The EdD Concept
The Concept
The revised or ‘new’ EdD that replaced the more traditional model in 2002 is intended to cater for the needs of busy professionals with the workplace being the site for professional research. The four compulsory units that make up the coursework component are intended to maximise the link between theory and practice and the theoretical model that underpins the program was developed by Lee, Green and Brennan (2000) (Figure 1).
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Figure 1
The hybrid curriculum of the professional doctorate (after Lee et al. 2000, p. 127)
In this model the overlap of the profession, the workplace and the university is seen as the site for professional doctoral research. A key element in the shift from the old to the new professional doctorate was the change in the status given to Mode 1 knowledge production (of the disciplinary university) and Mode 2 knowledge (the challenging knowledge production of the ‘context of application’). Thus within the revised EdD there has been some shift in source of knowledge away from the academic genre (Mode 1) with greater emphasis being put on knowledge production within the workplace (Mode 2). This is makes the new EdD program more relevant to practicing professionals than the previous model.
For a fuller discussion of the conceptualisation of the new EdD, click on: Maxwell (2003) (PDF format)