Doctor of Education
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Doctor of Education degree (Ed.D. or D.Ed.) is a professional doctorate which prepares the student for administrative or specialized positions in education. Like other doctorates, (e.g. the Ph.D., D.A., and so on), the Ed.D./D.Ed. is an academic degree of the highest level. In the United States, the Ed.D. tends to be granted by the Schools of Education of Universities; hence, it is designated a Doctor of Education degree.
Since the Ph.D. is the most popular and common form of the research doctorates among university professors in the United States, there is often a perceived bias in favor of the Ph.D. over other doctoral designations. However, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recognize numerous other doctoral degrees as equivalent (but see footnote 2 here). A list can be found at doctorate.
Principally in the United Kingdom, the Ed.D./D.Ed. differs from a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Education in that it allows the study of a greater variety of education-related subjects in the first stages of study, focusing on a single topic only at the end. A typical four-year Ph.D. in the United Kingdom or Australia might require the submission of a 100,000-word thesis; the entire study period would be spent researching the topic and writing the thesis. For a four-year Ed.D., a student might be required to research various topics in the first two years, preparing a 6,000-word report for each. The last two years would be spent on the thesis, which might only be 50,000 words.
In the United States, the Ed.D./D.Ed. is very similar in structure to the Ph.D. The difference between the two is one of focus: the Ph.D. is oriented toward research, while the Ed.D. may be either research-based or professionally-based.
The first Ed.D. degree was awarded in the United States, at Harvard University, in 1921, around the time that the Ph.D. was being introduced into the United Kingdom. The first Ed.D. arrived in England in 1992, at the University of Bristol. Six years later, 29 British universities were offering Ed.D. programmes.
In South Africa, following a convention of using Latin in academic designations, the doctorate in education is called Doctor Educationis (D.Ed.) and, like other doctoral degrees in that country, it is entirely a research-based qualification.
