Aims of the EdD program
The EdD program is recommended for those who wish to study and research in areas associated with their professional life. We find educational leaders or people who intend to become educational leaders and wish to remain within their profession undertake the program.
The EdD is proposed as a degree different from, but complementary to, the PhD. The latter degree by dissertation alone, is recommended for those in (or aiming to enter) an academic position or a professional research post. The University of New England currently offers the PhD only in this form. The EdD is a course that academics may (and do) undertake since it enables them to focus upon an area of research concerning their profession. But the award is taken by people who are leaders in education who have an interest in a quality doctoral qualification that focuses upon improvement in their own professional workplace.
The EdD at UNE is a distinctively different award from the PhD. Over recent years the ‘new EdD at UNE’ has been re-conceptualised in which production of knowledge in the professional workplace is a central feature.
In broad terms the EdD program aims to:
1) improve professional practice through the applied nature of the course work and dissertation or portfolio,
2) cater for educational practitioners' advanced research training needs, and
3) apply the research skills of practitioners to the professional workplace.