Advocate Online

The Dialogue Question:
Does holding a Ph.D. degree make you a better teacher?

Yes, other things being equal, a person is a better teacher with a Ph.D. than without one.

Holding a Ph.D. makes for a better teacher. Earning a Ph.D. forces teachers to be more engaged with the material and hence more engaged with students.

To achieve a Ph.D., one needs to do an expansive amount of course work, pass rigorous comprehensive exams, and write a lengthy dissertation. This education, experience, and research adds to the body of knowledge and skills that facilitate effective teaching. Those who endure this hard work are also more than likely passionate about their subjects. This passion stimulates student interest in the subject, and promotes lifelong learning essential to continued performance.

Of course, there are other factors to good teaching. Thus, the graduate experience of Ph.D. candidates usually includes supervised teaching to help develop other important aspects of teaching. Many schools and programs then offer a graduate seminar on teaching as a part of Ph.D. requirements.

Critics mistakenly believe that having a Ph.D. makes people unwilling and unable to teach. It is true that some Ph.D.s prefer jobs where they teach less and research more. Yet, even here, this research transfers to better classroom teaching because the research leads to new ways of understanding and keeps these teachers in the forefront of knowledge. In other words, greater wisdom and explanatory prowess lead to better teaching.

Finally, the goal of all academic research is to share the information that is discovered with others. Lectures, publications, and discussions with graduate students and colleagues are all further examples of teaching. Students, colleagues, and society are enriched as a result.

* Andy Wible teaches philosophy at Muskegon Community College in Michigan. He earned his Ph.D. at Wayne State University and is currently the co-chair of the Society for Lesbian and Gay Philosophy.

No, Ph.D. programs value preparing researchers, not training good teachers.

Susan A. Santo *

The purpose of a Ph.D. program is to prepare scholars who design, conduct, interpret, and publish research. These programs emphasize developing research skills and gaining subject matter knowledge. Students write papers to develop their writing skills so that they can eventually publish. Defending the dissertation proposal, conducting original research, writing the study, and defending the outcomes are the most important and time-consuming activities in a doctoral student's experience.

Doctoral programs do not emphasize teaching skills (if they are taught at all), resulting in new professors often floundering in the classroom. Think, for example, of new professors whose idea of teaching is using PowerPoint slides covered with small, unreadable text and then reading their slides to the class. They may think they are doing fine in presenting the material to their students. But during the initial annual evaluation of teaching, they may be in for a rude awakening. Unfortunately, they may not see their student evaluations until long after the course is over. Meanwhile, students have been deprived of a good learning experience.

To be a good teacher, a professor needs to know about instructional design (learner analysis, setting learning objectives, formative evaluation), learning theory, teaching methods, and assessment methods. It would also be useful for teachers to know the differences between teaching in the classroom and online.

To remedy the situation, it is necessary to recognize that colleges and universities exist because of students. To develop good teachers, I think that Ph.D. programs should include at least one course on teaching.

* Susan A. Santo is an assistant professor at the Technology for Education and Training division at the University of South Dakota. She has a Ph.D. in instructional technology from the University of Virginia.