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An Inter-Institutional Discussion about Reclaiming the Education Doctorate

Understanding the Distinction between the Ed.D. and the Ph.D.

View discussions with Lorrie Shepard and Lee Shulman:

Lorrie Shepard
Assessing Education Research Doctorate Programs

Lee Shulman
Lee Shulman on the Ed.D.

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) is a national effort aimed at strengthening the education doctorate, Ed.D.

Since 2007, it has engaged some two-dozen colleges and universities which have committed resources to work together to undertake a critical examination of the doctorate in education. The intent of the project is to redesign the Ed.D. and to make it a stronger and more relevant degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and clinical faculty, academic leaders and professional staff for the nation’s schools and colleges and the learning organizations that support them.

As a result of the first phase of the initiative, consortium members have concluded that Ed.D. graduates should be Scholarly Practitioners—individuals that:

  1. Possess the Habits of Mind—knowledge; Habits of Hand—skills; and Habits of Heart– moral imperative to intervene and solve problems of practice
  2. Employ inquiry to inform their decisions
  3. Are agents of change
  4. Possess an ethical obligation to engage in critical examination and to share

We, the members of CPED, believe:

“The professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.”

With this statement, the consortium has developed a set of Working Principles for the Professional Practice Doctorate in Education and a set of Characteristics of Professional Practice Doctorate Graduates. These results as well as other outcomes of the first three years of the project will focus a research and development agenda to test, refine, and validate principles for the professional doctorate in education during Phase II of the initiative.

University Council of Education Administration and several CPED institutions have developed comparison charts between the two doctoral degrees that outline the distinctions. For a history of the emergence of the Ed.D. v. Ph.D. in education and the debate about the purpose and roles of each, see the Emerging Literature section.