Teaching during the doctoral studies: Benefit or burden?

Abstract

A survey about the teaching load of PhD students at LTH and Lund University’s Science Faculty is presented. The survey is carried out during the month of February 2013 entirely through email and web-based questionnaire, which addressed 1) existence of teaching, 2) benefits of teaching, 3) appreciation of teaching, 4) planning of teaching, 5) teaching situation and finally 6) personal informant questions. Totally, 37 respondents returned complete questionnaires, which were then analysed statistically. The results suggest that respondents are in majority active in teaching and do perceive themselves as good, well prepared, fairly compensated teachers. They generally perceive teaching as a valuable experience although it does delay their PhD. Respondents who did feel qualified for their teaching and claimed the teaching to be related to their PhD subject were more likely to also respond that teaching was helpful to their PhD work. The study thus generally supports the idea that a strong link between the teaching and research subjects should be given priority.