acceptance and image of an EdD in Europe, especially UK, in the academic environment

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by adelheid, Aug 16, 2003.

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  1. adelheid

    adelheid New Member

    Having finished my MEd by DL in July, I am now continuing with a EdD by DL; both are Australian universities. I would like to find out your opinions and experiences regarding the acceptance (and de facto image) of an EdD in Europe, especially UK, in the academic environment, i.e. for university teaching purposes.

    Cheers and thanks for any input!

    adelheid:)
     
  2. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    adelheid,

    The good news:

    The Ed.D. (invented in the 1920s at Harvard) is offered by several schools in England, including the following:

    http://www.bath.ac.uk/education/edd/

    http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Education/edd.htm

    http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/edd.html

    http://www.dur.ac.uk/education/post/edd/EdDintro1.htm

    http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/courses/EdD/

    ...so the degree appears to be well-established in the UK.

    The not-so-good news:

    I went to the faculty sites at a few UK universities and did not find any Ed.D.s among the faculty...only Ph.D.s

    However:

    Not all of the universities listed the degree titles of their faculty. You may wish to visit the faculty web sites of the schools/colleges/institutes of education of the universities in which you would be interested in teaching and see if you can find any Ed.D.s there.

    Incidentally, I possess most of the published research studies comparing the Ed.D. and Ph.D. in education in the U.S. and there is no significant difference between the two degrees (except in the minds of some).

    Tony Piña
    Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino
     
  3. mgspillane

    mgspillane Member

    At one time the principle academic degrees at English universities were the BA, BSc, MA, MSc, MPhil, PhD. Occasionally the B.Sc. would have a qualifier, such as Soc. for sociology, Tech. for technology, or Econ. for (surprise!) economics.

    There were also professional degrees, such as the BMus (music) MB, ChB (medicine) and LLB (for lawyers).

    An MA or MSc may be part taught, part research or wholly research based.

    At some English universities the MPhil is awarded at the half way stage to a PhD, if it then appears that the candidate is not going to make the grade. At others it is recognised as a goal in its own right.

    Traditionally the regulations governing the award of the above degrees have been very strict and have not given much scope for manoeuver. In the past 15 years UK institutions of higher education have been forced to become more entrepreneurial and one way to meet demand and create niche courses was to introduce more specific, "trade" degree descriptions, which preserved the traditional titles for traditional course. Such new titles included, for example, B.Ed., M.Ed., B.Eng., M.Eng. (engineering) MIS (international studies) and of course the ubiquitous MBA (although the BCom. has a long and illustrious history.)

    This created demand for higher degrees which did not threaten the traditional academic degrees and which, although professionally of an acceptable standard did not have as high academic or theoretical components, and so from the MBA the DBA was born and from the MEd came the Ed.D. (presumably because no one wanted to be D.Ed.)

    Depending where they originate, these "trade" degrees are often more acceptable in the workplace than the the traditional degree which requires a graduate apprenticeship to make the possessor a valued employee. However, they also gave rise to opportunities for windowdressing, which is why the place where the MBA came from is generally of great interest.

    Turning to the question, which is "better," in the ivory tower, the PhD is "better." In administration, it matters less. However, it is interesting that on book-covers it will generally be said that "A was awarded her PhD at Y university and B received his Doctorate from Z University" Thus a PhD tends to be flaunted, an EdD. not so.
     

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