Does bigger mean better for PhD training?

Australia is producing quality PhD candidates across its 39 universities, no matter the perceived research strengths of individual institutions. Furthermore, arguments that research strength equates with excellence in research training are simplistic and narrow.

Recent comments by ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Chubb that universities should not be allowed to introduce new postgraduate research programs or expand existing ones unless they can demonstrate research capacity to support those programs to an acceptable level CR - Compacts with teeth concentrate research , have been met with scepticism.

Chubb recently told the Lowy Institute that it was “not possible to provide quality research training in an institution that is not performing quality research. Yet we have allowed the bar to be lowered for the PhD”.

However, Professor Terry Evans, an expert in doctoral education and research training from Deakin University, said there was no evidence to support the notion that some universities provided lower quality research training than others.

“There is an element of truth to Chubb’s comments, but it is far from the full picture,” Evans said.
He said the more experience and seniority of the supervisor can at times work against the PhD graduate who could struggle to get access to them because they were too busy writing grant applications and travelling overseas.

“Sometimes PhD students can be better off being supervised by someone who is not so high profile and under so much pressure because they can give you more time.”

However, Chubb told CR questions needed to be asked about the capacity of some researchers to supervise PhD students – a judgement which could be made using research outputs.
“We have people with PhDs who are clearly not doing much research. Are they adequate to supervise a PhD student when they are not themselves intimately involved in research? These are issues that the sector needs to ask,” Chubb said.

Evans argues there was no evidence that the quality of PhDs had dropped in the past 20 years - they may in fact have risen given the increasing profile of academic staff with PhDs.

Chubb's argues that some institutions have only 30 per cent of academic with PhDs - a situation he describes as unsupportable if PhD quality is to be maintained - while others have 80 per cent.
“Capacity to supervise research has to be by necessity very patchy in some institutions,” he said.

Evans also argues that the rigour of the external examination process, with at least one international examiner, helped protect quality.
“We are one of the very few countries in the world that examine the thesis not the candidate. We don’t hold oral examinations, except in very rare circumstances. It’s also rare for an Australian university to allow an examiner from within the university – they have to be independent of the candidate."

Nigel Palmer, president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, agreed.
“We are confident that the examination process is a standard that has been set and that the standard of PhDs is being maintained,” Palmer said.
But just because someone lives overseas, does that make them a good researcher or a good examiner.

Not necessarily, says Chubb.
“It’s better than the alternative than doing it in house. But having people who live outside Australia to review a PhD thesis does not of itself guarantee quality,” Chubb said.
Unsurprisingly, Chubb’s comments have been interpreted by some as emanating from self-interest in protecting ANU's pre-eminent status as Australia's leading research university.
Dr Gavin Moodie, chief policy advisor to Griffith University, said Chubb was casting PhD training as a standards issue, when if fact it was a financial issue for his and other research intensive-universities.

“Smaller and newer universities with a strong managerial ethos have driven PhD programs and firmly managed them,” Moodie said. Shorter completion times and lower attrition rates had been the outcome of this ethos, which had helped those institutions elevate their funding under the Research Training Scheme.

“There is no evidence, but there are strong indications that universities that do well on the RTS do so because they manage their PhD student appropriately.
“There is absolutely no evidence of poor quality researchers and academics in these universities. They many not have the distinction and renown of their colleagues at other universities, but they seem to perform respectably.”