Monitoring and Supporting the PhD of Candidates with a Teacher Training Background

Abstract

This article develops and validates a monitoring approach for the PhD process of (aspiring) teachers. The developed index identifies problems at an early stage and evaluates suitable forms of support at different PhD stages. Further academic qualification of (aspiring) teachers via PhD is essential to secure future school and classroom research (KMK, 2014). The PhD is a learning process with many challenges (Fiedler & Hebecker, 2012) and must be matched by appropriate support. (Aspiring) teachers have special support needs that must be addressed by the academic environment (Bedersdorfer & Lohse-Bossenz, 2022). Based on Döring and Bortz (2016), an index to identify the status of a PhD project (comprising eleven steps) was developed. To validate the index, all PhD candidates at a university of education (N = 101, response rate 52.5%) were questioned in writing about their PhD. Using multiple linear regressions, the reliability of the PhD candidates’ self-assessment with different types of theses and research was confirmed. Moreover, 16 individuals with a teaching degree were questioned again after one year. Thus, heterogeneous doctoral progress or regression within a defined period were observed. Results of case-comparative Qualitative Comparative Analyses (QCA) further show a diverging significance of different support-types according to Vogel et al. (2017) for great PhD progress at different stages and for different tasks. For example, respondents benefit from high emotional and network integrative support at the beginning of the PhD while processing prior research findings. Professional support is helpful in classifying the research results at an advanced PhD stage.