Proposal Type:	Symposium
Domain:	Higher Education
SIG:	Higher Education
Scheduling category:	Professional Development
Type	Submitted Symposium
Title	Doctoral education: the shift from teaching and learning to supervision and professional development
Abstract	The Bologna process has encouraged reforms in doctoral education in order to build up the knowledge society and economy. Most of the work carried out is committed to analysing issues related to structure, organisation, financing, quality and innovative practice in doctoral programmes. The new perspectives acknowledge that doctoral education is about research training and research career development. As a result doctoral education is seen as a collective responsibility whereby a set of acknowledged skills are developed and assessed through a transparent framework. This new direction emphasises the crucial role of supervision and assessment and the need for explicit criteria and standards for defining professional expertise and thereby evaluating it. The recent concern for doctoral education has had a strong impact on research on doctoral studies. At first the focus was on handbooks for students with tips for achieving a doctorate. The sociological perspective now explores the academic environment and its impact on students’ coping strategies, the role of research groups as socialising environments and academics conceptions and practice in doctoral supervision. The purposes and criteria of the doctoral examination have come under scrutiny with significant contributions on assessment practices in doctoral studies and efforts to build a framework around explicit criteria. The pedagogical analysis queries the teaching and learning processes at stake in doctoral education in other words issues related to supervision and professional development. This symposium offers to explore these directions with empirical research on supervisors’ conceptions regarding supervising doctoral students and research work. It then turns around to capture doctoral students conceptions and experiences related to supervision. It queries the practice of assessment and the importance of clarifying criteria and standards. Finally it explores supervisors and doctoral students’ conceptions on professional development related to research careers and how it is taken in to consideration in doctoral programmes.
Equipment	Overhead projector Computer and data projector / beamer
Keywords	Higher education Professional Development Training of young researchers

Chairperson list
First Name	Last Name/Surname	Institution	Country	E-Mail	EARLI Number
Nicole	Rege Colet	Haute ecole pedagogique Vaud	Switzerland	nicole.rege-colet@hepl.ch

Organiser list
First Name	Last Name/Surname	Institution	Country	E-Mail	EARLI Number
Nicole	Rege Colet	Haute ecole pedagogique Vaud	Switzerland	nicole.rege-colet@hepl.ch

Discussant list
First Name	Last Name/Surname	Institution	Country	E-Mail	EARLI Number
Lynn	McAlpine	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	lynn.mcalpine@learning.oc.ac.uk

Paper Details

Paper type	Empirical
Title	Concepts of doctoral supervision
Abstract	Literature about doctoral supervision has concentrated on describing the ever lengthening lists of functions that must be carried out. This functional approach is necessary but there has been less exploration of a different paradigm, a conceptual approach towards research supervision. This paper, based on interviews with supervisors from a range of disciplines, aims to fill this a gap. The main concepts identified are: 1. Functional: where the issue is one of project management 2. Enculturation: where the student is encouraged to become a member of the disciplinary community 3. Critical thinking: where the student is encouraged to question and analyse their work 4. Emancipation: where the student is encouraged to question and develop themselves 5. Developing a quality relationship: where the student is enthused, inspired and cared for Supervisors of doctoral students are also trying to reconcile the tensions between their professional role as an academic and their personal self, as well as encouraging students to move a long a path towards increasing independence. The concepts are examined in the light of each of these tensions. The research illuminates the power of the supervisor’s own experience as a student and the suggests that supervisors need to be aware of both the positive and negative aspects of each of these conceptual approaches. This work raises a question about how field independent this framework is, the implications of disciplinary differences and whether it can be applied to curriculum design and other teaching and learning practices.
Summary	This paper proposes a framework of supervision which can be used both for the development of individual supervisors and to create a language which those involved in co-supervisory roles can use to negotiate and understand their respective role (Lee 2008a and 2008b). A purposive sample of supervisors were interviewed. They included those with varying lengths of experience and the main discipline groups. They were all recommended as excellent supervisors by their students and/or their colleagues. Twelve came from a range of disciplines in a research intensive UK university and three came from a leading US university. The interview data was compared with interviews with two PhD students and two focus groups of students. Five main approaches to supervision were identified. They intertwine in a complex manner and, although they are disentangled here to aid clarity, it is not maintained that they are independent of each other. The main concepts identified are: 1 Functional: where the issue is one of project management and ensuring a rational progression through tasks 2 Enculturation: where the student is encouraged to become a member of the disciplinary community and the student is an apprentice 3 Critical thinking: where the student is encouraged to question, evaluate and analyse their work 4 Emancipation: where the student is encouraged to question and develop themselves, where learning is recognised as socially constructed 5 Developing a quality relationship: where the student is enthused, inspired and cared for and there is emotional intelligence and trust The model is integrative in that it includes organisational, sociological, philosophical, psychological and emotional dimensions. There are several relevant areas of literature which illuminate this framework, as described below. Functional: This emerges from a series of guides to effective supervision (Wisker, 2005; Taylor & Beasley, 2005). They provide useful lists of tasks and vignettes, but they do not give supervisors a conceptual model to use in reflecting upon their beliefs about what supervision is about. Skills such as directing, acquiring resources, getting the work done and monitoring are examples of features emphasised in this approach. Enculturation: In this approach learning is seen as developing within a societal context (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Delamont et al., 2000) they describe the importance of becoming a member of a discipline. Indeed, Delamont et al. argued that academics identify themselves by their discipline first and by their university and department second. There are also frequent references to an apprenticeship model in this context. The research student needs to acquire a great deal of subtle professional and interpersonal knowledge about how research and academic life is conducted. Critical thinking is a western philosophical tradition that encourages analysis, looking for propositions and arguments for and against them. The roots of this approach to supervision are both dialectic and dialogic. Dialectical thinking pits various propositions or theories against each other. Dialogical thinking requires a discussion and synthesis of a series of propositions and encourages the student to look for a hidden logic. The ability to synthesise literature and make a coherent argument has been identified as a key activity that the student must undertake by thesis examiners. (Holbrook et al. 2007). Emancipation as a supervisory process implies both support and challenge. It is also a process which allows and supports personal transformation. Acquiring a PhD can be a transformative process, the prerequisites for transformative learning require critical reflection and a disorienting dilemma (Mezirow, 1991; Taylor, 2007). Relationships. There is some evidence that poor relationships are blamed for poor completion rates (Taylor & Beasley, 2005, p 69), and poor relationships can arise because of unarticulated and unmet expectations on both sides. Emotional intelligence has become a contested but popular phenomenon in this field (Salovey & Mayer, 1997). The implication of this work is that supervisors who are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of all of these approaches to supervision will be better placed to develop their students. A neutral language for exploring differing expectations in supervision is important both between students and supervisors and within supervisory teams. The impact of these approaches on existing students is worth further study, for example, does an enculturation approach encourage students to stay within the discipline and seek work within academia? Further research is also needed on the proposition that: whilst a supervisor might exemplify a range of conceptual approaches, the student experiences one or two predominant approaches. The research highlights that a range of methodological approaches is necessary to close the gap between the levels of awareness and action which may be hidden by just interviewing supervisors. Both observation and interviews will only give partial information and both are interpreted through the filter of the researcher/observer. Other areas for further study include disciplinary similarities and differences and whether this framework has relevance for the design of pedagogical curricula References Delamont. S., Atkinson. P., & Parry. O, (2000) The Doctoral Experience. Success and Failure in Graduate School. (London. Falmer Press) Holbrook, A., Bourke, S., Fairbairn, H., and Lovat, T. (2007) "Examiner Comment on the Literature Review in Ph.D. Theses", Studies in Higher Education, vol. 32, no. 3, 337-356 Lave. J., & Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation (Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press) Lee, A (2008a) Supervisory teams – making them work Series 2 No 6 in ‘Issues in Postgraduate Education’ London.Society for Research into Higher Education Lee, A (2008b) How are doctoral students supervised? Concepts of research supervision. Studies in Higher Education 33 (4) pp267-281 Mezirow, J. (1991) Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning Jossey Bass, San Francisco CA. Salovey, P. and Mayer, J. (1997) "What is emotional intelligence?," in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Implications for Educators, Salovey, P and Sluyter, D, Basic Books, New York, 3-31. Taylor, E. W. (2007) "An update of transformative learning theory: a critical review of the empirical research (1999-2005)", International Journal of Lifelong Education, vol. 26, no. 2, 173-191 Taylor, S. and Beasley, N. (2005) A handbook for Doctoral Supervisors Routledge, Abingdon. Wisker. G., 2005. The Good Supervisor. (Basingstoke Palgrave Study Guides. Macmillan)
Keywords	Professional Development Research based learning Social interaction
Appendices

Authors
Name	Surname	Institution	Country	e-mail	EARLI Number	Presenting
Anne	Lee	University of Surrey	United Kingdom	a.lee@surrey.ac.uk		*

Paper type	Empirical
Title	Negotiating emerging academic identities: Doctoral student experiences of the supervisory relationship
Abstract	This study contributes to a much need body of research on doctoral student experiences, specifically focused on the intricacies of the daily lived experiences of the doctorate. During the doctorate students develop academic identities through their movement from student to academic and professional. Through collective longitudinal case studies, and qualitative data analysis, the day-to-day experiences of doctoral students in a North American Faculty of Education are explored. Findings highlight the variations in the ways the supervisory relationships are experienced by students, the status and expectations that students project onto supervisors, and the multiple supervisory-type relationships students negotiate within their day-to-day activities. These findings point to shifting student agency as a potential characteristic of doctoral education in need of further research and exploration.
Summary	The supervisor is considered the central site of doctoral education (Petersen, 2007), with the supervisory relationship argued as a major factor for successful completion of the doctorate (Pearson & Brew, 2002). While the dominant paradigm used in North American research on doctoral education has been socialization (e.g., Weidman, Twale & Stein, 2001), it privileges the perspective of the supervisor without giving full consideration to student perspectives and experiences. Recent research findings suggest that the supervisor role may not be as important in the day-to-day activities of the doctorate as previously thought (e.g., Bieber & Worely, 2006, McAlpine & Jazvac-Martek, 2008). This work highlights the need for a deeper understanding of student experiences in the doctorate and how the supervisory relationship influences individuals’ emerging academic identities. In the absence of precise information about student experiences, understandings, practices and relationships within particular environments, both beneficial and detrimental practices are perpetuated. The current work seeks to gain deeper insight into doctoral student experience by drawing upon a social-psychological identity perspective conceived of as complimentary and broader in scope than socialization. Developed from symbolic interactionist perspectives, role-identity theory (McCall, 2003; Stets, 2006) is used to consider how doctoral students experience and engage in becoming academics and develop ‘academic identity’. In this view identity is constructed as relations and is embedded in interpersonal relationships, with identity being a property of interactions with others (Cote, 2005). This is especially relevant for examining the transitional nature of the doctorate and the relationships doctoral students have with supervisors and others. Using qualitative methodology, collective longitudinal case studies were carried out over a two year period with 9 doctoral students in a single faculty of Education (from 3 departments) at a research intensive North American university. Each participant explicitly expressed directing their work toward future careers as academics multiple times throughout data collection, hence, each was focused on creating an academic identity. Data was collected through a combination of longitudinal tracking and semi-structured interviews over a two year period. A longitudinal tracking form logged experience of a single week in a given month and was distributed once every month (7 months in year 1; 8 months in year 2), with a range of 4-15 logs per person and 100 logs in total. These logs asked for information on progress, how time was spent, human resources drawn upon, events that made them feel like an academic, difficulties or challenges and how these may have been resolved. At the end of each year of log collection a 1-1.5 hour semi-structured interview took place (2 per participant, 18 interviews total). Using a semi-structure interview protocol, the specific content of interview questions was tailored for each participant based on the cumulative log responses. These questions probed deeper into the most salient and prominent experience named in the logs, and focused on relationships and interactions with others. Using the MaxQDA qualitative data analysis software, analyses of data were carried out thematically and inductively across cases. Member checking of interview summaries was done with participants to enhance trustworthiness of interpretations. Overall, doctoral students indicated the supervisor as a very important person in their doctoral process, although the impact of the supervisor was often limited to formal aspects of the PhD (e.g., comprehensive examinations). Peers and other professors took on equal and in some cases more importance in the day-to-day activities that participants identified as contributing to their emerging academic identities. Students experienced their supervisory relationship in varied ways that differed over time and across participants. The specific roles and expectations student project onto the supervisor, and the high level status and power attributed to supervisors by their supervisees is explored. While students learn about what it means to engage in academic work through their supervisors, they also take away important lessons on things to do and not do when they later move into supervising students in an academic role. Student grappling with their shifting agency is a central feature of the results, as students take on different views of themselves and their ability to influence situations in different ways through both their perceived agency and agency projected onto others, including their supervisors. Students simultaneously engage in negotiating the asymmetrical relationship with their supervisor and more symmetrical supervision-type mentoring relationships with peers and academics. Implications of these results for doctoral student education and supervisor development are explored. Bieber, J. P., & Worley, L. K. (2006). Conceptualizing the academic life: Graduate students' perspectives. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(6), 1009-1035. Cote, J. E. (2005). Identity studies: How close are we to developing a social science of identity? - An appraisal of the field. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 6(1), 3-25. McAlpine, L., & Jazvac-Martek, M (2008, March). What weekly logs tell us about the nature of doctoral students’ experience: Implications for faculty development. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Education Research Association, New York, USA. McCall, G. J. (2003). The me and the not-me: Positive and negative poles of identity. In P.J. Burke, T. J. Owens, R. T. Serpe, and P.A. Thoits (Eds.) Advances in Identity Theory and Research. New York: Kluwer Academic Press. Pearson, M., & Brew, A. (2002). Research training and supervision development. Studies in Higher Education, 27(2), 135-150. Petersen, E. (2007). Negotiating academicity: postgraduate research supervision as category boundary work. Studies in Higher Education, 32(4), 475-487. Stets, J. E. (2006). Identity theory. In P. J. Burke (Ed.) Contemporary Social Psychological Theories. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Weidman, J. C., Twale, D. J., & Stein, E. L. (2001). Socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: A perilous passage? (No. Volume 28, Number 3). San Francisco: ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Reports
Keywords	Higher education Research based learning Training of young researchers
Appendices

Authors
Name	Surname	Institution	Country	e-mail	EARLI Number	Presenting
Marian	Jazvac-Martek	McGill University	Canada	marian.jazvac@mail.mcgill.ca		*

Paper type	Empirical
Title	Assessing doctorateness
Abstract	Doctoral Candidate How can I assess the merit of MY doctoral thesis? Doctoral Examiner What are the critical features that, as examiners, WE will use to assess the thesis? These two questions emphasize the formative and summative aspects of assessment in doctoral study. Both processes are of equal importance to candidates and examiners. Our data draws upon extensive supervisory and examining experience, attending over 100 doctoral vivas plus conducting international workshops for supervisors and candidates in recent years. In our presentation we will provide excerpts from examiners' reports and insights on the components of doctoral research that examiners consider to be important. Cameo examples from candidates will illustrate their perspectives on the assessment process. Transcripts of questions in two doctoral vivas will show doctoral assessment in action. We will explain how examiners use identifiable and predictable features of doctorateness to assess the scholarly merit of theses. The generic nature of these findings will be apparent through examples from theses in different disciplines. Cameos will be presented to show how candidates engage in formative assessment to raise the quality of scholarship and so enhance doctorateness in their theses. Knowing the type of generic questions that examiners use to judge the scholarly merit of doctoral theses, represent practical frameworks for candidates to use throughout their doctoral studies. It provides a template in which candidates can plan, write, present and submit a thesis. Thus, assessing doctorateness is a formative task for candidates seeking high quality scholarship and a summative task for doctoral examiner-assessors.
Summary	Doctoral theses are, inevitably, ‘assessed’ by everyone who reads them. However, two of the many possible readers ~ candidates and examiners ~ have specific reasons for assessing the thesis. Candidates use it formatively to learn from what they have written in order to improve the quality of their thesis. Examiners use assessment summatively to arrive at judgements on the scholarly merit of a submitted thesis and so identify issues for exploration in a viva, or as members of a review panel without the candidate attending. In recent years we have attended over 100 doctoral vivas and personally collected the questions asked by examiners. Exploring the motivation for their questions after the viva, and analyzing their individual written reports, has revealed patterns and categories for these questions. Firstly, examiners’ questions can be mapped against the two axes of Innovation and Development, and Scholarship and Creativity. This produces quadrants that focus respectively on: Technology of the thesis, Theoretical perspectives, Practice of research, and Demonstrating doctorateness (Trafford and Leshem, 2002). The features in each of the quadrants are singly and collectively important in the production of a doctoral thesis (Trafford and Leshem, 2008: 19). Our evidence shows that examiners wish to understand the rationale used by candidates to undertake, design, conceptualise, conclude and write-up their research The questions that examiners ask are therefore prompted by what they read in the text of theses. However, since doctoral theses are expected to demonstrate high quality research that make a contribution to knowledge, then examiners’ questions represent explicit criteria which assess that attribute. The features that examiners expect to find in doctoral theses are surrogate indicators of high quality scholarship and research. Examiners consistently look for how doctoral research addresses a gap in knowledge via research questions that are founded in explicit conceptual frameworks. The research design, appropriate methodology and ‘correctly applied fieldwork’ combine to illustrate candidates’ grasp of research as an integrated process. A clear and precise presentation of text that demonstrates engagement with theoretical perspectives and is coherent throughout the thesis should produce a thesis that readers will ‘enjoy’ reading. These features which typify high quality research, are constantly found in excellent doctoral theses, and collectively they demonstrate doctorateness. Thus, examiners are applying assessment criteria that are identifiable, familiar, universal and easily accessible. If doctoral candidates, and supervisors, recognise the significance of these criteria then they represent a template against which to draft a thesis. In so doing, candidates would align the account of their research with the same criteria that would ~ later ~ be used to assess the scholarly merit of their thesis. They would also be engaging in a self-audit (assessment) of their work from which learning and personal development could then follow (Lawton, 1997). Since doctoral study is presumed to be a developmental process for doctoral candidates, then the process of self-assessment, or self-audit, contributes to this aspiration. Designing and undertaking doctoral research is an intellectually demanding task; it is intended to fill a gap in knowledge and to make ‘a modest contribution to knowledge that is reasonable and can be defended’ (Trafford and Leshem, 2008: 50). However, all candidates have the opportunity to assess their progress towards that end-point, by monitoring how well they are doing as they are doing it. This involves reviewing their research approach, research design, fieldwork, findings, conclusions and outcomes. This form of critique focuses their attention directly on the extent to which their work accords with the criteria that are used to judge its inherent scholarship. When candidates audit their work in this way they are ‘thinking like an experienced and competent researcher’ and therefore displaying the episteme appropriate to their discipline (Perkins, 2006: 42). Through this, examiners would recognise that candidates are demonstrating the capacity to undertake unsupervised post-doctoral research. However, other candidates focus their attention instead on lower level intellectual and technical issues such as sample sizes, response rates, quantity of references and duration of their study. These candidates are not exhibiting the episteme appropriate to their discipline, and it would be noted by examiners. Candidates recognise that addressing the generic questions which examiners will ask, and then answering them in their thesis, should create a doctorally-worthy account of their research. However, the way in which they undertake this task varies respectively between disciplines and methodological approaches. T.S. Eliot was not necessarily thinking about doctoral study when he wrote: What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. (Eliot, 1974: 2008) His words contain practical advice on how candidates might think about assessing their doctoral research. Using the generic questions that examiners ask provides them with a practical (formative) template from which to write, present and submit doctoral research. If ‘the end’ are the various criteria used by examiners to judge the merit of the thesis, then it constitutes a diagnostic (summative) template from which they extract their agenda of questions to ask in the viva. Making the research destination (the end) explicit should be the starting point for candidates and guide the subsequent planning and execution (beginning) for their doctoral research. In this sense, Eliot’s words offer a visualisation of successful doctoral journeys. The words identify, implicitly, crucial relationships between ends and beginnings. Thus, they connect the doctoral candidate’s summative assessment processes with the formative assessment processes by doctoral examiners of doctorateness. Elliot, T.S. (1974). The four quartets: collected poems, 1909–1962. London: Faber and Faber. Lawton, D. (1997). How to succeed in postgraduate study. In: Graves, N. and Varma, V. (Eds) Working for a doctorate. London: Routledge. Perkins, D. (2006). Constructivism and troublesome knowledge. In Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (Eds) Overcoming barriers to student understanding: threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. London: Routledge. Trafford, V.N. & Leshem, S. (2002). Starting at the end to undertake doctoral research: predictable questions as stepping stones. Higher Education Review. 35. 1. 31–49. Trafford, V.N. & Leshem. S. (2008). Stepping stones to achieving your doctorate. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Keywords	Assessment of Competence Higher education Research based learning
Appendices

Authors
Name	Surname	Institution	Country	e-mail	EARLI Number	Presenting
Shosh	Leshem	Oranim Academic college of education and Haifa Uni	Israel	shosh-l@zahav.net.il		*
Vernon	Trafford	Anglia Ruskin University	United Kingdom	Vntrafford@aol.com

Paper type	Empirical
Title	Doctoral students’ and supervisors’ conceptions of professional development within a doctoral programme
Abstract	Reforming doctoral education in order to build up the knowledge society and economy has led to numerous doctoral programmes. Whatever their diversity in scope and content might be, they have in common to consider doctoral studies as a professional training that leads to research and/or academic careers. The core principles for doctoral studies nowadays acknowledge professional development and recommend programmes that support doctoral candidates in achieving their doctorate. Doctoral programmes are expected not only to facilitate developing scientific disciplinary and methodological skills but also to help candidates acquire the generic skills that define a professional researcher. The French-speaking universities of Switzerland apply these principles in 15 programmes in a wide range of disciplinary fields including more than 400 doctoral candidates. There is no set standard, so each programme develops its own activities according to disciplinary specificities and needs. However, they all strive to support candidates throughout their studies and to offer a collective workplace that will enhance professional integration. This communication discusses the results of two studies carried out with doctoral candidates and supervisors involved in the programmes. The research questions both doctoral students’ and supervisors’ conceptions on professional development within a doctoral programme. It addresses the issue of generic skills, integration in a scientific community and career management. The results highlight the differences regarding learning outcomes in a doctoral programme and the difficulty in understanding the idea of professional development in an academic environment.
Summary	As from 2003, the Bologna process encouraged reforms in doctoral education in order to build up the knowledge society and economy. New perspectives consider doctoral education as a professional training leading to research and academic careers that requires a sound scientific preparation but also innovative modes of integration within a scientific community. For these reasons reforming doctoral studies has become inevitable and higher education institutions are now encouraged to promote doctoral programmes that supply doctoral candidates with a sound scientific and professional training. This contribution reviews the new model for doctoral education featuring the European area for higher education. A brief presentation of the follow up work highlights the main issues for doctoral education and the principles for organising doctoral programmes and research training. The core component of doctoral studies is the advancement of knowledge through an original research. This implies an initial professional training in research. Or in other words, doctoral education is about professional development where disciplinary and generic skills are pulled together to build up a professional profile. Doctoral programmes are designed to raise scientific training and increase integration within research communities. They are expected to provide opportunities for deeper understanding of disciplinary fields and methodological issues but also for acquiring the generic skills related to a highly qualified researcher. The French speaking universities of Switzerland have been developing such doctoral programmes for more than five years with the help of the Western Switzerland University Conference (CUSO). Today 15 programmes have been launched in a wide range of disciplinary fields and in all more than 400 doctoral candidates attend a programme. There is no set standard for organising the activities, but all programmes are expected to support doctoral candidates throughout their studies in order to achieve their doctorate and to provide a collective workplace that will facilitate professional integration. The main purpose of this contribution is to present a selection of results from an evaluative research carried out in order to monitor and improve these doctoral programmes during their first years. A first survey focuses on the doctoral students’ perception regarding the quality of supervision and deals with certain dimensions of professional development. A second survey, addressing the same dimensions, focuses on the conceptions of supervisors involved in the programmes. Both studies take into consideration 8 variables: 1) quality of scientific environment; 2) interdisciplinary approach; 3) interactions; 4) professional development; 5) the link between the programme and achieving the doctorate; 6) generic skills; 7) progress in doctoral studies; 8) general satisfaction. The results of the survey carried out with the doctoral students show significant variations in the scores. The lowest score (therefore the most unsatisfactory dimension) concerns professional development. Several significant differences can be attributed to disciplinary fields. For instance, the doctoral programmes in natural sciences seem to show more interest for professional development and integration than the programmes is social sciences. Furthermore, advanced doctoral candidates are more likely to value aspects dealing with professional development. This first study (Rege Colet, 2008) concludes that doctoral candidates are not always aware of what professional development means or implies. They therefore cannot assess the impact of a doctoral programme on their career. But the study also admits that doctoral candidates might not be the only ones have difficulties in grappling with the concept of professional development. The academic community still does not acknowledge the idea that a doctoral programme is the equivalent of a professional training. Supervisors and programme leaders admit that they have problems in grasping the notion of professional development in doctoral programmes and turning them into a coherent programme with adequate teaching and learning settings. For this reason the second survey based on the same 8 variables examines supervisors’ perceptions on learning outcomes in doctoral programmes and their contribution to professional expertise. The contribution compares the results from both surveys and discusses professional identity and the shift from implicit individual knowledge to explicit shared knowledge in a community of practice according to Eraut’s (2000) approach to professional knowledge. Evaluation being at the origin of this research, the communication wraps up with a few recommendations for programmes leaders in order to improve the doctoral programmes but most of all to emphasise the awareness between the activities proposed, the skills acquired and professional development. Eraut, M. (2000). Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work. British Journal of educational psychology, 70, 113-136. European University Association (EUA). (2005b). Doctoral programmes for the European knowledge society. Bruxelles: European University Association. Rege Colet, N. (2008). Revalorisation de la formation doctorale : impact des programmes doctoraux sur le developpement professionnel. Communication faite au 25eme congres de l'Association internationale de pedagogie universitaire, Montpellier, 19-22 mai 2008.
Keywords	Higher education Professional Development Research based learning
Appendices

Authors
Name	Surname	Institution	Country	e-mail	EARLI Number	Presenting
Nicole	Rege Colet	Haute ecole pedagogique Vaud	Switzerland	nicole.rege-colet@hepl.ch		*