Preparing New Doctoral Students for Academic Practice:

Cultivating New Students’ Scholarly Identity and Practice through Cognitive Apprenticeship

Ann E. Austin

MichiganStateUniversity

Second International Conference on Preparing Doctoral Research Students and Postdoctoral Researchers for Academic Careers

April, 2008

For those preparing for academic careers, the doctoral years are a period of socialization. Students are learning what the academic career involves, the norms, values, and ethics embedded in their disciplines, and the expectations and work habits that they will be expected to meet. Scholars have offered definitions of socialization that illuminate the critical role it plays in preparing newcomers for successful careers. Austin and McDaniels (2006) highlighted some of these definitions in a recent chapter on graduate student socialization for faculty roles. In a well-cited definition, Merton, Reader, and Kendall (1957) defined socialization as “the processes through which [a person] develops [a sense of] professional self, with its characteristic values, attitudes, knowledge, and skills which govern [his or her] behavior in a wide variety of professional (and extraprofessional) situations” (p. 287). Bragg (1976) explained that “the socialization process is the learning process through which the individual acquires the knowledge and skills, the values and attitudes, and the habits andmodes of thought of the society to which he belongs” (p. 3). More recently, Tierney (1997) asserted that socialization “is an interpretive process involved in the creation—rather than the transmittal—of meaning” (p.6).

Graduate education becomes the period of anticipatory socialization (Van Maanen, 1976, 1983) through which aspiring faculty learn about academic careers. Building on the recognition of the important place of graduate education for preparing students for their future careers,Weidman, Twale, and Stein (2001) offered a useful conceptual framework that acknowledged the complexity of the socialization processes that occur during this time. Their model noted that socialization occurs through formal and informal opportunities as doctoral students learn knowledge and skills required for work in the field, interact with faculty and student peers, and integrate into the activities of their fields.

While the graduate experience is a critical period for preparing future faculty and scholars, over the past decade or so, scholars have identified some concerns and problems within the graduate experience. Austin and McDaniels (2006) summarized concerns in several areas. First, doctoral education often is characterized by a lack of systematic and developmentally organized preparation experiences. That is, doctoral students observe and learn from their faculty, but often perceive mixed messages concerning the priorities to which they should direct their attention, particularly in regard to the relative balance they should give to teaching and research (Austin, 2002; Nyquist et al, 1999; Wulff, Austin, Nyquist, and Sprague, 2004). Additionally, experiences through which graduate students learn about teaching and research are often not organized in a way that plans for gradual development of ability and skills. Second, students often do not receive clear explanation of expectations and explicit feedback about their development (Austin, 2002; Lovitts, 2001, 2004; Nyquist et al. 1999; Wulff et al, 2004). Third, graduate education often provides limited explicit attention to helping students understand the nature of academic careers. While students may work on research teams or as teaching assistants, opportunities to discuss and ask questions about academic work and careers are not necessarily an explicit part of the socialization experience for many aspiring faculty (Austin, 2002, Golde and Dore, 2001; Wulff et al., 2004). Fourth, some students report concern that their relationships with their advisors are not as close as they would like and, some students, especially those in under-represented groups, wish they would experience a greater sense of community (Anthony and Taylor, 2001, 2004; Lovitts, 2004). Fifth, graduate students report little opportunity for “guided reflection,” in which they can consider,with the advisor, the abilities and skills needed for an academic career and their progress in developing those qualities and talents (Austin, 2002; Wulff et al., 2004).

Overall, then, research findings over the past decade have raised concerns about whether doctoral students are adequately prepared for the academic profession, advised as effectively as needed, presented with clear expectations, offered regular and explicit feedback, and supported and guided in times of reflection. This paper suggests a theoretical perspective that can be applied in doctoral education that may offer some practical response to some of these concerns. Specifically, this paper presents cognitive apprenticeship as a framework for teaching and learning in doctoral education that may enhance in significant ways the socialization process as it occurs in graduate education.

Perspectives on the Theory of Cognitive Apprenticeship

Collins, Brown, and Holum (1991) described cognitive apprenticeship as “a model of instruction that works to make thinking visible” (p. 1). They explained that, in the schooling process (they were writing especially of K-12 education, but their ideas are relevant, I believe, at all levels), students often cannot actually see how expert thinkers gain knowledge or use it. While the school experience may convey knowledge, it is often less effective in helping students learn the processes of acquiring, working with, and using knowledge. For example, students often are not brought into the processes through which writers think about their goals, consider their audiences, identify assumptions, and use these ideas as the background for their work. Thus, Collins, Brown, and Holum argued that teachers need to think about the nature and meaning of expert knowledge in their fields and how to teach it. They assert furthered that cognitive strategies (the integration and use of knowledge and skills) are the key to expertise and that apprenticeship is an effective way to help students develop such critically important cognitive skills.

To explain their thinking, Collins, Brown, and Holum (1991) compared cognitive apprenticeship to traditional apprenticeship in which novices learn such crafts as weaving, sewing, and carpentry. First, while traditional apprenticeship concerns easily observable tasks, cognitive apprenticeship involves the less easily observed processes of thinking. In such thinking tasks as reading, writing, and problem-solving, the teacher has the challenge of making the processes involved more explicit and visible—in other words, making the tacit, explicit. Learners need to have the relevant cognitive and meta-cognitive processes brought explicitly to their attention—that is, they need to see how experts approach their thinking about how to understand and address a problem.

Second, traditional apprenticeship typically happens in the context of real-world situations—cooking a meal or building a house, for example. However, cognitive apprenticeship involves work that is often separate from the situation in which it will be used (i.e., learning to write a literature review in class is separate from the work that may occur several years later to prepare a dissertation proposal). Thus, according to Brown and colleagues (1991), teachers need to situate the abstract tasks…. in contexts that make sense to students” (p. 3).

Similarly, they explained that traditional apprenticeship experiences usually involve skills that are directly related to a task at hand (e.g., stitching is an integral part of a sewing project). However, school-related tasks must be learned with attention to transferability to a variety of diverse situations. They must learn how to adapt skills and abilities to diverse new situations (e.g., writing skills may be used in a variety of kinds of papers).

The application of the theoretical notion of cognitive apprenticeship involves several key steps: modeling, coaching, scaffolding, articulation and reflection, and promoting transfer of learning (Collins, Brown, and Holum, 1999; Eisen, 2008). Each step is explained briefly below:

  • Modeling: In the modeling step, the master teacher demonstrates the task or work so that the learner can conceptually understand the task in its wholeness or entirety as well as see the steps involved. The modeling needs to reveal the procedures as well as the “tricks of the trade” or techniques that aid in accomplishing the work. A teacher is likely to offer explicit description of each part of the process of doing the work, thus providing the learner (the apprentice) with both a conceptual overall understanding of the work and a detailed analysis of its parts.
  • Coaching: The teacher provides coaching throughout the learning experience in many different ways. The teacher may help students select parts of the work to do (with the student taking on more pieces of the task as the learning advances), provide suggestions or hints, analyze and diagnose problems, offer feedback, and identify and target weaknesses for correction or practice.
  • Scaffolding: This part of the teaching process requires the teacher to guide the apprentice by helping the student move to doing increasingly more difficult parts of the work. The teacher may do some of the work at first while pushing the student to take on those parts that he or she is ready to do; over time the teacher will encourage the student to continue to stretch and take on additional parts of the work himself or herself. In education, scaffolding may involve providing specific step-by-step directions, checklists, assessment rubrics, or examples of excellent or poor work (Eisen, 2008).
  • Articulation and Reflection: In this part of the process, students learn “to articulate their knowledge, reasoning, or problem-solving processes” (Brown, Collins, and Holum, 1991, p. 10). The teacher helps students learn to ask questions of themselves and their work and learn to articulate the processes they are thinking through as they engage in problem-solving connected with their work. The process may also involve comparing one’s own process of thinking with that of others, including classmates.
  • Promoting Transfer of Learning: In this part of the apprenticeship process, the students are guided to consider how the thinking processes they are learning can be applicable in a range of situations and with various problems. For example, students will be encouraged by a teacher to learn to formulate their own problems and questions and to apply their writing skills to a range of writing situations.

In addition to the methods and steps involved in cognitive apprenticeship, this approach to teaching and learning also recognizes the importance of the learning context in promoting motivation and supporting learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Svinicki, 2004; Wenger, 1999). Theories of situated learning emphasize that learning is enhanced when students are actively engaged in the learning process (not only receiving information passively). Students need to make their learning meaningful to themselves. They also are supported in their learning when they are part of a “community of practice” in which they are engaged with others with whom they are discussing aspects of the expertise they are developing and in which expertise involves being engaged in practice. Collaborative learning processes enhance the quality of the community of practice and strengthen the learning experience for participants.

Applying the Theory of Cognitive Apprenticeship to Doctoral Education

As a researcher who both studies doctoral education and teaches in a graduate program in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, I am well aware of the challenges to developing effective learning experiences for students. I know and research the specific critiques of doctoral education identified in the literature and explained earlier in the paper, and I also know more directly the particular challenges that my own students experience. Thus, in the required first-semester doctoral seminar that I have been teaching for about a decade, I have tried to be guided in my teaching by relevant theory, research, and lessons from practice (my own and others). I believe the cognitive apprenticeship approach offers very useful implications for addressing some of the critiques of doctoral education and for enhancing the doctoral learning experience. Specifically, I think using a teaching approach informed by cognitive apprenticeship helps provide doctoral students more systematic preparation,more focused guidance and scaffolding, more explicit feedback, and enhanced preparation for participating in a community of scholars.

Case Example of Cognitive Apprenticeship Theory in Relation to Doctoral Education: First-Semester Seminar in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education

In this section, I briefly describe a course I teach for first-year doctoral students in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education and show five ways in which this course is informed by cognitive apprenticeship theory. The section begins with an overview of the course and its purposes.

Designed as the first course for doctoral students in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Program (HALE), this course has two primary purposes:

1)To increase students’ familiarity with history, key concepts, issues, questions, contemporary concerns, and literatures relevant to scholars and practitioners of higher and adult education. We engage in a seminar around some central questions facing all those involved in higher education: What are the purposes and roles of higher education institutions in society? How is American higher education organized? What challenges and societal expectations face higher education institutions today, in the U.S. and internationally? How have the purposes and roles of higher education institutions changed over time? Many believe that, currently, higher education in the U.S. and in other countries as well is engaged in a time of significant transformation and challenge. We explore that perspective in order to help each participant develop a thorough understanding of how his or her work in higher education is situated in historical and current contexts.

2)To help entering doctoral students enhance their abilities in the areas of critical reading, critical thinking and analysis, writing, and inquiry. We focus on various aspects of the initial process of engaging in research: framing problems, developing research questions, and conducting literature reviews. We also focus on approaches to scholarly writing in our field, strategies for inviting and providing peer review and feedback, and skills useful in analytical reading of scholarly work.

Doctoral students in the HALE program typically bring considerable professional experience, observation, and reflection to the course. Thus, the seminar encourages students to think about the relationships between practice and theory, and to find specific ways to draw from and build on their professional expertise. At the same time, the course encourages participants to deepen their knowledge and understanding of scholarly literatures and theoretical perspectives relevant to study of and practice within postsecondary education. This focus on literature and theory is intended to inform participants' professional practice as well as their ability to work within and contribute to the processes of scholarly inquiry in the field of postsecondary education. Successful doctoral students develop a sense of their own goals and are motivated by questions to which they seek answers through their study, professional practice, interactions with colleagues and faculty, and on-going habits of inquiry.

The seminar is organized to help students develop and learn in the following areas:

  • Develop understanding of the history of American higher education, how postsecondary education is organized as a sector and within organizations, and key issues and challenges confronting leaders and professionals in postsecondary education today. Additionally, we seek to gain some initial understanding of the differences and similarities between the American higher education system and the systems in other countries.
  • Develop ability to identify and frame problems and questions within the field of postsecondary education. The study of higher and adult education draws on theories and conceptual frameworks from a variety of disciplines. As we examine selected studies concerning key problems, we explore how such theories and conceptual approaches frame and guide the way problems are presented and examined.
  • Become familiar with library and web-based resources relevant to professional practice and scholarly inquiry within higher and adult education.
  • Strengthen the ability to read, think, discuss, and write about issues in postsecondary education in a thoughtful, analytical, and critical manner.
  • Develop specific strategies for critiquing and improving one’s own and others' writing.
  • Develop expertise in reading thoughtfully, analyzing, and critiquing research articles and reports.
  • Become familiar with HALE faculty members and their areas of interest and expertise.
  • Develop a sense of one’s individual interests and scholarly/professional questions and ways in which to develop a program that addresses those interests and expands one’s scholarly and professional expertise.
  • Prepare a mini-research proposal that includes fundamental elements of a statement of purpose, a critical review of the literature, a conceptual/theoretical framework, and a plan for research methodology and strategies.

I discuss below five practices in my approach to teaching this course which are informed by and illustrate an application of cognitive apprenticeship theory in doctoral education.

Practice 1: Making Explicit the Challenges, Responsibilities, and Opportunities of Doctoral

Education

As discussed previously, research findings raise concerns about whether doctoral students are introduced to the academic profession as fully as they should be, advised as effectively as needed, presented with clear expectations, and offered regular and explicit feedback. I have taken such findings to heart in how I have designed and how I teach the first-semester seminar. I am committed to helping new students make a productive transition into doctoral education, begin to develop identities as scholars, and deepen their abilities as analytical thinkers and writers. I try to ensure that students have a significant and engaging intellectual experience, that they develop an understanding of the history of higher education and become acquainted with some of the most pressing philosophical and practical issues in the field, that they are guided to learn and practice scholarly conventions of writing and analysis, and that they learn, through experience in writing groups, how collegial peers critique and support each other’s work in productive ways. In short, I want them to succeed as doctoral students, and thus, I want to make explicit a number of the important ideas, ways of thinking, habits, and abilities that are associated with productive scholarly work in our field and with success as a doctoral student. Providing such an introduction to doctoral education as well as to a scholarly career is one part of providing an apprenticeship experience for these prospective faculty, administrators, and scholars.