A framework of ‘doctorateness’ for the social sciences and postgraduate researchers’ perceptions of key attributes of an excellent PhD thesis

Debate about the defining features of ‘doctorateness’ or what examiners look for in a PhD thesis is on-going, but hardly any attention has been paid in related literature to Postgraduate Researchers’ (PGRs) perceptions of the key attributes that make a PhD thesis excellent. In this study we examine the state of play of the former to then go on to investigate the latter. We begin by developing a synthesis of the conventional wisdom on the key attributes of an excellent PhD thesis, leading to what we call here the ‘Seven Attributes Framework’ (SAF). We then conduct focus groups and interviews with PGRs enrolled in PhD programmes in Business & Management and related disciplines, to gauge their perceptions of key attributes, benchmarked against the SAF hereby developed. We find considerable misalignment particularly in terms of a merely superficial understanding of ‘significant contribution’ and ‘theory’, with a non-trivial degree of confusion as to how PGRs think these attributes could be evidenced in thesis writing. PGRs in the first two years of their PhD also show limited, at best unidimensional conceptions of ‘originality’, ‘criticality’ and ‘rigour’. Taken jointly, the SAF alongside the overall methodological process outlined in this study to benchmark PGR perceptions of key attributes, not only contribute to increasing the transparency of doctoral assessment, they also provide a valuable blueprint to complement Training Needs Analyses (TNAs) increasingly seen as a necessary tool in the provision of targeted doctoral training by awarding institutions, Doctoral Training Partnerships and Centres for Doctoral Training.