The Transition to Independent Research: Who Makes It, Who Doesn't, and Why

Abstract

The main purpose of doctoral training is prepare a student for a lifetime of intellectual inquiry that manifests itself in creative scholarship and (Council of Graduate Schools, 1977, cited in Bargar & Duncan, 1982, p. 1). Successful completion of the dissertation marks the from student to independent scholar (Council of Graduate Schools, 1995, p. 9). However, graduate faculty acknowledge that the from course-taker to independent scholar/researcher is hard for many students and that they cannot predict who will successfully make the and complete the doctorate based only on students' undergraduate records or even their performance in their first year of graduate school (Lovitts, 2001, 2003). Many graduate students also feel unprepared to make this transition. Golde and Dore (2001) found that 35% of third-year graduate students did not believe that their graduate coursework laid a good foundation for doing independent research. (1) The percentages were significantly higher in the sciences (biological sciences, 40%; physical sciences 42%) than in other fields (social sciences 31%; humanities, 29%; other disciplines, 25%) (Golde, February 2002, personal communication). Further, numerous studies estimate that 15-25% of graduate students who advance to candidacy never complete the PhD (Benkin, 1984; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Moore, 1985; Nerad & Cerny, 1991). This article addresses two important questions about the to independent research: (1) What facilitates or impedes graduate students' ability to make the transition, where impede is defined as leaving the program without completing the dissertation, making slow progress toward the degree, or completing undistinguished dissertation (i.e., acceptable but not high quality)?; and (2) Given doctoral education's emphasis on creative research and scholarship and the production of a dissertation that makes original and significant contribution to knowledge (Lovitts, 2003, 2007; Tinkler & Jackson, 2000; Winter, Griffiths, & Green, 2000), what leads some students to produce distinguished research and scholarship, where distinguished is defined as high quality and original/creative/innovative? I explored these questions from two perspectives: theoretical and practical. The theoretical perspective derives primarily from theory and research on creativity. It is discussed in detail in Lovitts (2005) and is outlined briefly below. The practical perspective derives from focus group discussions with high-PhD-productive faculty on the critical transition and is guided by the theoretical perspective. It constitutes the body of this article. Theoretical Perspective Creativity is acknowledged to be a factor in the successful completion of the PhD (Enright & Gitomer, 1989). It is also inherent in and integral to graduate education because graduate education is about producing the knowledge workers who ensure the ultimate success and survival of all the major institutions of society by preserving, creating, and developing the ideas, information, and technology necessary for them to persist and advance. Indeed, the concept of creativity is frequently invoked in discussions of the goals and end products of graduate education--the production of creative scholars and the completion of a dissertation that makes an original contribution to knowledge. Similarly, off-hand remarks often appear in the literature on creativity about how graduate education and dissertation research and writing exemplify the processes being discussed (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Sternberg, 1997a). Contemporary work on creativity has focused on creativity as a social phenomenon that takes place within a social context and involves a sociocultural judgment of the novelty, appropriateness, quality, and importance of a product (Amabile, 1996; Csikszentmihaly, 1996; Sternberg, 1997a; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). …