Reduce: Enrolment Management

There is no national-level coordination mechanism for managing doctoral enrolment targets in either the United States or Canada. Any effort to reduce the number of political science PhD graduates would necessarily be voluntary and poses a collective action problem. Institutions are deeply invested in maintaining doctoral programs and enrolments as markers of research intensivity in highly competitive settings. Individual faculty seek the prestige of doctoral supervision and value graduate students as assistants and collaborators for their own research programs. Thus, the optimal strategy for individual departments and faculty is obvious: maintain doctoral enrolments while encouraging other institutions to reduce theirs. There are few or no incentives to be the institution to lead the way in reducing PhD numbers.

Adapt: Curriculum Change

Over the past decade, there have been significant calls for the reform of graduate education in the social sciences and humanities, including political science (for example IPLAI 2013), similar to those in the STEM fields (National Academies 2018). Institutions have made some changes to doctoral education, focusing on preparation for undergraduate teaching and skill development outside the academic curriculum.

Changes are less evident at the unit level. There is little evidence that US and Canadian political science programs have undertaken widespread reforms of curriculum and program structures to equip graduates to pursue non-academic careers. APSA’s departmental survey (2017) of PhD-granting institutions found that over 80% offered pedagogical training for graduate students, with the training being mandatory in over 40% of programs. This is reflective of a focus on the PhD as preparation for future faculty. The closest proxy for offering preparation for non-academic careers was a mentorship program aside from formal academic supervision; less than one-third of programs offered this (APSA 2017). Studies of PhD students and graduates in cognate disciplines indicate that many believe their doctoral education did not adequately prepare them for careers outside the academy (McAlpine and Austin Reference McAlpine and Austin2018). Overall, a lack of alignment persists between the traditional, implicit purpose of doctoral education as preparation for an academic career and the realities of students’ careers post-graduation.

Faculty Perceptions of Doctoral Employment Outcomes

We asked respondents to estimate the percentages of PhD graduates from their program who pursued tenure-stream academic, non-tenure stream academic, government employment and other employment. On average, respondents estimate that 36% of graduates are employed in tenure stream academic positions, a quarter in non-tenure stream positions, and about 20% in government, and in other positions. Figure 1 shows that faculty at the ‘top three’ institutions estimate a higher tenure-stream employment rate. The same is true of faculty at U15 institutions (though not statistically significant). This pattern likely reflects a higher placement rate at more prestigious institutions. In responses to an open-ended question about career outcomes, typical responses were the following: “The majority of students who complete a PhD will not be employed as tenured university academics” and “Face reality: we produce more PhDs than available academic jobs and the problem is getting worse.”

Figure 1

Estimates of Proportion of Graduates Employed in Various Sectors (Means)

Question: “In your estimation, in what positions do graduates of your department’s doctoral program end up employed within five years of graduation? Tenure-stream academia (e.g. Assistant Professor, tenure stream teaching positions), Non-tenure stream academic, Government, Other.*Difference between Top 3 and non-Top 3 statistically significant at p=0.05

Table 1

Faculty Attitudes about Students’ Orientations Toward Academic Careers (Percentages)

A substantial number (close to 40%) of respondents did not respond to this question or indicated they did not know, reflective of the fact that relatively few Canadian PhD programs publicly report their placement statistics, even if they track them. This points to the need for better program-level data to inform the conversation about career outcomes.

Faculty across all types of institutions share a common belief that doctoral students in their program want to become professors: almost nine in ten agree with the statement “PhD students in our program are primarily interested in pursuing academic careers.” Faculty do not perceive this as naiveté about the job market: almost two-thirds believe that students were aware of the limited prospects when they began, and less than 40% of the respondents agreed that students “are convinced that they will be successful in the job market.” Putting these responses together, it appears that many supervisors believe that students are making informed and calculated risks in pursuing a PhD and hoping it leads to an academic job. These perceptions did not vary across different institution type.

Faculty members’ beliefs that doctoral students want academic careers, are aware of the odds, and are making a calculated risk are important to understanding the kinds of responses that are likely (see table 1). If students want academic careers, then there is a logic to maintaining a program that maximizes their chance of pursuing that career. If students are informed of the odds, then they are assuming the risk, rather than being lured into graduate school with false promises of career outcomes, thereby absolving departments of responsibility for these choices.

Faculty Attitudes Toward the Purpose of PhD

To understand faculty members’ views of what measures, if any, should be adopted to address the employment of PhDs, it is first necessary to understand their conception of the purpose of the PhD. Just as Bøgelund (Reference Bøgelund2015) found that attitudes toward the purpose of the university shape individual supervisors’ approach to supervision, we posit that faculty members’ attitudes toward the purpose of the PhD will shape faculty preferences about whether or how to address the employment outcomes of PhD graduates.

Figure 2 shows that, when forced to choose whether the primary purpose of the political science PhD is “to train the next cohort of tenure stream university/college professors” or “to train researchers, some of whom will go on to academic careers,” three-quarters endorsed the broader response of training of researchers as the primary purpose. Faculty at the top three institutions were more likely than others to view the primary purpose as preparing future faculty (statistically significant at p=0.05). It is likely that faculty at less prestigious institutions are more likely to see their students pursue non-academic careers and have adopted a more favorable stance toward that outcome. Although not statistically significant, there were modest differences between sub-fields in the discipline, with political theorists less supportive of the idea that the PhD trains researchers (68% agreement, versus over 85% for faculty specializing in Canadian politics or public administration). Similarly, faculty members who had received their PhD more recently were more likely to agree with the statement.

Figure 2

Perception of Primary Purpose of PhD

Question: Which of the following statements best describes your thoughts of the purpose of a political science PhD? The primary purpose of the Political Science PhD is to train researchers, some of whom will go on to academic careers or The primary purpose of the Political Science PhD is to train the next cohort of tenure stream university/college professors.*Difference between Top 3 and non-Top 3 statistically significant at p=0.05

Even though the majority of respondents selected ‘training researchers’ over ‘training professors,’ responses to other items in the survey lead us to consider their support for non-academic careers to be tepid. Fully 55% of respondents agreed with the statement that “academic jobs should be ‘Plan A’ and other jobs ‘Plan B,’” and close to one-third agreed that “I measure a student’s success in terms of attaining an academic career.”

Faculty Attitudes towards Enrolment Management and Curricular Change

Having established an understanding of how faculty view the purpose of the PhD, we consider attitudes regarding the possible responses of enrolment management and curricular change. We assign faculty to one of four categories based on their responses to two separate statements: “If PhDs in Political Science are not getting tenure-track jobs, we should reduce the number of students we accept into our PhD programs” (“Decrease”) and “Departments should explicitly build the development of skills transferable to non-academic careers, such as professional writing and project management, into the PhD curriculum” (“Adapt”). Neutral responses are reported as not supportive. The results show that for many respondents, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive (see table 2). The plurality of respondents (roughly one third) agreed with both statements, while roughly one quarter agreed with only one statement. Only 15% fell into the neutral/neither category. There were no statistically significant differences among institution types on these measures.

Table 2

Faculty Attitudes Toward Decreasing Enrolment and Adapting the PhD

As anticipated, attitudes toward the purpose of the PhD are relevant here (table 3). Those who see the purpose of the PhD as training professors were much more likely to favour decreasing enrolments, while those who see the purpose as training researchers are more likely to favour adapting the degree.

Table 3

Faculty Attitudes Toward Decreasing Enrolment and Adapting the PhD, by Attitudes Toward the Primary Purpose of the PhD

Difference statistically significant at p=0.05.

Adaptation: Whose Job Is It?

Although many political science faculty members believe that doctoral numbers should be reduced, they also believe that students are making an informed choice to pursue a doctoral program. Furthermore, institutional pressures to maintain or grow doctoral enrolments mean that any reductions in the number of doctoral students enrolled is likely to be driven by forces outside the discipline.

This leaves us with adapting and reforming the PhD curriculum and experience in ways that help prepare students for positions outside academe. Our survey asked a series of questions focused on faculty members’ assessment of their own capacity to mentor for careers outside the academy, and on their views of who should be responsible for career preparation. Faculty report limitations in being able to mentor students for non-academic careers. When asked to rate their agreement with the statement, “I feel well-equipped to help PhD students pursue non-academic career paths,” 50% disagreed and 15% were neutral, with only 35% of respondents agreeing. The lack of personal capacity or agency also came out in open-ended responses. Said one; “I am not sure it is the role of a supervisor to serve as a career counsellor. It is particularly hard to give advice to people who aspire [to] non-academic careers.” Another said, “Most academics have never worked professionally outside the university, so [they] have only a relatively abstract understanding of the skills required for jobs in other sectors.”

If many faculty members feel unprepared for career mentorship, where should responsibility lie? When asked to assign responsibility for career preparation in percentage terms, faculty assigned the greatest responsibility to the students themselves. This was followed by departments, graduate faculties, supervisors, and then university career centers (see figure 3). This highly distributed responsibility indicates that they feel that all parties have a role to play, and their individual roles as supervisors, while important, is part of a larger picture.

Figure 3

Faculty Attitudes: How Should Responsibility for Career Preparation be Distributed (Means)

Question: Please indicate the percentage of responsibility that you feel each of the following units and groups should assume to help PhD students develop skills that can be used in non-academic careers.*Difference between Top 3 and non-Top 3 statistically significant at p=0.05

The heavy emphasis faculty members assign to students themselves in undertaking career preparation, together with the expectation that university-level organizations will play a significant role, suggests that willingness to adapt the PhD may be a relatively weak force. Faculty members do not see their departments or themselves as being the central players in career preparation, even if they do agree with the general principle of adapting the PhD.