New civics: Translating higher degree research education policy in Australia

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 28: Higher education in a changing world

July, 2005, 639 pages
Published by
Angela Brew and Christine Asmar
ISBN
0 908557 62 0
Abstract 

For several decades in higher education in Australia postgraduate research students have enjoyed a somewhat liberal educative experience, in part due to the hybrid nature of higher degree research education and in part due to a somewhat mysterious reverence for research. Increasingly, however, higher degree research students are the subject of academic scholarship and Commonwealth and institutional policy focusing generally on improvement, but specifically on the student – supervisor relationship, timely completions, and more recently, the acquisition of generic capabilities. It is now believed that it is in the better interest of tertiary institutions and government to strategically manage higher degree research education. An important question is how is the change from mysterious and laissez faire to transparent and managed translated to students? How do students come to know what is expected of them? How do they become good students? In this paper I employ a metaphor of national civics pedagogy in quantifying four levels of institutional policy as evidenced in a nation- wide tertiary institution higher degree research policy survey. Moreover, as a critical and active participant in my own educative experience, as well as a student advocate, I highlight gaps in Commonwealth and institutional higher degree research pedagogy and suggest new ways to translate higher degree research policy to produce well informed ‘citizens’.

Keywords: postgraduate pedagogy, higher degree research policy