Learning to Think in the Corporate University: Developing a Doctorate for Practice

Abstract

Over the past few decades, health professional education in disciplines such as our own (midwifery, nursing, and physiotherapy) has shifted from an apprenticeship-based, learning-on-the-job experience to become fully integrated in the university. This has impacted not only on students who find themselves having to write theoretical assignments to rigorous academic standards, but also on those who teach them, for whom the measures of success (and in some cases, the criteria for remaining in employment) now focus largely on research outcomes rather than the quality of their educational practice. At the same time, universities have implemented the corporate business model in response to a variety of internal and external pressures to make money and to meet the demands of students who attend universities primarily as an investment in a future career. Indeed, it could be argued that university education is becoming a financial transaction in which money (course fees) is exchanged for a degree certificate, which is then redeemed in the workplace for a graduate-level salary (Rolfe, 2013).