German Doctoral Candidates and Doctorate Holders Study ProFile

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Description

Profile was a longitudinal study focusing on the situation of doctoral candidates and their postdoctoral professional careers. The sample consists of doctoral candidates at universities and funding organizations in Germany. The study started with the first survey in 2009 and finished in 2017. Overall, more than 10,000 doctoral candidates and 3,000 doctorate holders from all scientific fields are available for analysis. The questionnaire covers a number of topics including supervision, financing of the doctorate, mobility, courses attended, personality traits, occupational preferences and job placement after conferral of the doctorate among many more. The successor study of ProFile is Nacaps.

ProFile was initiated by the Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance (Institut für Forschungsinformation und Qualitätssicherung, iFQ) which is now part of the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und Wissenschaftsforschung, DZHW).

ProFile applies decision-making as well as goal/intention frameworks for studying careers.

Meta-Data

Study Title (long) The German Doctoral Candidates and Doctorate Holders Study ProFile
Study Title (short) ProFile
Coordinating Institution iFQ/ DZHW
Creator Kalle Hauss, Stefan Hornbostel, Marc Kaulisch
Contributor Jens Ambrasat, Anna Fräßdorf, Kalle Hauss, Stefan Hornbostel, Marc Kaulisch, Janine Lange
Almuth Lietz, Anja Oppermann, Jakob Tesch, Jeannette Winkelhage, Manuela Zinnbauer
Sponsor DFG, BMBF, Budget
Type Multi-Cohort Panel
Description of Observations Doctoral Students, Doctorate Holders (holders of ISCED6 research qualification), Drop Outs from Doctoral Training at universities in Germany
Waves 17
Duration 2009-2017
Country Germany
URL www.promovierendenpanel.de www.promovierendenpanel.de www.promovierendenpanel.de
Documentation http://risis.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/ProFile_Data_Documentation.pdf
Publisher http://risis.eu/
Keywords Research Careers
Young researchers
Occupational Preferences
Personality Traits

Documentation

A documentation of the study can be found here.

In addition, the article published in the Data Observer (Lange, Lietz, Ambrasat, Tesch, & Wegner, 2016[1]) describes the study.

Data Collection Rounds

The study foresees three surveys, which are conducted by the DZHW: the Initial Survey, the Evaluation Survey and the Follow-Up Survey. Participants are invited through a personalized link to the online questionnaire via a bilingual email with English and German being the available survey languages.

The Initial Survey (carried out between 2009-2016) targets doctoral candidates who participate in ProFile for the first time. The yearly Evaluation Survey (carried out between 2010-2016) focuses on persons, who already participated in ProFile and stated that they are still doctoral candidates in the previous Evaluation or Initial Survey or those who completed their doctoral training in the meantime. The Follow-Up Survey (carried out between 2015-2017) targets doctorate holders who participated in ProFile at least once and completed their doctoral candidacy.1

In total, 18 surveys are available and can be combined to study individual trajectories, study cohort effects or one-time snap shots.


Analytic Potential

Currently, ProFile is the only survey that covers all disciplines2, different types of doctorates (e.g. PhD by published work and taught doctorates) and at the same time spans different universities and funding organizations. ProFile data include persons working on their degree while being employed at a university, being financed by a scholarship or through external (or no) jobs. With regard to postdoctoral employment, transitions into all kinds of employments were observed. Although the majority of respondents after the doctorate reach R2 as their highest career stage, few respondents at R3 and R4 are included in the data set as well. The ProFile data can also be linked with data from the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) or the Leiden Ranking on the level of the degree granting institutions and disciplines.

Results

Important results of the project show that training conditions affect career intentions to a large extent (Hauss, Kaulisch & Tesch, 2015[2]). Moreover, the introduction of structured doctoral training has affected the training conditions in general (Hauss et al., 2012[3]; Ambrasat & Tesch, 2017[4]). Furthermore, the ProFile data were used to investigate the role and identity cultures of doctoral candidates in Germany (Kaulisch & Hauss, 2012[5]), the potentials of an empirical foundation of counselling services for future doctoral candidates (Fräßdorf & Hornbostel, 2012[6]), the financing and employment situations of doctoral candidates (Fräßdorf, Kaulisch & Hornbostel, 2012[7]), the specific situation of the doctoral candidates in law (Tesch, 2015[8]), and to describe the research doctorate (Hornbostel & Tesch, 2014[9]). With a view to structured doctoral programs inherent expectations (Hauss & Zinnbauer, 2011[10]), the supervision situation (Hauss & Kaulisch, 2012[11]; Briedis et al., 2013[12]) and the promotion of equal opportunities (Kaulisch, 2011[13]) were analyzed.

Notes

1 The Follow-Up Survey in 2015 questioned doctorate holders who had indicated the completion of their doctoral candidacy in any Initial or Evaluation Survey between 2009 and 2014, meaning that the award of the doctorate can date back several years. The Follow-Up Survey in 2016 additionally questioned doctorate holders who reported their conferral of the doctorate in the Evaluation Survey 2014 or Initial Survey 2015 but had not participated in the Follow-Up Survey 2015.

2 Doctoral candidates from medical faculties are not included in the ProFile sample. This is in line with concerns that an unknown number of German doctoral degrees in Medicine may not be equivalent to an ISCED-8 degree and instead more closely resembles an ISCED-7 degree (Wissenschaftsrat 2002: 11). However, neighboring disciplines to Medicine are included in the ProFile sample (e.g. Human Biology, Health Sciences). The discipline contained in the data is based on an open answer in the survey. In case someone indicates to work on a medicine related topic this person receives the respective coding for Medicine.

Sources

  1. ↑ Lange, J., Lietz, A., Ambrasat, J., Tesch, J., & Wegner, A. (2016). The German Doctoral Candidates and Doctorate Holders Study ProFile. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik / Journal of Economics and Statistics 4, 349-363. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2015-1037
  2. ↑ Hauss, K., Kaulisch, M. & Tesch, J. (2015). Against All Odds: Determinants of Doctoral Candidates’ Intention to Enter Academia in Germany. International Journal for Researcher Development 6(2), 122-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRD-07-2014-0015
  3. ↑ Hauss, K., Kaulisch, M., Zinnbauer, M., Tesch, J., Fräßdorf, A., Hinze, S. & Hornbostel, S. (2012). Promovierende Im Profil: Wege, Strukturen Und Rahmenbedingungen von Promotionen in Deutschland: Ergebnisse aus dem Profile-Promovierendenpanel. (13). Retrieved from http://vg06.met.vgwort.de/na/79b34af8a7094e9b947a2546d6bb7aac?l=http://www.forschungsinfo.de/Publikationen/Download/working_paper_13_2012.pdf
  4. ↑ Ambrasat, J. & Tesch, J. (2017). Structured Diversity – How structured programs change doctoral education in Germany. Research Evaluation, 4, 292-301. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvx024
  5. ↑ Kaulisch, M. & Hauss, K. (2012). Cultures of doctoral education in Germany: Beyond disciplines and disciplinary groupings? In M. Vukasovic, P. Maassen, M. Nerland, R. Pinheiro, B. Stensaker, A. Vabø (Eds.), Effects of Higher Education Reforms: Change Dynamics. Issues in Higher Education, 4. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 43–58.
  6. ↑ Fräßdorf, A. & Hornbostel, S. (2012). Potentiale einer empirischen Fundierung von Beratungsangeboten für (zukünftige) Promovierende. Zeitschrift für Beratung und Studium (ZBS) 2/2012, 34–37.
  7. ↑ Fräßdorf, A., Kaulisch, M. & Hornbostel, S. (2012). Armut und Ausbeutung? Die Finanzierungs- und Beschäftigungssituation von Promovierenden. Forschung & Lehre 8/2012, 622–624.
  8. ↑ Tesch, J. (2015). Promovieren in der Rechtswissenschaft – Bedingungen und Strukturen im Vergleich zu anderen Disziplinen. In Brockmann, J., A. Pilniok, H.-H. Trute, E. Westermann (Ed.), Promovieren in der Rechtswissenschaft, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 40–57.
  9. ↑ Hornbostel, S. & Tesch, J. (2014). Die Forschungspromotion. Entwicklungstrends in Deutschland. Forschung & Lehre 8/14, 606–608.
  10. ↑ Hauss, K. & Zinnbauer, M. (2011). Hinter den Erwartungen. DUZ Magazin 05/11, 20–21.
  11. ↑ Hauss, K. & Kaulisch, M. (2012). Alte und neue Promotionswege im Vergleich. Die Betreuungssituation aus der Perspektive der Promovierenden in Deutschland. In Huber, N., A. Schelling, S. Hornbostel (Eds.), Der Doktortitel zwischen Status und Qualifikation. iFQ-Working Paper No. 12. Berlin, 173–186.
  12. ↑ Briedis, K., Jaksztat, S., Kaulisch, M., Tesch, J. & Zinnbauer, M. (2013), A3.2.2 Betreuungssituation Promovierender in strukturierten und nicht strukturierten Promotionskontexten. In Bundesbericht Wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs 2013. Statistische Daten und Forschungsbefunde zu Promovierenden und Promovierten in Deutschland. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verlag, 231–238.
  13. ↑ Kaulisch, M. (2011). Förderung der Gleichstellung durch Doktorandenprogramme. Ende einer Illusion? In A. Löther (Ed.), Arbeitsplatz Hochschule. Dokumentation der 22. Jahrestagung. 20.–22. September 2010. Trier. Bonn: Bundeskonferenz der Frauenbeauftragten und Gleichstellungsbeauftragten an Hochschulen e.V., 31–39.
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