher education epistemology and olitics,using the higher education integration theory,inquries and reflects the game of power,value orientation and teaching-model-changes in the development of UK's Professional Doctorates education.What China should learn from the UK's history of Professional Doctorate education development is that China should make clear the role of Professional Doctorates education in its laws and regulations,form a profession-orientated teaching model,perfect the inter-agency educating mechanism of university&workplace cooperation and teaching&industry intergration,moderately expland its Professional Doctorate education scale and field,establish a profession-orientated quality assurance system and rationalize its Professional Doctorates education administration system.