A Qualitative Examination of Challenges Influencing Doctoral Students in an Online Doctoral Program

Anant Deshpande

doi:10.5539/ies.v9n6p139

Abstract

<p class="apa">The main purpose of the study was to investigate the challenges faced by students in completion of an online doctoral program at the University of Liverpool, Online Doctoral Business Administration program. We analyse the responses of 91 doctoral students in an online DBA program. Based on the exploratory qualitative study themes were developed based on student perceptions. Various themes identified were course structure and workload, resources, absence of human interaction, technological challenges, support systems, and satisfaction with instructor and quality of instruction. Discussion, Implications and avenues for future research are presented.</p>

Highlights

To cater to the ever increasing need for doctorally prepared workers, institutions of higher education are beginning to offer professional doctorate programs in traditional as well as online modes
The main purpose of the study was to investigate the challenges faced by students in completion of an online doctoral program at the University of Liverpool, Online Doctoral Business Administration program
Worth noting is the fact that during the past 50 years the number of professional doctorate programs have increased in USA, UK, Canada and Australia (Adams, Bondy, Ross, Dana, & Kennedy-Lewis, 2014)

Summary

Introduction

To cater to the ever increasing need for doctorally prepared workers, institutions of higher education are beginning to offer professional doctorate programs in traditional as well as online modes. The professional doctorate programs are new and evolving as compared to the traditional PhD programs (Kot & Hendel, 2012). As pointed out in the literature there is a fundamental difference between Ph.D. programs and the professional doctorate programs. In a Ph.D. program, student makes a contribution to scholarship and in the professional doctorate programs the emphasis is on making contributions to the practice and industry (Kot & Hendel, 2012). The structure of the two programs is different in that the structure allows for more applied outcome in case of the professional doctorate programs. Research indicates that in some institutions enrollments are on a rise in professional doctorate programs as compared to PhD programs (Servage, 2009). The dropout rate for students in Ph.D. program is near of above 50% and is significant (Bowen & Rudenstein, 1992; Litalien & Guay 2015)

Objectives

Methods

Results