What is an academic qualification?

Ross Woods

One of the simplest ways to interpret a particular program is to identify its conceptions of the degree, recognizing that in reality conceptions seldom occur as pure, mutually exclusive types. Some conceptions directly parallel types of schools and most include the ways in which they are taught, that is, their delivery systems. For example, two degrees with the same name can have very different meanings. A Bachelor of Divinity program requiring six years of coursework does not mean the same as others comprising a Bachelor of Theology and a major thesis, or a Bachelor of Theology and a guided reading program. Many schools combine various delivery systems, and the kind of knowledge and degree meaning shifts according to the particular blend.

The list below is not necessarily comprehensive but, except for several unsatisfactory conceptions, it illustrates how easily a nontraditional school could validly use them to create new kinds of degrees.

The testamur

The degree refers to the piece of paper which is awarded (the testamur), not the person. This conception encourages the degree mill mentality and the empty typewriter syndrome, and is generally a danger to good education. It is not technically correct either; the diploma is not the degree but a written statement which attests to the degree.

Years of study

The easiest way to say what a degree means is to say how many years of satisfactory full-time study it takes, although it is very weak and inaccurate.

Honorary degrees

Purely honorary degrees appear to fall into two categories. First, some have no academic value as they are given for services rendered to the school or to the community, or sometimes for money donated. Second, others are a mark of recognition of expertise especially for inventions, teaching, and some kinds of leadership, but they are not usually equivalent to earned degrees. It is a source of confusion in North America that nomenclature does not differentiate between these degrees and higher assessment doctorates.

Honorary degrees usually have special designations. For example, the Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Letters degrees are honorary, in contrast to the Doctor of Theology and Doctor of Philosophy, which are earned. It does not help that purely honorary degrees have been so readily available. (See Bear, 1980:146ff) The dangers of these kinds of degrees are readily apparent.

Qualitative change

The degree is a mark of qualitative change; the student has become a different kind of person. (Houle, 1973:127) This conception parallels the humanistic and cognitive models of curriculum. It is open to abuse when degreeholders lack an acceptable cognitive knowledge base.

Acculturation

The degree signifies acculturation into an identifiable community (Houle, 1973:128f), even though the student will likely leave it upon graduation. While still important in some schools, this degree conception needs some descriptors of a knowledge base, which it must import from other conceptions.

Passed assessments of knowledge

The degree shows that the student has passed assessment exercises showing adequate mastery of a predetermined body of knowledge; a school could not refuse a degree to a student who presented good work. This implies that education is a commodity and a degree is a label for how much of it one has. It also implies that the goal of education is the acquisition of cognitive knowledge and that schools can standardize levels of achievement.

It allows varied assessment styles. By favoring a hard view of objectives, assessment might be limited to a battery of objective tests, so that anyone who passes them gets a degree. Alternatively, a "softer" view of objectives might produce assessment which require students to be able to interact with a complex body of knowledge and to engage in analytical-critical thought.

This model encourages a view of the school as either an assessment program or an instructional institution. It has a past orientation; the degree certifies what has already passed and implies that degree-holders will leave the school after graduation. Concerning the future, it sometimes assumes that graduates will be able continue lifelong study at the highest level of achievement attained during the degree program.

Accumulated credit

A great deal of education comprises course work that produces degrees based on credit. A few have not many requirements other than credit totals, while most have a structure, comprising at least a major and a distinction between lower and upper levels.

Course work is the type of knowledge most students want and need. Much of it aims to gives students an ability in a field of knowledge (such as a discipline, a subdiscipline, or a vocation) that is broader and shallower than that needed to carry out original research on a particular problem. It can teach at any level of the Bloom's taxonomy of objectives, but less often at the highest levels.

The first and most well-known model of TEE is the Guatamalan, which uses workbooks and PI (Programmed Instruction) texts for course work. Another is practicum-centered academic studies, using field experiences as a basis for coursework. In other cases, tutors might oversee structured essay-writing programs, and extension schools might teach course work on campus for short, intensive periods between which students must carry out self-study tasks.

In contrast, some other kinds of course work are especially intended to prepare student for original research. These include guided reading programs, tutored minor research, and specialist seminars. They are different from ordinary course work, both in purpose and level of difficulty. A whole degree comprising only one of these would in some cultures seem highly innovative, such as a short graduate degree consisting only of reading courses.

A license for professional practice

The best example is the unaccredited law school. The law degree is unrecognized, but graduates may legally practice as lawyers if they may take and pass the bar examination. In this case, the licensing authority determins the success of the school.

Certification of training for employment purposes

Students much pass assessments of competence based on competency standards. In this extremely functionalist view, employers determine whether a program will be successful. It offers little to the non-applied sciences and to research, and it favors a harder view of educational objectives.

Research expertise

The degree is a mark of research expertise given on the basis of a significant work of research. Purely research degrees are best construed as having specific meanings and representing highly specialized education. It is rather prejudiced to say they are overspecialized, except perhaps when thesis topics do not enhance the student's subsequent employability. The point is to use research to show the highest level at which a student can perform and to produce concrete evidence that he has done so. The only way it shows breadth is by assuming that students need an adequate knowledge base to carry out research. These schools presume that someone with research-level thinking skills continue doing more research of the same standard.

Each school indicates the way it views the meaning of its degrees by the way it treats its thesis programs. One school might treat a large thesis as a course work subject and allocate a semester-hour rating, while another might just say that it is a major thesis with no semester hour rating. Each places a different value on both coursework and the thesis, and the meaning of the degree shifts accordingly.

Some extension programs belong to this category. A graduate degree program might consist of a major thesis or of a portfolio of smaller research works, which constitute a product. The school describes what it wants, often mentioning word totals and typically saying such things as "major contribution to a field of study", "significant original thought," "a scholarly work," and "literary merit." It still takes responsibility for coordination and supervision, but often liases with other institutions for library facilities. Some programs, usually practitioner higher degrees, emphasize applied studies which produce major writing projects. Institutes are "traditional" when they provide campus facilities and supervision, even when their students are based elsewhere doing field research. Institutes more easily attract the label of "nontraditional" when they are independent schools which do not provide on-site study facilities.

Transcript

A transcript acts as a degree when it circulates as an independent unit of currency, either as an academic reference or as a basis for transfer credit. This is especially the case where students take subjects without intending to finish the full degree program.

Election as a peer

The degree is election as a peer within an identifiable community of scholars on the basis of appropriate scholarly attitudes and abilities, usually as manifested in a particular piece of written work. The medieval universities very successfully used this definition for the Master's degree; the group of peers had a clear idea of what they expected. (Goodman, 1971:107) Having a diploma is unimportant because the degree is primarily an internal status which need not be recognized outside the school; consequently, it can be quite sensible for teaching staff to have their highest degree from their own school. In this view, a school might refuse a degree to a student who presented good work but who could not show that he was a peer. It implies that the group of academics control the granting of degrees and run it like a cartel. It also has a future orientation, implying that graduates will be active members of the institution after graduation.

Published research

Some assessment degrees are not coursework, and the degree has a quite different meaning. Some European-style institutions grant the higher earned "honorary" doctoral degrees on the basis of published research. (North American schools do not give it and usually give the Doctor of Philosophy as their highest degree.) The degree might be called "honorary" or "degree by supplication" but in either case it is equivalent to an earned research degree. Some schools require far more research than for ordinary earned research doctorates (e.g. Ph.D.), so that the supposedly "honorary" degree is in fact far academically superior and is recognized as such. In some cases, it is the normal way for academic staff to earn a doctorate if they join the teaching staff with lower qualifications. (Spurr, 1970:149, 157, 172f)