Doctoral Education Online: Challenging the Paradigm (original) (raw)

2012, I-Manager's Journal of Education Technology

INTRODUCTION Doctoral education has a long, well-established history in the academic environment. Stereotyped by visions of the traditional research emphasis with established teachers and professors leading groups of eager learners through a complex, daunting exploration of the philosophical foundations and theoretical possibilities of their field, doctoral education has always emphasized the learning experience as a function of the totality of the academic environment. Extending beyond credit hours, classroom experiences or assessments of knowledge, doctoral education highlights the interactive, immersion of the learner into the academic and professional community. The key to the traditional model is transfer of knowledge to the next generation of scholars. Up to now, this doctoral culture has served well, but changes in our modern society, driven by rapid advances in educational and communicative technology, are challenging the classic vision of doctoral education. The proliferation of online education and the launching of doctoral programs into this method of delivery have prompted reflective questions about what it means to be a doctoral learner. Specifically, can online education prepare doctoral learners in a manner accepted by the academic environment? By Online education has been plagued with concerns about the validity, effectiveness and quality of student learning outcomes. Despite a plethora of research establishing the equivalence between learning gains available via online or face-to-face education (see http://www. nosignificant difference.org/, Russell, 2010, for a comprehensive discussion of the issue), many still question the value and relevance of online learning. Inherent in this challenge is the assumption that online learning should mimic face-toface learning; that the values, nature and purpose of an online education should be equivalent to that of a traditional program. But the same technological and social forces that provided impetus for the growth of online education simultaneously shaped the demands, nature and characteristics of the learners seeking these "new" online degrees (frequently referred to as professional or scholar-practitioner degrees). Learners now demand educational experiences that are not only mobile and flexible, but degree programs that integrate professional experience within the context of the theories, ideas and methodologies espoused by traditional academia (Servage, 2009). While this trend holds across the spectrum of post-secondary education, the impact is most noticeable at the point of the online educational