Quantitative Investigation of the Ph.D. Students View on the Higher Education Ordinance

Abstract

The higher education ordinance in Sweden sets a number of goals that are supposed to be achieved to be awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree. In this investigation the perception among Ph. D. students regarding the importance of the goals were studied. The doctoral students answered a questionnaire with a number of statements to be ranked from most to least important. A total of 57 students from 7 departments at Lund University answered the survey; the numbers of female and male students were 25 and 32, respectively. Forty-four of the respondents were of Swedish nationality, while 8 people were so called industrial doctoral students. The gathered data were evaluated for the group as a whole, but it was also tested if it was possible to identify differences regarding some selected criteria, such as sex, being an industrial student, time period for studies and nationality. It has to be pointed out that it is necessary to be careful when making general conclusions, since the selection of students may not be random.