Since first appearing in British universities during the early 1990s, the Doctor of Education (EdD) degree has spread rapidly through the UK higher education sector. However, despite the existence of a single set of Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) descriptors for doctoral level achievement, some in academia have always been willing to describe the EdD, either openly or in private, as inferior to the PhD. This thesis endeavours (through a wide-ranging questionnaire completed anonymously by 27 academics from a total of 16 English universities, and follow-up interviews with seven individuals selected from the original sample) to discover how a sample of those who teach on such programmes (EdD academics) view the EdD, in general terms. For instance, it seeks to ascertain how widespread among EdD academics is the notion that the EdD does not reach the ‘gold standard’ represented by the PhD in Education. As data collection proceeds from the questionnaire to the interviews, the focus narrows to three key topics: specific characteristics of the EdD as compared with the PhD in Education (in terms, for example, of learning experience, programme aims, and modes of assessment); strengths, weaknesses and purposes of the EdD viva voce examination; and the concept of 'originality' as operationalised by EdD academics/examiners in deciding whether or not an EdD candidate/thesis displays 'doctorateness'. A range of informed and sometimes forthright views from EdD academics on these matters is recorded. On the basis of data analysis and interpretation, the thesis concludes with proposals for further, more extensive research, and a call for one of two courses of action: either the abolition of the EdD, or the appointment of a committee to review EdD practices nationally, and to recommend ways of strengthening EdD rigour and reputation.

Being a lecturer and serving in the Higher Degrees Committee of the Department of Public Administration and Management at Unisa for several years, gave me exposure to master’s and doctoral candidates’ scholarly work. I realised that the doctoral candidates, in particular, were facing methodological challenges. This realisation triggered my curiosity in the methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates. My scholarly curiosity prompted me to undertake a preliminary literature review which has identified a number of scholarly contributions on the quality of research in Public Administration. These studies have not established or attempted to establish conceptual frameworks for understanding this phenomenon. I deduced that the lack of scholarly contributions on the methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates indicates a knowledge gap that compromises scholarly understanding of methodological preparedness, both as a concept and a phenomenon. The main purpose of this research was to generate theory, by means of the development of a conceptual framework, in response to the identified knowledge gap in the literature. Consequently, a qualitative theory generating research design was chosen and actualised in three interrelated research phases. Phase 1 provides a theoretical perspective by turning to the scholarly literature and institutional documents to obtain a deepened understanding of the concept methodological preparedness relevant to Public Administration doctoral candidates. This phase serves, firstly, to provide an overview of the characteristics of the doctorate in Public Administration as an immediate context for methodological preparedness, and secondly, to do a concept analysis to identify and describe the meaning of the concept methodological preparedness with reference to a doctoral candidate. Phase 2 aimed to make sense of the methodological preparedness of Public Administration doctoral candidates at Unisa by exploring, through an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), how doctoral candidates and supervisors make sense of this phenomenon. This study makes a methodological contribution by employing the IPA for the first time in the South African Public Administration fraternity. Phase 3 generates a conceptual framework for understanding the methodological preparedness of Public Administration doctoral candidates at Unisa. The framework contributes to the understanding of the under- vi researched concept and phenomenon methodological preparedness of doctoral candidates in Public Administration. This study has shown that a candidate’s methodological preparedness (the state of being competent to independently make a methodological decision relevant to his or her doctoral research project), is not a once-off gate-keeping phenomenon, but an ongoing and fluent state of being. / Public Administration / D. Litt. et Phil. (Public Administration)