PhD program grows strongly

Since enrolling its first student in 2007, Avondale’s Doctor of Philosophy program has grown to twenty-two students in 2010. A further fourteen students are enrolled in research masters programs, making a total of thirty-six research higher degree students. A research higher degree is a postgraduate course of study that comprises at least two-thirds research. Research and research training are essential features of a mature higher education institution.

Within the next five to seven years Avondale aims to have approximately sixty students in research higher degree courses (33 to 43 full-time equivalents), equating to three to four per cent of the overall student body at that time. The first PhD completion is expected in 2010 or early 2011.

Avondale’s areas of research strength are related to its main course offerings, namely, education, health, theology and humanities. Some topics may span more than one discipline field; for example, science and education, or health and administration.

Many research topics have direct relevance to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and numerous others have wider applications, for example in the practice of education and health. The understandings and practical applications generated in postgraduate research will enhance the church’s ability to evaluate its programs, improve professional practice, and make evidence-based plans and decisions.

Topics currently being investigated by Avondale’s research students include an evaluation of the leader’s influence in adventure-based programs such as Pathfinders; the theology of worship in the writings of Paul; the relationship between Ellen White and her son Edson; and an evaluation of the Coronary Health Improvement Program (CHIP) developed by Dr Hans Deihl of Loma Linda and currently being implemented by the SDA church in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world to deal with obesity and its associated metabolic syndrome. Other topics include a study of white women writing in Kenya; music criticism in Australia and its philosophic underpinnings, studied in relation to the aesthetic ideas of Aristotle and Robert Schumann; and Christian school to grammar school: inevitable or not? A PhD candidate from Botswana (a country with one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world) is researching the relationship between Botswana young people’s beliefs, norms and expected gender roles, and the perception of risk in contracting HIV/AIDS. Avondale’s research projects are making a significant and timely contribution to the national research effort.

Modern technologies make possible research at a distance. Those research students who live off campus are able to communicate with their supervisors, and with each other, by email and via a web-based discussion forum for postgraduate students. A PhD candidate living in another country recently defended his research proposal via video link with Avondale. Extensive library resources are available electronically via the Avondale Libraries in Sydney and Lake Macquarie, including over 29,000 electronic journals. Students also have electronic access to the catalogues of numerous other university and community libraries, and may request materials via interlibrary loan.

A supervisory panel oversees and monitors each student’s progress. Research supervisors are research active and supervisory teams give students access to a wider range of expertise. These teams also give appropriately qualified staff the benefit of working collaboratively with other academics in our own and other institutions.

Avondale’s President, Dr Ray Roennfeldt, says, “I am particularly grateful for the excellent supervision provided by our academic staff to our research students. These research-active supervisors are essential to the success of our PhD and research masters students. The enormous progress Avondale has made in this arena would not have been possible without the oversight of the program by Dr Vivienne Watts, Avondale’s Vice-President (Administration and Research).”

In 2010 Avondale launched a website providing free, full-text access to the research literature produced by its staff members and postgraduate students. ResearchOnline@Avondale is currently being built up from the published works of staff and research students. This is Avondale’s “institutional repository” and makes freely available research works previously located in inaccessible and expensive journals. This newly created resource helps to “build community by encouraging research collaboration,” says head librarian Marilyn Gane. The website is http://research.avondale.edu.au.