The PhD Progression Core Capacities are a set of seven skills that build upon the learning outcomes that exist within doctoral programs across Boston University. These capacities provide a framework for you to articulate the skills and knowledge you are gaining through your PhD education to professional audiences. Learning these skills is part of preparation for serving effectively in a diverse, inclusive, and global professional landscape.
The seven Core Capacities we have defined will contribute to preparation for a variety of doctoral career pathways. We expect that the depth with which you explore each capacity will vary based on the requirements of your program, as well as the expectations and skillsets required for your desired career.
Each of the seven Core Capacities is divided into three Learning Levels:
- Level 1: Skills Exploration
- Level 2: Skills Development
- Level 3: Skills Application
Below you will find the Level 1 & Level 2 learning outcomes defined for each Core Capacity.
Career Development
An essential part of doctoral training is intentional career planning and preparation. Focusing on Career Development will help you to outline professional goals and identify ways to achieve them as well as define your professional interests, attitudes, skills, and values to inform your career planning.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Outline personal and professional goals and identify ways to achieve them through skill exploration in additional learning pathways
– Reflect on personal and professional interests, attitudes, skills, and values and explore related career pathways
– Identify skill areas in need of improvement that will build the capacity to pursue diverse career paths and work in multiple environments
– Gather information and locate external opportunities, internships, and work experiences aligned with career goals
– Identify the key components of an online identity and recognize the importance of developing your personal brand
– Demonstrate a basic understanding of networking strategies and the value of building a diverse network of contacts for career development
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Assess professional and personal goals for the next 1-3-5 years and list action plans to achieve them
– Assess skill and knowledge gaps and generate action plans to develop essential skills and learn necessary knowledge
– Evaluate professional goals and recommend alternative plans for professional development
– Prepare essential documents or job/internship applications
– Assess personal brand and compose a personal brand in alignment with their short and long term career goals
– Investigate various categories of professional networking (individuals and organizations) and build a networking plan to reach out to them for each category
– Assess current online presence and create a plan to improve/adjust/modify or maintain an online presence
– Examine transferable skills in alignment with career goals and generate a plan demonstrating how to improve/modify/adjust/ maintain these skills
Communication Skills
Demonstrating effective communication is embedded in the completion of each milestone associated with the doctorate degree, from the preliminary prospectus exam to the final defense. It is also essential in all career pathways. Students should demonstrate proficiency across many media and to many audiences. Representative skills include grant writing, presentations, digital and social media, and outreach.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Recognize the principles of effective oral, written, and visual communication and practices in a variety of forums, both academic and non-academic
– Select effective and appropriate methods and tools to communicate within various organizational levels and among diverse audiences (interpersonal, intrapersonal, small group, organizational, media, gender, family, intercultural communication, technologically mediated communication, etc.)
– Explain the principles of effective communication for establishing and maintaining collaborative and inclusive working relationships with individuals and groups
– Identify sensitive topics in communication and explore approaches for providing constructive feedback and responses
– Demonstrate an understanding of ethical writing practices (i.e., avoid plagiarism, use of an appropriate citation style) in all forms of written communication
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Generate examples of oral, written, and visual communication for both academic and non-academic settings (CV, Resume, elevator pitch, cover letters, informational and job interviews, job talks)
– Compose a personal brand story for both academic and nonacademic settings
– Understand the basic components of grants or fellowship applications, determine the criteria used to assess successful grant applications, and develop realistic timelines to compile an application
– Analyze sensitive situations and topics in communication and critique different approaches to handle them and propose effective solutions
– Receive and provide constructive feedback and responses to various situations
– Provide feedback to peers on presentations, manuscripts & grants
– Use various delivery systems including technology to effectively communicate ideas
Discipline-Specific Knowledge
Students should advance their foundational knowledge within their field in order to be able to successfully construct an independent thesis.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Demonstrate an understanding of disciplinary subject matter at a level required for college and university undergraduate teaching in the discipline
– Summarize relevant theories, methodologies, and knowledge in the primary area of study and interdisciplinary fields
– Understand the gaps, conflicts, limits, and challenges within the discipline
– Display an understanding of the range of accepted practices for conducting research within discipline
– Reflect on how the discipline currently and historically impacts diverse social identities
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Apply relevant theories, methodologies, and knowledge in the primary area of study and interdisciplinary fields
– Analyze and evaluate the gaps, conflicts, limits, and challenges within the discipline and subfields
– Effectively execute and evaluate research in the discipline using appropriate methodologies
– Demonstrate the ability to locate individual research in relation to the broader discipline
– Reach appropriate milestones towards degree progress
Management & Leadership
Completing a PhD should prepare our students to be able to manage complex projects and lead and mentor colleagues in their field. These skills include operational skills, such managing resources, designing projects to be flexible in order to adapt to unanticipated events and situations, and managing budgets. But they also include interpersonal skills, including relationship building, negotiation, multi-cultural awareness, diversity and inclusion, collaboration and teamwork, resolving conflicts, managing people, and mentorship.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Examine personal and others’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as leaders
– Explore differences in leadership styles and approaches in terms of individuals’ values, social identity, cultural, and demographic backgrounds
– Demonstrate an understanding of the formal and informal decision-making structures and power relationships in an organization
– Explain foundational principles of workplace ethics and standards
– Learn to define SMART goals and select appropriate methods to achieve them
– Identify strategies for effective planning and prioritization for individual and collaborative projects
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Contribute to team-based projects
– Analyze project budgeting for various situations and create a comprehensive document demonstrating different budgeting strategies
– Troubleshoot managerial and leadership issues and propose creative solutions
– Set expectations and goals for team projects
– Analyze processes involved in negotiating and resolving conflicts
– Assess current leadership styles and investigate strategies to develop a leadership plan for various situations
– Analyze various decision making and delegation, and conflict management situations and develop a comprehensive resolution plan
– Evaluate managerial and leadership situations in terms of building reputation and esteem, and valuing diversity
Research Skills
Developing independence as a scholar in a given discipline is essential to developing and evaluating research questions. Depending on the discipline, this could involve technical or laboratory skills, gathering empirical information, data collection and analysis, and communication of results. Advancement as a researcher also requires a commitment to the integrity of the research enterprise, as well as rigor and reproducibility in scientific or scholarly results.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Demonstrate the ability to define a research question and outline a research plan including, identifying relevant resources and defining scope
– Compare and contrast different research design, methods, strategies, and techniques
– Retrieve, interpret, and summarize relevant research and background information about a particular topic
– Explain professional standards of ethics and research integrity
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Serve as manuscript reviewer or peer editor for journals in your field
– Write a research statement
– Examine experimental design and research techniques to evaluate and assess research plan
– Develop collaborative relationships to support research projects
– Develop effective search strategies and critical evaluation of the literature
– Examine different types of data analysis and interpretation
– Frame research questions and research hypothesis
– Gather data or identify data collection methods and compare different methods
– Explain professional standards of ethics and research integrity
Self-Awareness
Centering the PhD on our students means we have to consider them as whole individuals, including the integration of their work and their broader lives and interests. Self-Awareness is a skill that contributes to time and task management, emotional intelligence, setting boundaries, and building resilience.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Reflect on personal values and beliefs and how they inform decision making
– Explore strategies to improve your interpersonal skills, empathy, and emotional intelligence
– Demonstrate the ability to prioritize self-care, health, and wellness
– Understand personal social identities and demonstrate respect for others’ diverse intellectual, cultural, and social identities
– Recognize effective strategies for time and stress management
– Express knowledge of short- and long-term personal financial planning
– Identify support resources (e.g. counselors, faculty, professionals) for overcoming obstacles and build resilience
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Assess and uphold workplace etiquette
– Build personal and professional goals and systems to support the achievement of those goals
– Develop and understanding of the Hidden Curriculum (definitions, importance, practical problems)
– Identify and practice strategies to reduce personal and interpersonal stressors
– Create a personal and professional plan to achieve a manageable work/life balance
Teaching Skills
Our academic tradition is rooted in learning. Teaching skills include those focused on effective teaching practices in a classroom, such as identifying student learning goals, course planning, creating inclusive learning spaces, implementing active learning, and assessment. But they also include skills related to informal learning environments like student advising and tutoring, as well as those that are more broadly applicable to non-academic careers, such as facilitating productive discussions that advance knowledge for all participants.
Level 1
Skill Exploration Learning Outcomes:
– Identify resources inside and outside of the university for learning about and improving teaching
– Understand foundational principles in the scholarship of teaching for preparing college faculty
– Describe theories of learning & instruction from the perspectives of behavioral research, cognitive research, and theories of motivation and personality
– Discuss how various social identities affect student learning in college
– Explore frameworks for course design and development and concepts like alignment, assessment, analysis, and evaluation
Level 2
Skill Development Learning Outcomes:
– Define required skills and knowledge for teaching undergraduate course material in respective disciplines and adapt evidence-based teaching techniques and measures
– Demonstrate the ability to complete the work requirements of a Teaching Fellow or Teaching Assistant (leading discussions, delivering lectures, facilitating recitations)
– Understand and implement effective methods of evaluating and assessing student work (collaboratively designing and administering assessments, grading, etc.)
– Use and experiment with varied teaching methods and technologies
