Taiwan

To complete a PhD program in Taiwan may take about 3-10 years. As an example, the average completion time for a doctoral program at the Graduate Institute of Science Education (GISE) in National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) may take about 3-5 years on average. Students’ admission to the PhD program is based on an entrance exam set up by five exam committee members from various specializations of the graduate school. The exam committee members evaluate students’ qualifications based on their written documents (including publications, research proposals, autobiography, recommendation letters, transcripts, and the like) and personal interviews. The students who receive the highest scores from the committee members are admitted to the program. Once NTNU’s PhD program admits students, they need to form an official academic advisory committee during their first academic year, through which their course-related matters can be advised. The academic advisory committee is responsible for the evaluation of the students’ academic course plans. If students wish to change their original

“Students’ admission to the PhD program is based on an entrance exam set up by five exam committee members from various specializations of the graduate school.”

academic course plans, they should initiate an academic advisory committee meeting to obtain approval from the academic advisory committee before making any changes. Students should select and enroll in courses according to their current course plans. Also, they need to decide and confirm who will be their faculty advisors by the end of the second academic year. Depending on students’ area of study, the minimum total credit hours for graduation at GISE range from 43 to 49 credits. Each credit hour corresponds to an hour that a student spends in the class per week. For GISE, one course is typically 3 credits. Having completed their coursework, students can apply for the qualifying examination upon the approval of the academic advisory committee. The qualifying exam usually takes one of two forms, either a written exam or a portfolio assessment, followed by an oral examination several weeks later. The questions on the written exam are set up by the committee, based on the coursework content. Students need to finish the written exam in a specified amount of time. On the other hand, the portfolio assessment requires the students to publish two review or position papers in peer-reviewed journals at either the national or international level.

In addition, at least one of the two articles should be published in TSSCI, SSCI, SCI, or SCOPUS journals, and the student should be the first author of at least one article. An accepted manuscript is considered published as long as an acceptance letter from the journal is provided.

After passing the qualifying exam, the students are considered doctoral candidates and can start applying for the preliminary examination of their “Review of Dissertation Proposal”. The dissertation proposal is composed of the first three chapters of the dissertation, including (a) introduction, research title, objectives, questions, and background; (b) review of literature; and (c) research methodology, results of the pilot study, and the anticipated final results. When the doctoral candidates complete their dissertation proposals, they must give a 30-minute presentation as the dissertation proposal presentation. Then, the committee, consisting of 5 members, starts asking questions and giving feedback regarding their proposals. The question-and-answer session usually takes no more than two and half hours. Other than the dissertation proposal presentation, the GISE requires the candidates to give at least two oral conference presentations on science education or mathematics education at the national or international level. The presentation should be orally presented in English at an international conference with a peer review mechanism. The Director will initiate a discussion with the most recent Candidacy Examination Committee members to determine if the student’s presentation at the conference is considered legitimate.

Having finished the presentations of dissertation proposals, the candidates can move on to data collection and analysis and drawing conclusions about their research. Upon completing their dissertations, they can schedule to have the

final oral defense meetings with their committee members. For GISE, there is another option of using the Scandinavian PhD model for the writing of a dissertation. The model generally consists of four inter-related research articles, usually with one being a review paper from the portfolio assessment and the other three related empirical studies. Out of the four research articles, two have to be published, while the other two can be manuscripts in submission, revision, or preparation. The dissertation typically starts with an introduction explaining the rationale of conducting the inter-related research, followed by the four articles, and finishes with an elaboration on the contributions of the four research articles. The current educational system in Taiwan tends to overvalue the importance of SSCI/SCI journal publications. Therefore, many international students choose to use this dissertation model to help them find good academic jobs after graduation.

As for the oral defense meetings that are open to the public, committee members will provide criticisms and feedback on the candidates’ dissertations and give directions on how to revise them to make the dissertations more solid. After the candidates pass the oral defense meetings, they need to amend their dissertations according to the suggestions provided by the committee members and submit their revised dissertations to the university. At this point, the doctoral degree program is considered completed.