Programme info
Objectives
Educational research is essential for finding new and better ways to educate doctors, nurses, physical therapists and other health professionals. The general aim of the PhD programme is to provide support for research and innovation in health professions education.
The main objective of the PhD programme is that participants perform educational research (typically a series of empirical studies) in their own work setting, resulting in a PhD thesis and after the programme has been finished in awarding a PhD degree.
A PhD thesis consists of at least four journal articles, published in peer reviewed international journals reporting on the empirical work that was conducted. In addition, the PhD thesis includes an introductory chapter and a conclusion/discussion chapter.
The aim of writing a PhD thesis is to learn independently conduct high-quality educational research.
Supervision
During all steps of the process, supervision will be provided (e.g. feedback during the writing process, methodological advice on data analysis), mainly from a distance via email, Skype, and telephone. In many cases there is more than one supervisor, that is, the supervisor (called promoter) and one or two co-promotors, who jointly provide supervision to the PhD candidate. External supervisors, associated with the institute where the work is being conducted, are acceptable (the minimum requirement for an external supervisor is a doctorate degree). In total, a maximum of three supervisors is allowed.
Once a candidate is accepted as a PhD candidate within the SHE he will be evaluated each year by a team of promoters. If the team of promoters is of the opinion that the candidate has not made enough progress, they may advise the Research Programme Director of the SHE to end the PhD-project. After two years at least one publication should have been submitted to an international journal. This is a minimal requirement.
Assessment
Once the team of promoters is of the opinion that the PhD thesis is of sufficient quality, it will be presented to a review committee consisting of several independent and external assessors. This review committee will assess the quality of the thesis and will decide whether the thesis is of sufficient quality to be defended at Maastricht University. So an external review committee needs to first approve the PhD thesis before it can be defended.
As a final step, the thesis has to be presented and publicly defended in a one-hour session in which members of the review committee, who approved the thesis before it could be admitted for defense, and one or two other examiners question the author of the thesis on various aspects of the research. The defense is an open ceremony and may be attended by relatives, friends and colleagues of the candidate. The PhD degree from Maastricht University is awarded after the ceremony.
The whole approval procedure, starting with submission of the thesis to the review committee and ending with the PhD defense ceremony, takes at least 20 weeks.
PhD Thesis
The PhD thesis consists of the journal articles preceded by an ‘Introduction’ defining the theoretical basis and research questions and followed by a ‘Discussion’ in which the findings of the research are synthesized and conclusions are drawn. The time needed to write the PhD thesis varies considerably. Based on a time investment of 50% (i.e. 20 hours per week), participants need on average a period of four years. Participants are granted access to the library of Maastricht University, which enables them to consult electronic journals in the field of medical and health sciences for educational research at a distance.
Research Programme / Research Themes.
