PURSUING A POST-GRADUATE DEGREE : STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES

Author(s):

EMMANUIL SOFOS

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

SES F2, Pre Conf Parallel Session

Time:

2009-09-26

09:00-10:30

Room:

HG, HS 24

Chair:

Gjert Langfeldt

Contribution

During the last decade the Greek tertiary educational system has experienced a great demand for post graduate studies mainly leading at a Master’s Degree. This demand for post graduate education has led to the creation of a lot of post graduate programmes in many universities. The main question that arises is: what has led to the proliferation of the number of graduates who pursue further studies. Is it sef-developmental needs, market forces or something else. Subsequently, how can institutions support master degrees programs that are closely attuned to the intellectual and professional communities that, in addition to the students themselves, have a stake in their outcomes? Despite the fact that there is an acknowledged demand for academic credentials beyond the graduate degree (more evident in the private sector than in the public), to what extent these credentials correspond to a range of academic skills with an assumed equivalence of standards. Who should be held responsible for the improvement of the post graduate experience (students, academic staff, departments, graduate schools, universities, or governments). In our research we are going to use as theoretical framework the approaches concerning the Models of the doctoral student experience. For example, the Graduate Socialization Framework (Weidman, Twale, and Stein, 2001) emphasises the importance of personal communities that include relationships with individuals not related with the academic programme and that these individuals may also be in a position to influence the students progress and cause various outcomes such as persistence and attrition. On the other hand, Tinto (1993) suggested a theoretical approach regarding doctoral student persistence in which the two key factors that are assumed to have an impact on it are institutional experiences, and individuals who provide support to the student throughout post-graduate programme.

Method

At the first stage we are going to conduct semi–structured interviews with at 15 -20 students .The interviews will be analysed with the grounded theory method in order to formulate a theoretical framework . The second stage,will be that of the construction of a questionnaire that will be delivered and filled in by all the participants of the 3 post graduate programmes . In the third stage we will conduct a further set of structured interviews this time with an other 20-30 students (different from the ones that participated to the first stage). In the end we will make an attempt to triangulate the results that we will have taken from the various sources so as to reach the highest possible degree of validation.

Expected Outcomes

We expect that the majority of students will be pursuing post graduate studies mainly driven by external motives. It is likely that mostly the academic staff and the departments will be held responsible in case of failure, whereas in case of success it is most likely that will be attributed to themselves. On the other hand their persistence to complete their post graduate course successfully will be partly attributed to individuals who provided them with support throughout their post-graduate experience.

References

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Author Information

EMMANUIL SOFOS

UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN

PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL DESIGN

RHODES

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