Page 32 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

The Role of the Professional Doctorate in Developing Professional Practice in STEM Subjects

issues. Students from some STEM disciplines such as nursing or teaching are used to applying the
principles of reflective practice within their work context. Others, including engineers and computer
scientists, find the subject very difficult and take some time to come to terms with thinking and writing
about themselves and their own practice. Reflective practice is almost alien to their training. In all cases,
however, the students ultimately see the benefits of reflective practice, and begin to apply it at work. One
manufacturing engineering student, after studying reflective practice for some time, said “I now realise
that reflective practice is just like engineering. As an engineer, I have been taught to reflect on what
went well, and what went wrong, and to learn from that. That is what reflective practice is all about.”
Personal and professional values. The programme and its focus and emphasis on reflection encour-
age the students to explore their own personal and professional values, and those of the organisations by
whom they are employed. This gives the student a much deeper understanding of that which they hold
important, what their profession expects of them, and what their employer expects of them. In many
cases, there is clear congruence within this. In other cases, however, the students identify a mismatch or
clash of values. In several instances this has led to the student questioning whether they can reconcile
the difference between their own values and those of their employer, and in some cases students have,
as a consequence, changed job.
Professional identity, authenticity and personal voice. The students strive to find their own “voice”
and to be more authentic in the way in which they practice. For some this is very natural. For others,
this can take some time to develop or emerge. By the end of the doctorate, the student will have a much
deeper understanding of what drives them personally and professionally, and is able to write, present
and discuss their work with their own “voice”.
Transprofessional working. Many of the students in the study had quite complex career histories and
had migrated away from their first disciplines to a greater or lesser extent. In their doctorates they made
use of this, reflecting back on their learning journey and building their experience into their doctoral
work. Their work was very practical and not simply confined to one discrete discipline as you would
normally find with a more traditional STEM PhD. They crossed professional boundaries and made a
contribution that was applicable to multi-professional working environments. It was this that gave many
of the candidates their motivation to do the professional doctorate. Some had previously considered do-
ing, or even tried to do, a PhD in a STEM discipline at some time in the past, but it was the opportunity
to utilize their professional knowledge and develop it further to make a real practical contribution that
made the professional doctorate a more appealing and ultimately successful option for them.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This chapter has presented a case study of one professional doctorate programme which includes STEM
students. There is a need for further study of programmes and of the impact which those programmes
have upon graduates and their practice. In particular, little evidence exists, in qualitative or quantitative
terms, of the impact that professional doctorate graduates have upon their organisations and their wider
communities of practice. Intuitively, one would expect graduates to drive change within the workplace,
and to apply the methodological and theoretical perspectives which they have learnt within the doctorate.
This should, in turn, provide useful results for their organisations. However, the evidence of this does not

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