Ed.D. or Ph.D. in Education ?

In certain circles, such as in the discipline of Psychology, the Ed.D and Psy.D are generally looked down upon by Ph.Ds. . However, as I mentioned in my previous posting the needs and career goals of the degree holder supercede others' impression and perceptions.

 

I've no clue of the difference, I suppose if you want to teach in Education at the University level, either would do. As for ignorance amongst academics--yeah, no kidding, and sometimes a healthy dose of insecurity to go along with it!

I think the whole matter's silly: if someone slaved away the prime years of their life--the better part of a decade--doing the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate, making the sacrifices that necessarily come with such a decision, why disparage them after they've reached the pinnacle? Who cares if it's a PhD, EdD, DBA, whatever? Who cares if their hood had dark blue, light blue, drab tan velvet? It represents a huge sacrifice and a real honor regardless, and unless those PhD earners have also an earned EdD or DBA, what do they know?

 

quote:
posted by little fauss
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I think the whole matter's silly: if someone slaved away the prime years of their life--the better part of a decade--doing the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate, making the sacrifices that necessarily come with such a decision, why disparage them after they've reached the pinnacle? Who cares if it's a PhD, EdD, DBA, whatever?
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I agree completely - (of course, on condition that we are talking about properly accredited doctorates). The distinctions need not be made, certainly not for creating artificial academic hierarchies or such.

Which brings me to this question:

Is there evidence, studies or statistics on the estimated relative numbers of fake Ph.Ds versus fake EdDs?

I earnestly hope that this question not detract from the discussion of this thread.....

Dr. Douglas, can you help? Does your dissertation or any other(s) that you are aware of, address this issue? (My apologies - I have not read your published dissertation on perceptions in DL but I promise I will, soon).

I only ask the question to see if it might have a bearing on the perceptions of some (not in acdemia) regarding the relative merits of a PhD or EdD.

quote
posted by Anthony Pina
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While there is perception by many that the Ed.D. is not on par with the Ph.D., there are no facts or research to back up that perception. Ignorance can exist even among the "educated".
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Yes, indeed! Quite true!

Suffice it to say that a doctor is a doctor, regardless of applelations unless of course s/he is not a medical/allopathic/osteopathic doctor - M.D. or D.O.) .......... smile.

Thanks.

 

Regarding the above question, you may have heard of this:

Embattled Pal-Mac Official Resgins
2/16/2005 11:00 PM
(WROC-TV)
http://www.wroctv.com/news/story.asp?id=16808&r=l

Background:
http://www.waynetimes.com/features.html

Same story different article:
http://www.10nbc.com/index.asp?temp...;story_id=12947

Thanks.

 

Originally posted by Jake_A
quote:
posted by little fauss
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I think the whole matter's silly: if someone slaved away the prime years of their life--the better part of a decade--doing the Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate, making the sacrifices that necessarily come with such a decision, why disparage them after they've reached the pinnacle? Who cares if it's a PhD, EdD, DBA, whatever?
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Most people don't care. They recognize that a doctorate is a doctorate. There are some who believe that education is not a proper field of study, so any education degree (whether Ed.D. or Ph.D.) is inferior. The people who argue that a Ph.D. in education is, somehow, a "higher" degree than an Ed.D. are arguing out of ignorance. I possess the research studies that have been done on this topic (there is a limited number of them). They all point to the similarlies, rather than the differences of the two degrees.

I agree completely - (of course, on condition that we are talking about properly accredited doctorates). The distinctions need not be made, certainly not for creating artificial academic hierarchies or such.

Your are correct, of course.

Which brings me to this question:

Is there evidence, studies or statistics on the estimated relative numbers of fake Ph.Ds versus fake EdDs?

I earnestly hope that this question not detract from the discussion of this thread.....

Dr. Douglas, can you help? Does your dissertation or any other(s) that you are aware of, address this issue? (My apologies - I have not read your published dissertation on perceptions in DL but I promise I will, soon).

No. The research that you suggest has not been done (or at least it has not been published by anyone). The fact that fake Ed.D.s tend to be in one discipline (education) while fake Ph.D.s can be found in numerous disciplines leads to the logical conclusion that, were we able to count them, we would find many more fake Ph.D.s out there.

Dr. Douglas's dissertation investigated and analyzed the level of acceptance of different kinds of accreditation by human resource professionals. It is a valuable study into the need for education and training about accreditation. It does not address the Ph.D./Ed.D. issue at all.

I only ask the question to see if it might have a bearing on the perceptions of some (not in acdemia) regarding the relative merits of a PhD or EdD.

Since it is most likely that there are far more bogus Ph.D.s than bogus Ed.D.s, it really wouldn't have any bearing at all. More likely is the fact that the Ed.D. was originally intended to be a practitioner degree (even though it never really happened). A more likely explanation may be that the Ed.D. is found most frequently in educational administration/leadership programs, whose graduates tend to be employed at the K-12 level in higher numbers. There are many who believe that the Ed.D. is for K-12 professionals, while the Ph.D. is for unversity professionals.


quote
posted by Anthony Pina
----------------------------------------------------------------------
While there is perception by many that the Ed.D. is not on par with the Ph.D., there are no facts or research to back up that perception. Ignorance can exist even among the "educated".
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, indeed! Quite true!

Suffice it to say that a doctor is a doctor, regardless of applelations unless of course s/he is not a medical/allopathic/osteopathic doctor - M.D. or D.O.) .......... smile.

Thanks.

 

Simon

Just saw your question about specialization on the Ed.D., both were in Adult Education. The University of Oklahoma at the time was chaired by Huey Long (a member of the international Adult Education Hall of Fame and author of more than 600 publications) and the program at Oklahoma State was chaired by Gary Conti, who had over 200 publications in teaching style and is liberally cited by Stephen Brookfiled. Gary developed an instrument for measuring teaching style that I wanted to use to measure how rehabilitation educators teach. My profession is rehabilitation counseling and education. I chose to drive to 90 miles Oklahoma State instead of 11 miles to the University of Oklahoma.

FYI, in the field of rehabilitation there are only 17 universities that offer doctoral training. As a result, many professors in the field (actually about 40% based on my own dissertation results) get their doctorates in closely related fields. These fields include adult education, counseling, counselor education, special education, psychology, and social work. The universities offering the degrees are pretty different and the type of docotrate they offer has a lot to do with the department where their degree is taught. For example, Boston University uses the Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) because it is taught in the college of health sciences. At the University of Arizona it is an Ed.D., a number of schools have Ph.D. programs, and one school has a Doctor of Rehabilitation (Rh.D.). Probably the most common credential in the field is the Rh.D., but you will see people with all four degrees teaching in the more than 90 master's degree programs across the country.

 

Impressive! Both Huey Long and Gary Conti are VERY well-known in academia. I'm not even in their field and I have been aware of them for some time.

Tony

 

I though Huey died in a hail of gunfire 70-odd years ago. ; )

I know, I know, really bad joke.

 

OK, weiss guy.


Here's a link: http://www.earlklong.com/