Abstract
This paper applies a supply-side perspective to entrepreneurship education research and explores the socialization process for students in entrepreneurship doctoral programs in the United States (US). It presents the challenges facing higher education regarding how academia prepares future professors to teach. The paper proceeds to build a new model by integrating concepts of cognitive apprenticeship with theories of socialization and considers how it can be used to address these concerns. Our research questions explore different types and stages of socialization, and our theory development presents a combined framework integrating socialization with cognitive apprenticeship. The paper then introduces the methodology for the study, a tripartite design that uses marketing documents/websites, as well as behavioral event and perception interviews. It discusses the results of the data as they relate to an ideal cognitive apprenticeship model. The work illustrates that there is much to do to improve educator development in doctoral programs. We discuss the conceptual contributions of our work illustrating the value of our model in entrepreneurship education, as well as highlighting its value in other research contexts. Seven recommendations are presented, intended to help enhance the way US programs in entrepreneurship embed the cognitive apprenticeship of educators into the learning process for future professors. Our primary contribution is to demonstrate how a cognitive apprenticeship model can be used to address entrepreneurship educator development concerns in doctoral programs, while avoiding significant changes or unreasonable investments in existing programs.
Introduction
In entrepreneurship education research, it has become common practice to start a paper, with an almost ubiquitous statement about the growth of the subject since the late 1970s (Kuratko, 2005; Morris et al., 2013). The storyline starts with the establishment of the subject in 1947 at Harvard University (Katz, 2003) and ends with worldwide growth across educational systems in the 2000s (Neck & Greene, 2011). Laying aside the possible historical inaccuracies in the story (Wadhwani & Viebig, 2021), it has only ever reflected one side of the narrative, and that is the tale of demand for entrepreneurship education (Katz, 2003; Solomon et al., 1994). There is, however, another account. One that is less researched and yet is of equal importance. The tale of supply of qualified, effective educators is often the missing part of the narrative (Byrne et al., 2014; Loi et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2013; Mwasalwiba, 2010; Naia et al., 2014; Neck & Corbett, 2018; Wang & Chugh, 2014). We focus on this supply side of the conversation and we concentrate on doctoral education to socialize future educators. Our research is interested in what programs do to assist educator development, what doctoral students do to engage in their own personal growth, and how educator development in entrepreneurship can be improved. In this paper we aim to present a new model of educator development within doctoral programs by building and testing a theory of cognitive apprenticeship that is integrated with concepts derived from socialization theory. It is a surprisingly under researched topic and there are only few meaningful contributions, despite its importance (Brush et al., 2003; Urbano et al., 2008).
Task Force Recommendations on Entrepreneurship PhDs.
These recommendations aimed to raise the bar for doctoral programs in entrepreneurship research and expand the supply of qualified tenure-track faculty. Developing effective educators, however, took a noticeable backseat in the conversation, to the extent that the group argued, “We do not recommend these activities (activities to support qualified entrepreneurship teachers) be part of degree programs for PhDs in entrepreneurship because the doctoral program focus should be on developing scholarly research skills and knowledge.” (Brush et al., 2003, p. 323). Though a logical conclusion at the time, perceptions about the importance of educator development in doctoral programs have changed, with increasing concerns expressed by different stakeholders about how higher education trains future professors to teach (Lewicki & Bailey, 2009; 2016; Marx, et al., 2016; Rousseau, 2016). It is also evident that we expect entrepreneurship educators to be innovative, to apply creative pedagogies and to draw entrepreneurial practice into the classroom, which requires professional development support if it is to be achieved effectively. In this paper, we revisit the question of educator development in entrepreneurship doctoral programs and focus on how programs, given the known constraints, can improve educator development efforts through cognitive apprenticeship. First, we set the scene by explaining why doctoral educator development is important. Then, we introduce the theories associated with our model combining concepts from socialization theory with ideas about cognitive apprenticeships in learning (Brandt et al., 1993; Collins et al., 1991; 2006; Hennessy, 1993; Weidman et al., 2001). Following this, we introduce our methodological approach, utilizing behavioral event interviews (BEIs) with doctoral students and new faculty, and then we utilize this data to illustrate how our model can be applied. Recommendations and implications conclude this paper.
Doctoral Educator Development
One of the significant topics that arises in the supply-side discussion of entrepreneurship education is the supply and training of doctoral students, which to date is a lightly researched topic in entrepreneurship (Brush et al., 2003; Urbano et al., 2008). But more recently, this is becoming a topic of some concern in higher education and in business disciplines for several reasons (Dunn et al., 2016; Johnston et al., 2012; Milkman & McCoy., 2014; Schnader et al., 2016). As the costs of undergraduate education have increased, so have the expectations of stakeholders including students, parents and governments (Austin, 2002; 2003; 2009). This change in the higher education landscape is catalyzing questions about teaching quality and about how academia educates future professors (Golde, 2005; McAlpine & Norton, 2006). Likewise, concern has been growing in business education regarding its effectiveness (Ghoshal, 2005; Mintzberg & Gosling, 2002; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002) and as Lewicki and Bailey (2009) point out, schools are being criticized for focusing exclusively on research excellence regardless of other goals, such as teaching excellence and societal impact.
These concerns have spilled over into conversations about the current design of doctoral programs in business disciplines (Lewicki & Bailey, 2016; Marx et al., 2016; Rousseau, 2016). Two issues were highlighted, first that there is a lack of consistency in the development of teaching competency in programs, and second, that there is a minimal amount of instructional training for teacher preparation (Marx et al., 2016). Doctoral students do gain opportunities to teach, but they are largely left alone to learn on the job, and this teaching experience is often not linked to systematic forms of support (Marx et al., 2016). More specifically, because there remain disproportional benefits for research productivity (Tribunella et al., 2007), directors feel less prepared to develop students’ teaching skills (Lewicki & Bailey, 2016), and at the same time, the demands placed on junior faculty to publish monopolizes their professional development time (Marx et al., 2016). These weaknesses can also be observed in US based doctoral programs designed to support the development of entrepreneurship scholars.
Prior research on educator development in doctoral programs, however, has some recognized weaknesses (Lewicki & Bailey, 2016). It has focused on the perspective of the doctoral director without reference to the student perspective or it has engaged in surveys of students, thus missing their ‘lived experience’ (Marx et al., 2016). Research exploring how program designs impact educator development does point to the need to engage PhD students in a socialization process using the concept of cognitive apprenticeship to gradually build educator competence (Austin, 2009). Components, within this socialization process, that impact educator development in programs are noted in the higher education literature and include teaching seminars (Callahan et al., 2016), workshops (Jepsen et al., 2012), teaching observation (Allgood et al., 2018a), teaching assistantships (Boman, 2013), supervision (Schnader et al., 2016), and teaching experience (Dunn et al., 2016). Outside of formal design, other aspects play an informal role for example, open seminars, conferences, doctoral symposia (Allgood et al., 2018b), peer to peer learning (Fenge, 2012), and communities of practice (Lahenious & Ikavalko, 2012). The research in higher education and business, therefore, highlights some important considerations for doctoral training in entrepreneurship and raises three questions. First, how can we enhance doctoral educator development in entrepreneurship? Secondly, given the existing constraints faced by programs how can we do that in an efficient manner? Thirdly, how can we use the concepts of socialization and cognitive apprenticeship, to do that in an effective way? Next, we turn to these questions by exploring the concepts of socialization and cognitive apprenticeship, to construct a model that can be deployed in practice.
Socialization and Cognitive Apprenticeship
Doctoral education can be considered a socialization process (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994; Weidman et al., 2001). Socialization is defined as, “the process by which persons acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that make them more or less effective members of their society” (Brim, 1966, p. 3). Socialization includes both cognitive, as well as affective dimensions. Students acquire knowledge, skills, and characteristics associated with their profession as well as becoming a member of their community of practice (Weidman et al., 2001). It is inherently a process ‘of becoming’, moving from one state (a student) to another (a professor) and involves experiences that occur along the way that may be common to the group and/or unique to the individual. These experiences take the student from a beginner gradually to higher levels of professional maturity. The process can be conceptualized as a transformation, whereby the individual moves from being an outsider to being an insider (Weidman et al., 2001). It has subconscious components meaning that individuals may internalize certain behavioral norms associated with the target profession, and it can be social, derived from interactions with peers (Ketefian, 1993). Weidman et al. (2001), drawing on the work of Tierney and Rhoads (1994) and Mario (1997), identify six dimensions of socialization in graduate studies. 1. Collective socialization – a common set of experiences that all graduate students gain 2. Individual socialization – processes experienced that are unique to the individual 3. Formal socialization – experiences that are designed to accomplish specific goals 4. Informal socialization – unstructured experiences that occur in various ways 5. Random socialization – things that occur that are random, unclear and ambiguous 6. Sequential socialization – experiences that appear to have discrete and identifiable steps
Socialization thus occurs through deliberate processes that are designed, as well as from experiences that occur that may be of random and/or informal in nature. In this sense, socialization is both consciously and unconsciously woven into the process of graduate education (Stark, 1998).
Weidman et al. (2001) present four stages. The anticipatory stage of socialization (or thinking about becoming) covers the initial awareness of the behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive expectations of the role, including preparation for, and recruitment into a program. The formal stage (starting to become) describes the formal instruction and knowledge acquisition, that is typically guided and often occurs earlier in a program. In the informal stage (taking control of the becoming) describes the stage when the learner becomes more independent and takes action to socialize themselves into the community of practice, of which they intend to be a part. Finally, the personal stage (having become) describes the point at which the individual’s personal identity becomes fused with their professional identity (i.e., in their own sense of identity, they have arrived). These stages demonstrate the core elements of socialization at different points, these are considered to be knowledge acquisition, investment/commitment to the profession and involvement/engagement in the work of the profession (Weidman et al., 2001). These stages of socialization can overlap and often occur simultaneously for the individual. Students can also arrive at a doctoral program already deep in the socialization process (e.g., if they have taught as an instructor or led a center for entrepreneurship prior to starting their doctorate).
In the sense described here, doctoral socialization is an inherently situated learning process (Hennessy, 1993). Situated learning is heavily influenced by the work of Vygotsky (1962; 1978), and it characterizes learning that occurs in everyday experience (Suchman, 1987). It recognizes the critical role of social and physical circumstances in which actions are situated, and it includes socialization into a culturally organized activity; or ‘becoming’ a member of a community of practice (Hennessy, 1993). In this perspective, knowledge moves from being private to being shared through social interaction (Wenger, 1991); learning is authentic when it is engaged in practice (Reeve et al., 1987), and informal engagement creates a bridge between the cognitive and affective aspects of the learning process (Harris & Evans, 1991).
Austin (2009) recognized that doctoral education is 1) a process of socialization into a profession and 2) a form of situated learning (Hennessy, 1993). While formal socialization occurs, so do the other forms, as the student moves through the various stages of becoming something new. Consequently, Austin (2009) argues that doctoral education should be treated by program directors as a cognitive apprenticeship, which is also a form of situated learning (Vygotsky, 1962; 1978; Wenger, 1991) and a method of learning by doing (Collins et al., 1991; 2006). While socialization can occur in many forms, we build on it by viewing cognitive apprenticeships as deliberately designed strategies that are used to enable learning by doing while on the job, in a situated way (Vygotsky, 1962; 1978). Cognitive apprenticeship theory applies the idea that learning can be acquired through apprenticeships, and that knowledge and skills reflect the contexts within which they are used and should be useful in real life. Cognitive work, like learning math skills, can best be taught when it is applied to contexts within which math is used, for example, running a bank, shopping in a grocery store etc. (Collins et al., 1991). In the context of our study, the concept of cognitive apprenticeship is valuable as doctoral students often learn their educator skills ‘on the job’, while they are learning their trade and becoming socialized into the profession.
Cognitive apprenticeship includes three dimensions relevant here, content, method, and sequencing (Collins, 2006). We expanded on the cognitive apprenticeship model by synthesizing the dimensions presented by Collins (2006) with Weidman et al.’s (2001) to construct a new model (see Figure 1). Using socialization theory as a foundation our model shows how cognitive apprenticeship can gradually build into more complex forms of socialization over the course of a doctoral program. Socialization and cognitive apprenticeship.
Content
Content covers the knowledge required to have expertise in something. It includes explicit knowledge, such as concepts, facts, and procedures used by the target profession. This would be the domain knowledge expected in Brush et al.’s (2003) 2nd recommendation. It also includes heuristic strategies, control strategies, and learning strategies (Collins, 2006). Heuristic strategies are the techniques and approaches required to accomplish tasks relevant to the community of practice. This might include Brush et al.’s (2003) 3rd methodological recommendation but would also include tips and tricks as they relate to other aspects of the job. Control strategies are monitoring, diagnostic, and remedial techniques that are required when engaged in the task, to adapt when circumstances warrant it. Learning strategies are methodologies that are acquired to enable independent learning, whereby the learner acquires strategies that could extend or reconfigure knowledge to solve complex tasks (Collins, 2006). Our model shows how the content of learning advances during a cognitive apprenticeship, from basic forms (e.g., domain knowledge about teaching), through heuristic and control strategies, to more advanced forms (e.g., personal learning strategies to improve teaching by oneself).
Teaching Methods
These are the teaching methods that might be employed to assist the learner within a cognitive apprenticeship. Collins (2006) first outlines three methods designed to help the acquisition of skills: modeling, coaching, and scaffolding. Then the authors explain three methods designed to help students focus their observations: articulation, reflection and exploration.
Modeling requires the expert to perform a task so that the student can observe it and build a model about how to accomplish it. An example might include a supervisor modeling teaching practice in a real class, while a doctoral student observes their practice. Coaching, in Collins’ (2006) model, consists of a mentor or supervisor observing students while they engage in a task, and offering hints, challenges and reflective feedback. Coaching is thus conceptualized to progress from more directive approaches (e.g., deliberate guidance) to less directive ones (e.g., open questioning) as experience is gained. Scaffolding refers to the support a teacher gives and how this can be structured to challenge the student to take on more complex tasks. Scaffolding is a specific method that involves the teacher doing less and the student doing more as they progress in their engagement with the task at hand. After experiencing the process of modelling, coaching, and scaffolding, doctoral students make sense of their experience through articulation, reflection, and exploration.
Articulation covers the student and teacher/coach explicitly stating their knowledge and reasoning as it relates to a problem. Here a coach might talk through explicitly the design of a class session, and what it is intended to achieve, or a student might record a class and talk to a peer about what they planned to accomplish, while reflecting on the outcome. Reflection involves allowing students to compare their experience with that of experts and/or their peers through techniques that allow the actor to replay the experience. Exploration refers to the teacher guiding the student to problem solving on their own and progressing towards greater independence from the teacher, gradually moving towards more informal and personal socialization.
Our model illustrates that modeling behavior aligns well with formal socialization while coaching (open support using questions) aligns with informal socialization, though coaching (providing more directive advice) is likely to occur during both forms of socialization. Scaffolding illustrates that during socialization easier tasks should come first (within formal socialization) while more complex tasks should be learnt later (within informal and personal socialization). A similar alignment can be observed with articulation, reflection, and exploration. Articulation and reflection are expected to occur alongside modeling behavior, while exploration, along with different forms of articulation and reflection, occurs as individuals enter the informal and personal socialization phases.
Sequencing
Within a cognitive apprenticeship, there is some expected sequencing to learning that is implied in the teacher designed scaffolding (Collins, 2006). Three principles are relevant to our model increasing complexity, increasing diversity, and global before local. The increasing complexity sequencing suggests that work needs to be ordered so that learners acquire confidence from simple tasks first and then progress towards ever more complex aspects of their job. This suggests, for example, that doctoral students would gain from teaching smaller components of a course first, observed by a mentor, before leading entire courses. Increasing diversity suggests that the sequence of tasks needs to start within a narrow band of effort and become wider and wider as expertise is acquired, and the learner progresses into informal and personal socialization. In doctoral training this implies students might be better served to focus on delivering one course that they are familiar with before preparing new courses and/or teaching new pedagogies or unfamiliar subjects. The global before local aims to allow a student to understand the broader concept of something prior to attending to specific details. An example of this form of sequencing might be to provide basic level classes on teaching in general before providing training on specific pedagogies (e.g., the case method, teaching simulations, or the experiential method).
Figure 1 shows how the anticipatory socialization process engages the prospective student in information gathering, program admission, and finally the investment of self into the new process of becoming (in our case becoming a professor). As students enter the second stage of the socialization process, they should begin to acquire domain expertise, expect to see their professors model behaviors (e.g., by observing teaching), as well as talk about and reflect on their observations of practice. They might expect to receive more support and coaching in their learning, engage in less complex tasks, experience less diversity in the tasks they are asked to do, and gain access to broader concepts (e.g., introduced to the basics of teaching). As they move into stage three, they become more independent. They might expect more exploratory learning while receiving more open coaching from their supervisors or directors. Students in this stage would gradually receive less support, should be expected to articulate their practice, and reflect on it. They might be given more complex and more diverse tasks, as well as learn more details (e.g., classroom tactics). During this stage, they might be expected to acquire heuristic and control strategies (e.g., classroom management skills). In the final stage, the student ‘has become’, here they may not be an expert, but their personal identity has fused with their professional identity. They might explore on their own with no real support and they acquire learning strategies that enable them to become independent learners. At this point the student can engage in the full diversity and complexity of tasks, and perhaps begin to build their own expertise (e.g., in specific pedagogies). Here of course, they would be ready to be placed into a full-time academic position.
Although our model can be applied to various aspects of doctoral training (e.g., research, teaching, service), we consider it in more depth from an educator development perspective. Our purpose is to show how a cognitive apprenticeship model can be used to address educator development concerns in doctoral programs in entrepreneurship, while avoiding significant changes or unreasonable investments. In doing this, we draw on Behavioral Event Interview (BEI) data and perception interviews (PIs); below we introduce our methodology.
Methodology
As our goal is to provide practical answers to the research questions asked earlier, we collected data that would be representative and illustrative of US doctoral programs in entrepreneurship. As such, we collected three forms of data (1) documentation analysis- where we reviewed websites and brochures of US doctoral programs (Marx et al., 2016); (2) behavioral event interviews - where we collected 96 BEI events from 32 entrepreneurship US doctoral students, interviews were pertaining to their development as educators (Boyatzis, 1982; Spencer & Spencer, 1993), and (3) perception interview components (Yin, 2016) - where we asked opinion questions about students’ experiences (e.g., did your program do a good job of developing you as an educator?). Such methods are used extensively in social psychology to assess interviewee’s competencies and are employed in entrepreneurship to explore behaviors within their situated context (Chell, 1998). We used convenience (Saunders et al., 2012) and snowball sampling (Goodman, 1961). The convenience sampling sourced the views of doctoral candidates and new assistant professors in entrepreneurship by interviewing previous participants of a popular doctoral consortium in entrepreneurship. The snowball sampling aimed to offset positive response bias from the convenience sample by asking participants to recommend other interviewees who had not attended the consortium. We spoke to students interested in academic positions in entrepreneurship. Many of the students were from entrepreneurship only programs (35%): other students did entrepreneurship concentrations in management (22%) and strategy (13%). The remaining students came from programs in other business disciplines (e.g., OB, data analytics) and from disciplines outside of business (e.g., psychology, public policy) and were included when their research focused on entrepreneurship. We also included representation from DBA 1 programs (3 students). As we considered the supply side of entrepreneurship education, our sample was chosen with a specific focus on doctoral students who were seeking positions as entrepreneurship educators.
Our sample was deliberately limited to students studying doctoral programs in the US due to the contextual differences that occur between different doctoral systems. The US doctoral program is typically a 4–5 year structured, and usually full-time endeavor that differs from its European counterparts. Students typically begin with seminars focused on their discipline and methodology and engage in formal training alongside independent research. After 2 years of study, students complete comprehensive examinations (oral and written) before starting their independent thesis research, which is assisted by a supervisory committee and typically takes another 2 years to complete. It is now common practice to publish the thesis as a collection of journal papers, as well as submit a final dissertation that explains the connections between the manuscripts. Students often receive scholarships and are expected to act as teaching assistants and/or teach undergraduate classes. Educator development training is sometimes provided but varies considerably between programs.
Within this system, entrepreneurship doctorates come in several forms. State approval is required for doctoral programs, and there are only a small number of full doctoral degrees offered solely focusing on entrepreneurship. Most programs provide concentrations in entrepreneurship within other business subjects such as strategy, but it is not unusual for concentrations to occur in management, organizational behavior, finance or marketing. There are many of these programs across the US, and it is not unusual for students to have prior teaching or entrepreneurial startup experience before joining a program.
The data were collected using Teams interviews and were recorded, using the functionality in Teams. NVivo 12 was used to code data directly from recordings and we used both grounded coding to explore initial themes (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and phenomenological interpretive coding, to look for deeper understandings (Cope, 2005). Our data uses the BEI discussions to explore the model presented in Figure 1. Our research is reported in two stages. The first stage, published elsewhere, reports the grounded coding of the data, and proposes an emergent model focused on the concept of ‘scaffolding’, that grew out of the grounded research. Our second stage reported here, combines socialization theory with a conceptualization of cognitive apprenticeship to review doctoral educator development practice and present practical recommendations designed to help programs improve. In this sense, a third level of data analysis was conducted, which mapped our grounded thematic codes and relevant narrative data, to the conceptual framework derived from the literature, which followed the coding. In an earlier paper, we reported ‘what schools are doing’ (author citation) and focused on the student perspective, and specifically, on the data relevant to the cognitive apprenticeship process.
Practicing Cognitive Apprenticeship
Prior research on educator development training from the doctoral student perspective regularly shows a negative view as most students do not believe programs do a good job to help prepare them to become educators (Dunn et al., 2016; Golde, 2005; Griffith, 1997; McGoldrick et al., 2010). Our study confirms this perspective in the context of entrepreneurship programs and our data show that this is not only an issue for basic educator training but for more advanced skills needed in entrepreneurship, such as learning specific pedagogies (e.g., experiential learning; case study teaching) and understanding how future educators engage entrepreneurs in the classroom to foster entrepreneurial mentoring. Fifty-three percent of the students interviewed in the study had a negative view about educator development training in their own program, while 13% thought their program did an average job. When asked about how programs in general provide educator development training, this negative perception grows to 72% of the entrepreneurship students. Illustrative data points include:
“For the most part probably not… I love the research that is why I am here, but at the end of the day my job is education, and we have to do it at least decently well”
“I don’t think so. So, there is a great variation among the students who get evaluated pretty well or really poorly. Some people got 1 out of 5 points for their teaching evaluations that means to a certain extent the education to become a good educator is kind of a missing component in the doctoral program.”
Students feel that programs need to improve to better socialize them into the profession they will enter, specifically regarding their educator development. Consequently, in this paper we provide counter-balanced examples of practice that are ‘poor’ or ‘good’ as they relate to the framework of socialization and cognitive apprenticeship presented in Figure 1. We order this within the distinct stages of socialization provided by Weidman et al. (2001), starting to consider anticipatory socialization first and concluding with personal socialization. In the discussion that follows, we complete this work by building a model of cognitive apprenticeship that could be applied to doctoral programs, which is presented in Figure 2. Cognitive apprenticeship recommendations.
Anticipatory Socialization
Anticipatory socialization in the context of entrepreneurship doctoral programs defines the point at which students are considering joining a program, and what they do to prepare for that. As our model suggests, during this stage the content, method, and sequencing of cognitive apprenticeship are only relevant in terms of what students think they might experience in the program. In our study, the relevant data includes program marketing materials and interview data, where students recall their motivations and expectations. In entrepreneurship, students might also be considering the anticipatory socialization path that works best for them. Should they, for example, consider a dedicated entrepreneurship PhD, a concentration in a strategy (or other) program, a DBA, or non-entrepreneurship PhD with a dissertation offering a route into entrepreneurship teaching.
Motivations For Doing A PhD in Entrepreneurship.
Student career aspirations are another way to consider anticipatory socialization, as it explores what students were anticipating becoming. Here we see unique considerations for entrepreneurship doctoral programs, already noted by Brush et al. (2003), that may not be shared by other disciplines. Students have a range of career paths in mind. While many want to become tenure-track professors, other paths can be found in the data including the leadership of entrepreneurship centers and aspirations to become administrators (department chairs; PhD program directors and other senior leaders). Within the tenure-track path placement interests also differ. For example, students want to be placed in balanced schools, research focused schools, teaching focused schools, schools with PhD programs, and schools where the modality of teaching is flexible (in person; online and hybrid). While PhD programs tend towards research and placing students in top research schools (Marx et al., 2016), it was evident that students were split, with many preferring schools that emphasize teaching entrepreneurship (22 students, 69%). For example, several students were former entrepreneurs who wanted to share their experiences and transition to a teaching role. The illustrative points below highlight this disconnect between the socialization that programs provide and what students expect.
“I like research, but I love teaching. I’d like to be in a school where they value both. It could be [elite school name], but they value you being a great teacher and they value you being a great researcher.”
“When I initially started the PhD program, I really anticipated going to either a teaching or a balance school and being more focused on teaching really and just researching on the side. As I got through my PhD program, I realized that I enjoyed the research.”
Student Expectations When Joining A Program.
The data show that students had expectations that they would be socialized into the profession including all aspects of the role, although many also recognized that programs would focus predominately on the research parts. Many students experienced ‘shocks’ that are akin to Weidman et al.’s (2001) asymmetrical disconnect between a student’s anticipated socialization and their formal socialization once they start. These included workload shocks, mismatches between what they thought they would be doing and what they were asked to do, and dissatisfaction with the level of support they received. This disconnect highlights concerns for the cognitive apprenticeship process itself. For example, are doctoral programs aiming only to produce researchers or to socialize students into becoming professors of entrepreneurship? And how do programs manage the disconnect between the anticipatory socialization of students and what they actually do?
The complexity facing programs grows when the data on students’ ‘stock of experience’ is examined. Stock of experience refers to what they have done prior to joining a program and engaging in a socialization process. There is a significant range including experienced entrepreneurs, experienced business professionals, experienced full-time and adjunct professors, novices and international students (who are often also one of the other categories). As far as educator development is concerned, this variation means that students are already engaged in the socialization process prior to starting a doctoral program. Some have significant teaching experience and want to learn how to become better entrepreneurship researchers. Others are looking for career transitions, away from business and entrepreneurship into teaching and research. While others have gained a passionate interest in research and teaching from prior study and have little experience outside of academia. As illustrated in Weidman et al.’s (2001) dimensions of socialization, the individual socialization process will consequently look quite different for each individual and will be based on the stock of experience they bring to the table. As such, the data on anticipatory socialization confirm the importance of taking a cognitive apprenticeship approach in doctoral programs (Collins et al., 1991). In entrepreneurship, it is clear students are looking for different career paths, are seeking to be developed (beyond just research) for those career paths and have different expectations about where they will be placed, while also bringing different stocks of experience and prior socialization to the program. Only a nuanced professional development approach, such as cognitive apprenticeship, will work given these starting conditions.
Formal Socialization
The formal socialization process begins as students join PhD programs. Programs clearly have an explicit role here, onboarding students into the program and engaging in formal instruction. In our focus on educator development, this can include all the formal components used to help students learn how to be educators. Our model illustrates in the content dimension of cognitive apprenticeship that students would typically gain relevant domain knowledge about teaching. In methods, they might expect to experience modeling behavior, from experienced entrepreneurship educators, followed by articulation and reflection. In sequencing, their experiences could be scaffolded so that they have simpler, less diverse, and more general teaching to master first.
Formal Socialization BEI Examples.
The BEI data presented in Table 4 demonstrate examples of poor practice and good practice as they relate to the formal socialization process. Students’ experience of domain knowledge acquisition, and the introduction of broader concepts first, as it relates to teaching is extremely varied across programs. Only 19% of programs include information about teaching seminars in their recruitment narratives and 13 students (41%) experience some type of formal effort to share domain knowledge about teaching. These are sometimes offered by programs but, often, are generic university workshops that lack disciplinary relevance to entrepreneurship. The impact of these efforts was mixed, and their timing in the socialization process can sometimes be off. Students felt that these efforts should be scaffolded throughout the program (e.g., an introductory course at the beginning, a more detailed classroom tactics/pedagogy class later, with a deeper dive into one or two disciplinary relevant pedagogies towards the end). They also saw a need for ‘master classes’ from guest speakers who are invited to come along specifically to discuss innovative teaching practice in entrepreneurship, such as, how to use design thinking or how to engage entrepreneurs in classes. How formal seminars are embedded into the program, and at what point, is considered by many to be an important aspect of the educator development architecture (Barney, 2019).
Modelling behavior, articulation, and reflection were less evident in the data than one might expect, though there were several good examples. In one case, a student attended and formally observed their supervisor’s classes. The supervisor explained a great deal about the class and the student reflected with the supervisor on their observations. Many students valued these observational opportunities and sometimes they sought them out themselves. Though TA opportunities are considered to be important educator development opportunities by programs, the students disagree. Of ninety-six behavioral events, only five students chose this as one of the three events that impacted their educator development. This result can be explained in the light that these TAs were underutilized and did not really incorporate modelling behavior which could have improved their outcomes. We will explore this point in detail later on in the paper.
Support, complexity, and diversity tend to demonstrate one of the major weaknesses of the socialization process in its current form. It is true that students are often ‘dropped into the deep end’ and ‘left to their own devices’ when it comes to educator development (Golde, 2005). Our data confirm this picture within entrepreneurship programs. Many students are asked to teach full courses or multiple courses too early in their program without sufficient support and training. Sometimes students are asked to do several teaching preps, while in contrast, some students are not given enough opportunity to teach or given it too late. Understandably, the current financial model for doctoral programs in the US can drive this behavior, to ensure a return on investment from student scholarships, for the institution. This approach creates anxiety, however, and our data suggest this can cause angst for a few students. Recognizing that students have differing stocks of experience means that certain students can adapt to this approach, while others struggle. Here it seems evident that an individual approach is needed, which gauges the amount of support a student requires, as well as the level of complexity and diversity of teaching they can manage, recognizing that sequencing varies according to an individual’s stock of experience and current socialization within the profession. Some programs may already carefully assess individual student’s teaching capability, and stretch them appropriately, but others do not. Some supervisors take a lead in assessing and carefully managing the right balance of support, complexity, and diversity of experience that the student gets, but others do not. It is clear that this area of the socialization process needs more explicit attention in doctoral programs in entrepreneurship, and efforts to raise the bar for programs and supervisors, would be sensible.
Informal Socialization
Informal socialization describes the stage in the process when the individual steps forward and starts to take on more responsibility for their own learning, taking on efforts to socialize themselves into the community of practice of entrepreneurship educators (Collins et al., 1991). The explicit socialization efforts of the program change during this stage, from a more formal direct role to an informal support role. Socialization is not completely independent though; it is guided by coaching, scaffolding, and engagement with experts, directors, and supervisors (Collins, 2006). Within our model, in the content of learning, we would expect students to begin to gain heuristic (shortcuts) and control (classroom management) strategies from their experiences. In methods, we might expect them to move away from modeling, articulation (by those observed), and reflection to early efforts at exploration (practice), articulation (of their own teaching), along with coaching and reflection. In sequencing, students might progress to gain more complex, diverse, and specific experiences (e.g., greater depth of experience with individual pedagogies, such as business planning, the business model canvas and/or lean launch).
Informal Socialization BEI Examples.
Within the research conducted, there was evidence of the informal socialization process occurring. As Table 5 indicates, there were both positive items that supported educator development and negative items that created barriers and/or downplayed the importance of being a good teacher as part of one’s professional development. Students also become motivated to seek out socialization when the formal aspects of their program and their supervisors did not provide enough support. They looked for professors on campus who were interested in teaching to provide coaching support; they observed and shadowed their peers; and they got teaching experience elsewhere if none was available in their program. It is also evident in the data that programs rarely make an explicit effort to build informal socialization into their program design and often what does occur happens serendipitously.
The data also highlight examples of active socialization designed to downplay the importance of teaching within academia. Examples include, supervisors telling students to do as little work as possible when they prepare for teaching, not sharing educator development opportunities with students, discouraging students from engaging in networks that are teaching focused, and encouraging teaching-orientated students to focus solely on placement in research schools. This active discouragement of teaching practice is evident in our data. Of the ninety-six behavioral events, only two students (2 events, 20.18mins of data) highlight the importance of supervisors in their career development as educators. This should be a concerning data point given the importance of PhD supervisors in the socialization process (Fenge, 2012; Lewicki & Bailey, 2009; 2016). Other networks, mentors, and role models do step into this void. Students develop peer networks, seek out mentors, and use their prior experience with previous role models to reflect on and further develop their teaching practice. Where they are not actively discouraged, students also utilize conferences, workshops, and symposia to fill their formal educator training gaps (as was recommended by the Entrepreneurship Division Task Force; Brush, et al., 2003).
The informal socialization process highlighted in Table 5 shows several guided things that the model suggests should be occurring but are not occurring according to our data. During this stage, less support is given, but it remains guided by coaches. The model suggests that the program should be actively promoting and encouraging engagement with educator development classes that already exist on the student’s campus (individual exploration). Programs might be expected to provide coaching support from experienced teachers as students engage in teaching practice for the first time. The model also suggests that students need opportunities to teach, but that they also need to have opportunities to be observed, to discuss their experiences with their coaches (articulate) and properly reflect on their teaching experiences. As they gain experience, progressing to preparing one or more course (task complexity and diversity) is beneficial, rather than teaching only what has been developed by others. During this stage of socialization training can be provided, focused on the details of teaching practice (e.g., classroom management tactics; assessment practice) and through their actual teaching experience, students can gradually acquire heuristic (tips and tricks) and control (classroom management) strategies.
The informal socialization process was also observed to differ by individual, not just by where the student was in the program. Some individuals with prior experience in teaching join programs already in the middle of informal socialization. Other students, having been entrepreneurs, quickly recognize deficiencies in formal socialization and act to address the gaps. Students that appear to have a delayed entrance into informal socialization are often students who are less motivated to learn about teaching, who have lower stocks of experience to draw on, and in some cases include international students, where additional language barriers stall progress.
Personal Socialization
As shown earlier, the personal socialization phase is the point at which the individual entirely takes over the socialization process. In a sense, they have arrived at their destination. The program role in the socialization process is much lower during this phase, but it remains to a degree, through the provision of resources for students to learn independently. They may not be experts but they have the requisite tools to further develop themselves without support (e.g., from the doctoral program and/or their supervisors). Our model suggests that in the content of learning they have advanced to developing their own independent learning strategies (i.e., as teaching challenges arise, they can learn to solve them independently). In methods, they have reached the top of the scaffolding and have mastered exploration, no longer need coaching but actively engage in independent reflective learning. In sequencing, they can now manage the full complexity, diversity, and specifics of an experienced educator.
As far as educator development is concerned, we saw examples of the personal socialization process at work in our data. These events included for example: students building their own peer to peer networks for improving teaching; developing their own workshop series; writing teaching case studies; writing pedagogy papers; and, seeking out people to observe and assess their class sessions. As students became more confident, they take on personal initiative to socialize themselves. While this aspect seems akin to students ‘emerging from the water after having been thrown in the deep end,’ it can be misleading, as it can be the outcome of a successful socialization process. We also observed many situations where students were experiencing unnecessary anxiety because they were not gaining the prior socialization steps outlined in this model before they were expected to do it by themselves. Only after the prior steps can a student truly be expected to engage in maximum personal exploration, without support, to have all heuristic, control, and personal learning strategies in place, and be able to cope with the full complexity and diversity of experiences expected of a fully trained college educator.
Discussion
In this part of the paper, we consider the results of our research as they relate to the model presented, we also return to Brush et al.’s (2003) paper and mirror their work by offering seven new recommendations for doctoral programs in entrepreneurship.
Model Validation
Our data validated that doctoral training is a form of situated learning (Vygotsky, 1962; 1978). We observed that students learned by doing while on the job and as they were being socialized into their discipline and practice. The model we proposed, that combined Weidman et al.’s four stages of socialization with Collins’ (2006) concepts of cognitive apprenticeship, was useful when organizing and making sense of the students’ experiences. Our combining of these forms of situated learning advances theory and provides an analytical tool that can be used in other contexts. For example, it could be applied to explore doctoral education in other disciplines, while within entrepreneurship, it might be usefully employed to explore learning in student incubators or used to research community accelerator programs.
The four forms of socialization presented in the model were valuable for explaining the different aspects of situated learning (Weidman et al., 2001). When researchers consider doctoral programs there is a tendency to focus mainly on the formal socialization process (Austin, 2009). Our work illustrates that anticipatory socialization is important for understanding student aspirations and expectations. It is also useful for exploring disconnects between prior student experience and program expectations, which may cause student anxiety and even program dropout. Informal socialization was valuable for understanding the role of activities (e.g., peer mentoring; symposia etc.) outside of formal programming, that aided student professional development, in non-obvious ways. While personal socialization was valuable for unpacking what students do themselves to support their own socialization, while taking control of their own learning.
The model’s application of cognitive apprenticeship concepts within different forms of socialization also added to the advancement of theory by showing how the two forms of situated learning are interconnected. It was evident, for example, that the content of learning relating to domain knowledge occurred early in the socialization process, while more complicated forms, such as heuristic, control and independent learning strategies tended to be acquired later. Some of the concepts of learning in cognitive apprenticeship theory, specifically modeling and articulation, are not widely used in entrepreneurship education. For example, the idea of using entrepreneurs to model behavior via shadowing has merit as does the concept of articulation, for helping experts explain to novices, certain task details during specific entrepreneurial situations (e.g., how to develop a term sheet as it is being done).
The importance of sequencing was also demonstrated in the data. Students were often anxious if they were ‘thrown into the deep end’ without prior smaller practice and this data point demonstrated the need to increase task complexity and diversity gradually for many students. The data also illustrated that formal teacher education needed to start with the basics and progress to more advanced forms of pedagogy, which confirmed the concept of global before local within the theory. For many students this sequencing was off, or more advanced pedagogic training was never offered. Students considered such advanced training to be essential in entrepreneurship when they needed to learn experiential and other forms of innovative teaching practice.
Some aspects of the model were not validated. For example, Weidman et al. (2001) present socialization as four consecutive stages. In our observations, these forms of socialization occurred simultaneously and were not necessarily chronological. This is an important observation as it highlights that multiple forms of socialization occur simultaneously rather than sequentially. Students also appeared to enter programs already engaged in informal and/or personal socialization, due to their prior experiences as entrepreneurs or adjunct professors. In this sense, socialization is a process that can be enabled by formal doctoral programs, but it is not necessarily dependent on such formal programming. Certain cognitive apprenticeship concepts and their appearance in our model could also be repositioned. For example, coaching appears as an important component in informal socialization, however, it can likely occur in any of the four forms of socialization presented in the model.
Practical Recommendations
Our recommendations aim to address the recognized deficit in educator development within doctoral programs (Dunn et al., 2016; Golde, 2005), while also acknowledging the resource concerns and other challenges programs have that restrict their ability to change (Marx et al., 2016). It is evident, for example, that the financial model of doctoral education in the US is broken, and so we specifically focus on items that would be easily and inexpensively applied within existing programs (Rousseau, 2016). We have also used the concept of cognitive apprenticeship to show how these can be ‘scaffolded’ into the student experience. Figure 2 summarizes these recommendations as they relate to the socialization and cognitive apprenticeship process.
1. Educator Development Strategies
We recommend that entrepreneurship doctoral programs explicitly develop and highlight their educator development strategies within their design and marketing materials, by using our model of cognitive apprenticeship to develop appropriate scaffolding. Too few of the programs we reviewed (6/27) made a clear philosophical commitment to educator development. Faced with the concerns of stakeholders (Austin, 2002; 2003) regarding academia’s development of educators and the fact that we expect entrepreneurship educators to be innovative, we regard this as too low. Based on our research, students are both expecting to have this aspect of socialization included in their professional development and are attracted to programs who support it. The model we present in Figure 1, can be used to reconsider the program strategy, using cognitive apprenticeship as a guide. It is also important the programs be more explicit about their educator development philosophies and training in their recruitment materials, as students use these as a signal when anticipating the socialization process.
2. Individual Educator Development Plans
We recommend programs develop a way to carefully assess the individual student’s stock of experience on entering a program and design individual educator development plans based on their personal learning needs and intended career path. Our anticipatory socialization data show that students come into programs with different stocks of experience and career aspirations. This may be uniquely the case in entrepreneurship, where students also wish to run entrepreneurship centers and engage in outreach work. Programs should develop individual educator development plans for students as part of the onboarding process. Cognitive apprenticeship efforts can thus be individualized and more effectively recognize student differences. Individual plans can help a program identify, which students can teach early on, while supporting students who need more formal socialization before they are ready to teach. Plans can also personalize the socialization process to the unique career path of each student.
3. Enhance Formal Educator Development
We conclude from our data that it is time for programs to actively improve the access they provide to formal educator development classes, either within the program, or sourced from elsewhere on campus. For entrepreneurship, we concur with Marx et al.’s (2016) observations about management. Educator development is inconsistent, and there is a low amount of instructional training for teacher preparation. Ideally, formal classes should include three forms, moving from general to more specific, including introductory, detailed classroom tactics and specific pedagogies relevant to the individual student’s actual teaching. There is scope for doctoral directors in entrepreneurship to collectively agree to a ‘program archetype,’ as the AOM SIG Task Force developed in 2003, for all entrepreneurship programs to adopt and/or adapt. A starting point could be our recommendation above.
4. Use Teaching Assistantships
Based on our research, teaching assistantships seem to be an underutilized resource in the cognitive apprenticeship process, and we recommend that they can be used in a more deliberate way to enhance observational methods and formal socialization. With moderate changes to improve formal observation, articulation, and reflection, these opportunities could genuinely become part of the educator development process. For example, if TAs are expected to observe, take notes, and formally discuss classes with professors, using both teacher articulation of practice and active reflection, the TA aspects of cognitive apprenticeship would add more value. We consider this a low-cost tweak that might offer significant benefits for both students and professors.
5. Support for Supervisors
Within the formal socialization process individual supervisors play an outsized role (Fenge, 2012), sometimes negatively. We, therefore, suggest introducing more support or training for supervisors to enhance their engagement with the educator development aspects of doctoral socialization. Collaborating with supervisors to elevate their role in student educator development process is important, especially as supervisors give signals to students about what they value (e.g., research), and what they do not value (e.g., teaching). Lack of supervisor engagement in our data meant that students lacked coaches and mentors for the development of their teaching. Supervisors sometimes do make a significant impact on this aspect of the cognitive apprenticeship process, and this is a critical component that our research suggests is often missing in the current status quo.
6. Teaching Coaches and Mentors
Another way to address the educator coaching gap is to ensure all students have a teaching coach or mentor, as research supervisors are not always the best people to be teaching coaches. Our model suggests that this is particularly important during the informal socialization phase but can also contribute during the formal phase. Coaches who are willing to be observed and who are willing to observe student teaching, as well as engage in articulation and reflection, are an essential part of the educator development process that is often missing. Programs could assign teaching coaches early in the program. It is only the first step, however, as these relationships are only meaningful in the context of the model, if the coach observes, talks with the student about their teaching, and helps the student reflect on their teaching practice. Coaching in formal socialization needs to increase student observation of experts, while coaching in the informal phase needs to encourage more observation of students when they teach. Both phases need conversations and reflective learning to aid educator development.
7. Scaffold Teaching Experiences
Finally, we recommend that programs aim to provide teaching experiences that are scaffolded, starting with smaller contributions in other professor’s classes, to eventually preparing and delivering a class, and then an entire course (or courses). Our model illustrates that teaching experience should be introduced in a more staggered fashion than is typically the case and should be based on an individual’s current stock of experience, or progress in the socialization process. Ideally, students should not teach a course on their own too soon. Students have different starting points, however, and so educator development plans are needed to assess the right level of complexity and diversity to give an individual, and to assess when to give it. Scaffolding experiences in this way will avoid one of the major pitfalls of the current model of ‘throwing students into the deep end’ without proper preparation, which impacts both teaching quality and doctoral student anxiety and development (Austin, 2009).
These recommendations combined address the gap in educator development socialization in entrepreneurship education (Austin, 2009; Collins, 2006). Next, we explore the limitations of the research and make recommendations for future study.
Limitations and Future Research
Our research goes beyond prior studies in business doctoral education by exploring the student’s perspective and by going deeper into the ‘lived’ experience of students, using qualitative BEIs rather than more generic student surveys (Dunn et al., 2016; Griffith, 1997). Further, we undertake research on the supply side of entrepreneurship education by examining doctoral education, an under-researched topic (Brush et al., 2003; Urbano et al., 2008). Our work also introduces a new model of cognitive apprenticeship that synthesizes Weidman et al.’s (2001) phases of socialization with Collins’s (2006) conceptualization of cognitive apprenticeship. In our view this conceptual framework has much value and could be further built on, as well as applied to other subjects in entrepreneurship education and learning.
However, our work does have limitations. First, it is a relatively small qualitative sample of thirty-two doctoral students, with ninety-six behavioral events, in twenty-seven US doctoral programs. Though small, the sample is an appropriate size for a qualitative study and suitable for understanding doctoral education in entrepreneurship in the US, given its overall size (again, relatively small). Future research could, however, replicate the study to validate our findings or seek out a larger sample to statistically corroborate our empirical observations. Our work could also be expanded to non-US doctoral programs, as program designs can differ significantly between countries. Studies undertaking country comparisons could be of value (Urbano et al., 2008). In this work, we use purposeful sampling from a US doctoral consortium, along with snowball sampling, to offset the risk of selection bias. There remains a risk that our sample was unduly influenced towards teaching motivated doctoral students, and future research could apply a different sampling methodology to address that risk. Our original study used grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and phenomenological interpretive coding (Cope, 2005) to develop our data, concepts, and conclusions, which were reported in our first paper. In this paper, we reexamined the data according to the cognitive apprenticeship model presented and thus the model did not emerge from the data, it emerged from the literature. Consequently, there is a risk of post hoc rationalization. We have carefully offset the risk by presenting both types of examples in the data (poor and good). Finally, there is a chance of recall bias in the anticipatory socialization data (motivations, career objectives, and program expectations) as students were interviewed later in their programs. Future research could select a sample of students, either as they are choosing programs or earlier on to more deeply considered anticipatory socialization processes. Likewise, it might be interesting to select a sample later than ours to explore the job satisfaction of early career professors based on their prior experience of educator development.
In addition to the future research opportunities that are presented from these limitations, our results suggest other opportunities to consider. For example, there is scope to go into each phase of socialization more deeply in more focused studies. Researchers might also examine more directly the aims of the socialization process. Are programs truly only focused on research socialization and how might that narrowness of aim be broadened to be more inclusive of educator socialization? The asymmetrical disconnect between anticipatory socialization and formal socialization and how programs manage the disconnect could be an interesting focus for a future study (Weidman et al., 2001). If students are expecting one thing and getting something quite different, how do programs manage the mismatch in expectations? In addition to examining how to manage the disconnect, future studies can investigate why there is a disconnect between students’ expectations and what programs deliver. There is also an opportunity for a study to consider how individualized personal development plans can be adapted to the different possible career paths for entrepreneurship professors. We also see a need for research that is focused on teaching assistantships and teaching observations, and how these specific forms of support can be enhanced to play a greater role in the cognitive apprenticeship process. Likewise, further work could explore how doctoral students acquire heuristic, control, and learning strategies during their development from novice to expert.
Conclusion
Our study recognizes the need to conduct supply-side research in entrepreneurship education, and then to study educator development in doctoral programs (Brush et al.’s, 2003; Urbano et al., 2008). As far as we are aware, this is the first comprehensive empirical study of US doctoral programs in entrepreneurship since Brush et al.’s (2003) work. In many ways it is an important and yet under researched topic. Increasingly, the way we educate doctoral students for teaching has become a concern in higher education (Golde, 2005; McAlpine & Norton, 2006) and in business education (Marx et al., 2016; Rousseau, 2016). Student and faculty empirical research regularly show that programs are failing to do this but have also failed to address the problem (Lewicki & Bailey, 2009; 2016). We confirm that this deficit is true of doctoral programs in entrepreneurship as well. While programs have addressed the issues raised in Brush et al.’s (2003) study, a new set of problems have emerged, and these are: how do we educate the educator? And how do we improve it?
We draw on Weidman et al. (2001) and Collins et al. (1991; 2006) to present a model of cognitive apprenticeship, as a proposed solution, and we use our research data to show how the model can be used in practice. We also contribute more widely to entrepreneurship education, as the model proposed could be used in other contexts such as, exploring student entrepreneurship. In addition, the model can be extended to other aspects of doctoral training, including research, research translation to practice, and commercialization training.
By providing examples of BEIs, demonstrating poor and good practices, we were able to construct recommendations that can be implemented by programs. Our contribution to the development of doctoral socialization model and to provide solutions that are viable and inexpensive to address the problem identified. We hope that programs will take up our suggestions. It is clear from our research that students believe educator development training in doctoral programs is failing them. Leaving students to their own devices, or expecting others to pick up the slack, no longer seems like a reasonable approach (Brush et al.’s, 2003) and the pressures for change will continue to grow (Marx et al., 2016). Students also desire different career paths. Not all students will work in research intensive schools and consequently doctoral training could be more nuanced, taking into consideration the different paths students might take.
In closing, may we say it is time to place educator development more coherently into training for doctoral students in entrepreneurship. It is no longer enough only to prepare students for one aspect of their socialization into the profession. Yes, developing scholarly research skills and knowledge is important, but it is only one aspect of the cognitive apprenticeship process. Doctoral programs are where students prepare to become professors; it is where they move from anticipatory socialization to their first job, and so it is no longer acceptable to ignore our responsibility to produce educators, as well as researchers (Marx et al., 2016).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethical consideration
This study was submitted for IRB review to The Ohio University Office of Research Compliance who approved the research as exempt from ethical review (20-E-83).
Informed consent
Written consent to participate was obtained via email.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
