Abstract
The doctoral defense is considered to have three dimensions: the scholarly dimension, the emotional (affective) dimension, and the cultural dimension. In this work, I explore the link between sociodemographic factors and students’ perception of the doctoral defense to better understand the affective dimension. In particular, I focus on gender, ethnicity, and age at the time of defense, as well as current position and field of study. To address the influence of these aspects on the affective dimension of the doctoral defense, I first reviewed the literature on these sociodemographic aspects as well as the affective dimension of the defense. I then carried out an international survey on doctoral defenses, defense formats, and students’ perceptions and analyzed the 204 completed surveys for this study using quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis included cross-correlations between students’ perceptions and the studied sociodemographic aspects. The main results of these analyses are that gender affects various aspects of the students’ perception of the doctoral defense and long-term perception, and that female candidates experience more issues with their committee. Ethnicity is important as well, although the participation of non-white respondents in this survey was limited. The influence of age at the defense is limited, and only for the youngest and oldest age groups did I observe some differences in perception. There is no relation between current position and perception of the candidates during the defense. Finally, field of study is correlated for various aspects of student perception, committee issues, and long-term perception. The conclusion of this work is that sociodemographic aspects, and in particular gender, ethnicity, and field of study, influence how doctoral candidates experience their defense.
Highlights
The doctoral defense is an important step towards obtaining the doctoral degree in defense formats that use an oral defense, yet it is a step of doctoral education that has not been studied much in an international context
The second topic that merits more research is the influence of ethnicity on the affective dimension of the doctoral defense, as almost three quarters of the participants in the current study self-identified as white, and the results indicate in some aspects percentage-wise more negative long-term consequences of the doctoral defense for Black and African American and Latinx candidates
I link sociodemographic aspects of the participants of an international survey to their perception of the defense: emotions before and during the defense, fairness of the committee and its suitability for making a well-balanced assessment of the research of the candidate, and long-term impact of the defense in terms of perception of publishability, desire to continue work in the sphere of the PhD research, desire to work in academia, and perception of academic competence
Summary
The doctoral defense is an important step towards obtaining the doctoral degree in defense formats that use an oral defense, yet it is a step of doctoral education that has not been studied much in an international context. The terms used for the doctoral defense vary internationally: in the UK and countries using the education system from the UK, the terms viva or viva voce are used; in Sweden, the term disputation is used; and in Norway, disputas. Different terms may be used for the committee members: in the UK, they may be referred to as examiners (i.e., the two committee members who ask the questions during the defense), whereas in Norway and Sweden the main committee member, who gives a summary of the work at the beginning of the defense and who asks most of the questions, is called the opponent. I generally call all those who form part of the committee during the defense, committee members
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