Conceptualising distance doctoral study after COVID-19: are we post-distance now?

Abstract

While the COVID-19 pandemic has affected many educational practices, it has also acted as an amplifier, accelerating emergent trends. One such trend concerns the nature of distance doctoral education that, even before the pandemic, was characterised by conceptual ambiguity. This article re-considers the meaning of “distance doctoral education” in a context where the on/off-campus binary has been profoundly disrupted. In this paper, we locate off-campus doctoral education in the intersecting literatures on distance and doctoral education, then advance the “post-” framework we use to conceptualise contemporary off-campus and distance doctoral study. Empirically, our paper draws on insights from a 2022 survey of 521 distance doctoral students, which demonstrate the complexity and variation evident in the manifestations of “distance” reported. We propose that we may have entered a post-distance doctoral education terrain, where previous conceptualisations of distance or proximity are altered. Our paper offers implications for thinking about doctoral education in such a context.