Professional Doctoral Programme

Course details

This programme is designed for professionals currently in senior management roles both in public, private and religious sectors seeking to develop their career. Participants of this programme will have the opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual and strategic strengths at the highest level through their individual action research project using the skills they have attained through the taught elements of the programme.

This is a time-intensive programme requiring a high level of commitment from the participant as well as their organisation, since significant personal and organisational change and development will result.

Aims and Objectives:

The Professional Doctoral Programme for both the Educational Leadership Stream and the Religious Education Stream is the first of its kind in the Republic of Ireland. It seeks to develop the student's the ability to tread delicately between supporting academic notions of research as a public good in its own right, while being involved in conducting applied workplace research as a private, more personal exercise. Originality will lie more in the way in which theoretical and conceptual understandings are applied in managerial and organisational contexts than in simple extension of those theories and concepts. In addition to the applied character of the professional doctorate thesis, it is also action-based and transformational in that students will be challenged to change managerial practice, including their own, as well as to understand it. In essence, the professional doctorate raises the principle of work-based learning to the upper levels of higher education. Work-based learning has, in this sense, come of age in terms of educational curricula. This emphasis on applied, work-based, knowledge has been justified as being more relevant to the knowledge economy. At a time when Irish universities are increasingly being perceived by government, industry and other sectors as drivers of economic growth and innovation, the professional doctorate programme aims to produce graduates serving the needs of such a knowledge economy.

Programme Structure:

The programme is delivered over eight semesters and normal registration will be for a four-year period.

The first four semesters are in the first two years of the programme and involve significant elements of directed study all of which attempt to support the focus and development of the thesis. These elements include research methods as well as elements related to broadening and deepening students' understanding of the research process and the disciplines in which they hope to research. In Years 3 and 4 of the programme, students will engage in individual research culminating in the submission of a substantive thesis.

Students will take the following courses:

YEAR ONE

• Action Research in Organisational Contexts
• Advanced Quantitative Research Skills for Educational Practitioners

OPTIONS:

Educational Leadership Stream

• Leadership in Education and Training

Religious Education Stream

Critical Engagement with Religious Education, Ethics, Spirituality and Belief

YEAR TWO

• Emerging Research Theories and Methods in Education and Training

OPTIONS:

Educational Leadership Stream

• Leadership in Improving Learning Organisations
• Research Based Educational Leadership

Religious Education Stream

• Lifelong Religious Education and the Public Square
• Advanced Empirical Research Skills in Relgious Education

YEAR THREE

• Thesis

YEAR FOUR

• Thesis

Students will be expected to join in all class-based activities and assessment elements for the above courses.

The courses are delivered in block format, in a series of workshops, which run over four semesters.

Why DCU:

The key aims, learning outcomes and skills outputs can be summarised as follows:

• To provide an environment in which students will be proactive and take the initiative in identifying, developing and implementing their research topic.
• To challenge students to identify linkages and possible tensions between theoretical insights and managerial contexts.
• To develop students' ability to design and implement a research project at the boundaries of knowledge in their professional an managerial fields.
• To provide students with the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, foresight and analytical powers by applying theoretical and forensic skills to the material produced in the course of their research.
• To stimulate students to become reflective practitioners with the requisite intellectual and personal flexibility to cope with organizational change and ambiguity Learning Outcomes.
• The professional empathy of candidates towards research as a vehicle for policy improvement will be enhanced.
• Candidates will be equally at ease in discussing the contribution of research within the academic, managerial and educational communities.
• As practicing managers, students will have the capacity to take action based on research outcomes.
• That candidates can demonstrate their learning through action based solutions to current managerial issues in their sponsoring organisations.
• The capacity to plan and manage personal learning

Skills Outputs:

• To equip students with the expertise and skills to evaluate, initiate and direct an organizationally focused research project
• On completion, participants will have developed a portfolio of personal transferable competencies appropriate for their planned and projected future career as a senior manager.
• The skill of improving managerial performance through critical reflection on past practice.

Career Prospects:

The Professional Doctoral Programme (Educational Leadership Stream)is intended for those with previous managerial experience who wish to make a significant contribution to the enhancement of professional practice in the management area by critically reviewing and systematically applying appropriate theories and research to professional practice.

The Professional Doctoral Programme(Religious Education Stream) is intended for those who believe there is a change in the relationship between religion and education is creating a new landscape nationally and internationally in which Religious Education must be positioned. Important issues have also arisen relating to pluralism, diversity and freedom of religion and belief. These issues have implications for educational provision, for the nature of religious education and for the integrated curriculum in schools.

Entry Requirements:

The minimum entry requirement for the programme will be the possession of a second class or higher Masters degree (or equivalent) in an appropriate discipline area. In addition candidates must hold or have held a position involving managerial responsibility for at least four years (pre- or post-masters). In exceptional circumstances, the Programme Board shall make appropriate recommendations to Academic Council for candidates who do not fully meet these criteria. In all cases, such recommendations shall be approved in accordance with the University's APEL guidelines and in line with general University regulations. In order to ensure that both the momentum and profile of the programme are maintained, there will be an intake every two years. Upon application, the candidate will submit a 2,000 word proposal addressing the following issues:

• A broad outline of the nature of the intended research
• A rationale for choosing this area
• The nature of the candidate's experience relevant to this research
• Issues relating to organisational or workplace access for the purpose of conducting the research
• How the proposed research might benefit both applicant and participating organisation(s).