to be sick of feeble uni students? and want to know how to fix the education system?

[Anna1976]

I get the joy of dealing with uni students of a variety of backgrounds in the medical sciences. I've had it up to here with the feeble ones who don't have a sense of ownership of their own education... and expect to be spoon-fed on how to do things... and never just get on and find things out. What is so hard about putting in the effort to be able to defend your point of view? We don't expect you to know everything, just know how to learn something and defend it.

I've just finished suggesting to one that as he will be defending his PhD in under 6 months perhaps he could go and read the literature on the techniques i'm teaching him, and thus be able to make choices about experimental design in his own PhD, which is meant to be his own original research.

Based on the discussion on the life skills that all children need thread - how are these kids getting so far into tertiary education with this kind of approach to learning? What needs to be fixed to make people be a bit more proud of their ability to sort themselves out and learn independently??

( Arrggh.)

K, the stats for US PhDs are here (5-6 years is short in comparison to US averages):

www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/

I'm not sure I would want PhDs made longer. I just think if there are issues with the standard of UK PhD candidates, then there needs to be firmer boundaries set about exactly how much time the student is allocated to work on their actual PhD and how much of the time they are providing free labour for a research project.

I will say again that I have never heard in any university setting that there is a fall in the standard of PhD candidates. Neither have I read it in any media report. The media is very quick to bash standards in universities and schools, so if there is a problem, I'm surprised it hasn't been given a lot of coverage, particularly as the cost of training PhD students is high.

I suspect, Grendelsmum, that the "outreach circles" might like the first bit of what I suggest - offers on results for the following year, not on predictions for this year - more than the second bit - concealing what sort of school the applicant went to!

My experience is in philosophy, although I have also taught in a medical school, so what I said about PhD students refers to philosophy students. In the 20 years I have been in HE as student and then lecturer the following has changed:

• lecturers used to get 3 semesters on, one semester off for research. No one kept an eye on whether they produced any published work at this time, spent their time thinking or went on holiday. This sounds like a recipie for disaster but the UK did manage to have one of the best (if not the best) HE sectors in the world under this system. This was partly because people became philosophers (for example) because they were desperate to do philosophical research and not go on holiday! This no longer exists. Lecturers have to compete (usually for external funding) for research leave which buys them a replacement for their teaching. In some institutions lecturers on research leave still have to cover their admin duties (which can be crippling) and very recently some Unis have just started to accept the research grant but not cover the teaching, so the lecturer has to do the research ON TOP of the usual duties (these are very cash strapped institutions and I expect that funding bodies will be really annoyed when they realise what is happening).

• If you no longer have to fund research leave for your staff, funding one or two PhDs is cheap by comparison. One more will be funded by an external government body, you might pick up one more funded by a private charity or self-funded and there is your PG cohort.

• Philosophy PhD students have a problem with independent thinking because they don't do much of it during their BAs/MAs. As a student in the 1990s I used to have two tutorials with another student a week. We took it in turns writing an essay which was read out and criticised during the tutorial so we wrote 8 essays per term. This is an immense amount of personal attention by a tutor and another student on one's work, you really need to come up with good arguments, learn how to defend them, modify your position, etc. Students now may get as little as one seminar every two weeks in a group of 15 students. With 14 other students you can spend the whole semester without saying a word and even those who contribute, contribute to a group discussion, a completely different thing than following one person's ideas through to the end. One to one tutorials may be available for dissertation/thesis but they may be once a term and students often don't turn up (in my first dissertation tutorial I standardly told all my students how likely they were to fail if they never turned up again for the rest of the year because about 50% never did despite follow up e-mails).

• Let them fail: one practical problem with this strategy is that PG success rates count towards REF (or whatever the hell the bloody thing is called now) and funding bodies may suspend funding for further PhDs not only if your students fail but also if not enough of them submit within 3/4 years! A more substantial problem with this strategy is that no one goes into HE to see their students fail! As anyone who has sat through a fail viva can tell you, it's absolutely devastating for everyone involved even if you could see it coming 5 years ago. It can't be my role to accept PhD fees for 5 years and then tell the failed student to piss off and stop bothering me!

...and (if you're not bored with me already!) here's another example of how students pass their PhDs. PhD candidate in International Relations submits, external and internal examiners greatly disagree. Internal thinks the work should fail as not to PhD standard and the student offered an MA, external wants to allow the student to make corrections and resubmit. Despite discussions internal and external cannot agree. There is provision for such a situation in the Code of Practice, a second external needs to be appointed who reconsiders the work and whose decision is final. The student starts writing letters all over the place threatening litigation. The Faculty exams committee, which usually only rubber stamps decisions, takes it upon itself to decide, contra the Code of Practice and contra the recommendations of all the committees below it, that the student should pass subject to the changes mentioned by the external. The Faculty exams committee has not read the PhD, does not include the internal or external or anyone from that department and eventually passes the work without the internal or external seeing it again. The internal was absolutely fuming (as was the external!) and almost went to Senate about this but was persuaded to drop it.

See, booboostoo, now I regret not finishing the much longer post I had half-drafted. Trust me, I know about plagiarism committees and the amount academic hands are tied - I can't even grant an extension, it has to go through a non-academic department. I'd prefer it if punishments were rather more immediate.

But I stand by my assertion that students who are out to play the system aren't common. Each year, I might have a couple of plagiarism cases in a cohort of 200 students, all of which are handing in three pieces of work for each of their six modules. I'm not trying to argue for the sake of it, but just as the OP describes a PhD student who would simply not be permitted to exist in my field, your descriptions of litigation over grades is a completely new one on me. Between me and my colleagues we span plenty of institutions and plenty of years, and I've never heard anything like it. Plenty of students turning up with their mums, bless them, but no-one suing.

This isn't the same as saying I don't believe you, btw - I do. Perhaps I just don't teach the sort of students who have worked out that they can do this sort of thing. It may well be that it's coming. They've certainly worked out that if they pay, they can demand certain things (despite all my explanations to the contrary...).

(I definitely don't teach in the sort of institutions with the cache that allows them to rip off students: I've obviously read about such cases however). My field is very popular and very, very poor - the power is very much in the hands of the institution and its employees, particularly at PGR level.

I haven't heard of a single case of a student suing either...but Uni administrators behave as if it happens all the time and we all live under constant threat of litigation. Unfortunately I have seen both policy and individual cases severely affected by an imaginary threat of litigation.

BTW have you not been required to attend lectures by the Uni lawyer on what to do/not to in order to avoid litigation? It's been a work requirement at both Leeds and Keele, and I've had to attend both "doom and gloom, everything you do opens us to litigation" lectures and exceptionally inconsistent, muddled and ill-informed presentations on professional duties and liabilities by the personnel office?

Nope, nothing like that here (plenty of 'training' on teaching skills though). If anything, it's the complete opposite! The non-academic side is just labyrinthine, and woe betide anyone on the academic side (student or staff) who gets caught up in a clerical error.

I can see it going down the route of not-failing-anyone-and-fretting-about-litigation though, because of the the constant mantra of 'value for money'. The little signs are already appearing: everything must be 'interactive', for example, and 'facilitate access'. At the moment this seems to mean that everyone can talk as much as they like in the library!

I do feel caught in a bit of a trap, in that the students feel that they should get what they need for their money (and god knows I sympathise with that) but what they have decided that they 'need' is for me to give them the answers like a lot of their A level teachers did (I think some of this is bollocks - there's clearly not a whole raft of A level teachers handing out stock answers). Hell will freeze over before I 'give them the answers' so sometimes classes can exist in an air of mutual anatagonism, where I am encouraging them to think for themselves and they are collectively grumpy because I'm not 'helping' them.

I have students who come to see me in acute distress because they feel they are stupid - only to find out that they've done no prep and the briefest reading of course materials. They don't know where the library is, they don't know how to access electronic materials, and they don't know how to TAKE NOTES IN LECTURES: but the first thing they do is berate themselves. Their stress levels are through the roof!

I tell all mine that I expect 4 hours of indvidual study for every contact hour and I don't want any of them turning up pulling their hair and calling themselves stupid until they are putting those hours in. If that still doesn't result in understanding, then maybe they can come to me and I'll pull their hair for them!

I hear too many parents say 'my DS/DD did a degree and it was shit, they only has 8 hours a week and they paid all that money'. When I tell them that said student would have been expected to do approx 30 hours of self-directed study PER WEEK, and that they could book a personal tutorial any time that they liked, they look genuinely shocked.

'I have students who come to see me in acute distress because they feel they are stupid - only to find out that they've done no prep and the briefest reading of course materials. They don't know where the library is, they don't know how to access electronic materials, and they don't know how to TAKE NOTES IN LECTURES'

I completely agree that some students are unprepared for the most basic elements of what a degree entails, and that the foundations need to be laid down at GCSE and A level.
My DS had 'study leave' for GCSE but his teachers were available in their rooms for revision sessions. That meant you turned up, did revision and the teacher sat their working on their own stuff and was available for consultation and questioning.
DS went to the majority of the sessions available and most of the time he was either one of three or four or the only one there. He's an A/B student and thought it was a good opportunity to revise without distractions.
Most of his peers thought he was daft.
I think he's setting himself up to do well at A levels with an understanding of what studying, learning and acquiring an education means.

booboo no we havent had such sessions

I'm slightly surprised that people seem to be suggesting that PhD standards are falling, students aren't capable of independent thinking etc.

My DH did a PhD in Theoretical Physics (Oxbridge) and whle he didn't continue in academia, he has a lot of friends that did and now are relatively senior (Readers at Oxbridge to Professors at US Ivy League institutions).

They still see their students as very high calibre. The Reader we know at Oxbridge does admissisons to the PhD course. To even get an interview to get 3-year funding for a PhD in Theoretical Physics or Math, you have to be on for a first, preferably expected to graduate top of the year at your institution and have sparkling references. These students are highly motivated and they hardly need to be spoon-fed! To get a post-doc position a a top institution is very difficult and since you need to apply early in year 3 of the PhD, they know that have to deliver some really outstanding research prior to applying. As a result these guys tend to work all hours from day 1.

er fluffyhands ivy league vs post 92 UK institution? nuff said

too tired to think let alone comment intelligently, but I agree with a lot of what Booboostoo has said. The institutions I've dealt with over the years are Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and UCL, so it's not like I'm seeing the world's least resourced institutions or least motivated students, as a rule. But even those who have the fighting skills to get into these rather competitive institutions, seem to have a larger dose of apathy and feebleness than I remember being acceptable. But maybe I just didn't notice the apathy, when I went through undergrad and PhD time.

Most of our students have come in through access courses

Anna I was told by my supervisor that those students who make it through to PhD and beyond are often those who are least qualified to comment on the abilities of their peers - because PhD students were usually the ones who approached uni in the way that it should be approached. The nerds, basically.

doesthisseemright I've worked in post-1992 institutions and the requirements for PhD are the same as those described by fluffyhands. Access courses are for undergrads, aren't they?

doesthisseemright ... sorry i'm not british ... what is a post 92 UK institution?

I would point out that our US academic friends would rate a Math or Physics BA from Oxbridge/Durham/Imperial say as superior to their own Ivy League equivalent. US courses are much broader, which while better from many perspectives, is a problem for a PhD candidate. The lack of specialization means US students typcially have do an MA just to get the basic knowledge necessary to start a PhD. A UK student can usually do the MA concurrently if at all.

I agree that it starts young - coaching for SATs etc rather than providing a rich varied education (in some schools anyway).

What particularly worries me is that I know lots of postgraduate students who are doing masters/phds because they haven't been able to get a job. They've wrongly expected their degree to give them a sure route into a decent job (and it is NOT their fault they believed it) and now they have found they may as well "stay in uni until the job market picks up" - it's postgraduate study or the dole.

Worst thing is, a lot of them are doing PGCEs and will be teaching DCs in a year or two... Not because they want to, but because there's nothing better on offer. I don't want that kind of teacher for my DCs.

Take your point littlebluespring but I don't think it outweighs the advantages of (1) a year to mature (2) a fair and unengineered selection process and (3) people only arriving at university who are likely to stay the course. A lot of women students already take a gap year as do a lot of men students.

fluffyhands there are a lot of academic institutions in the world handing out firsts to their top students. A first from wherever tells me the student manages well in that education system, that's pretty much all. You find out a lot more from what they write in their application, or interviewing them.

However, a lot of education systems churn out feeble un-questioning kids who rely on being spoon-fed, who as the top candidate from their university that year hook up the funding for the best and brightest.

In these financial times, what university won't accept a PhD student who is fully funded on scholarships, who has some project ideas that could be straightened out by a supervisor? Or when you finally get your funding from your research charity, and you have 5 fairly crap candidates, do you not fill the position (and not do the project) or do you take the best on offer and hope they'll improve?

And 3 years down the line, after the supervisor has been too busy and the postdocs have done a bit of supervising (but no spoon feeding because really he's not their problem), the PhD student is as feebly dysfunctional as the one I told off yesterday.

Anna1976

I think the subject is what makes a difference.
If you take people doing PhD in say Theoretical Physics. Students don't start that course because it will get them a well-paid job. It's because because they have a ability and passion for it. The fact that it can get them an obscenely well-paid job in finance is quite another matter!

Take something like Law. As a lawyer at a major multi-national, I see candidates all the time who have clearly done post-grad qualifications purely as way to tick the box on their CV. The subject wasn't important, just the name of the institution they got it from.

In the past, people could drop out or fail a PhD with no blame attaching to the supervisor or the institution. This is no longer the case, postgrad success (inc no of PhD's started and failed) is a key measure, plus some funding bodies such as the ESRC withdraw funding if more than a certain percentage of their students drop out or don't submit within 3/4 years.

Most PhD students are very capable, the ones that have had to fight for their place in competitive scholarships etc. But some of the self-funded ones are deluded and most institutions will still take them on (or put pressure on the supervisors to take on a fully paid-up wealthy but not that brilliant student).

Supervisors can't let people fail now, which is why you have brilliant PhD students rubbing alongside people who should really have done something else. This is crazy, as often leaving a PhD is as much about someone wanting to take their life in a different direction as lack of capability. But as a supervisor, it's career suicide (for you) to sensibly tell your early PhD students they'd be better off as a mechanic.

Fluffyhands, think you're right about both subject and about institution/CV decorating. But that brings down the more CV-decorative institutions if they have slack admission policies or if supervisors get away with crap supervision. Obviously you have to take a punt on some students, and there are too many other factors at play to just blame the supervisor (most of the time). But there must be better ways of shoring up the system - and getting rid of the ones who shouldn't be there...

i think the need for closer supervision - a tutor-student relationship that you might typically see in undergrads at oxford or cambridge - is why I said much earlier here that universities would work better with fewer students. You can be honest with your supervisees/tutees in a way that you can't be with someone you might see in a class of 35 once a week.... and talk them into doing something other than apply for a PhD if it's clear they shouldn't.

My idea about having fewer PhD places is unworkble in contexts where PhD students are free labour in research labs. However there would be loads more research money to go round if we put the selective bottleneck before PhD, as opposed to after postdoc level (not sure of the exact figures but have had quoted to me by a careers person that 9/10 postdocs don't go on to permanent academic positions).

Can I ask the academics on the thread a question? I am part way through an MSc and getting 73% average atm so hoping for a distinction. I have been told any student who gets a distinction who wants to do a funded Phd can do so. It's a design based subject with engineering elements. I would have to move my family to do this and I'm in my 40s. Would such a Phd be well regarded? I don't want to disrupt my family for nothing. I do hope to work in industry eventually but the chance of a funded Phd seems too good to turn down!