Doing a PhD at CLT

PhD studies at the Centre for Learning and Teaching are done in the research areas of STEM education/communication, AI in/for education, public engagement with science and Citizen Science. Interested candidates can get in touch with one of the potential supervisors, depending on their interests: Prof. Lucy Avraamidou and Dr. Mohammad Gharesifard.

More information can be found on the Graduate School Website. Other useful information can be found here:

PhD Academy and ECTS:

PhD Support and Advice:

PhD defence:

Rules and regulations

PhDs can only be carried out through face-to-face education (applies to both students and supervisors) with minimum presence at the office of 60% assuming a full-time contract. The typical and expected duration for a completion of a PhD is 4 years.

Non-scholarship students have to devote 10% of their time to teaching activities either at the Bachelor or Master level programs at the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Practically, this means serving as a Teaching Assistant for 2 courses per academic year.

PhD students benefit from close supervision and mandatory bi-weekly team research meetings as well as writing workshops carried out by the supervisors.

Financial support

We strive to support PhD students substantially and in an equitable manner through providing 2400 euro per PhD candidate, including their ITB, throughout their 4 years of study for professional development and conference attendance.

Thesis requirements

A typical thesis includes 3-4 scientific chapters, in addition to an introduction (10 pages long) and a conclusion (10 pages long). The 3-4 chapters should be publishable and follow the APA 7th style for writing. The APA 7th education guidelines are followed for the sequence of the authors’ names and hence the PhD student is always the first author, unless other agreements have been made.

Minimum requirements for publication by the time of submission of the thesis to the reading committee:

publication in a Q1 journal
submissions in a Q1 journal

In exceptional circumstances, one submission to a Q2 journal is possible.

Possible models

To ensure diversity that aligns with different kinds of research approaches, the following 3 models are possible:

Model 1: 2 publications & 1 submission

Introduction

Chapter 1: empirical paper with authentic data (published)

Chapter 2: empirical paper with authentic data (published)

Chapter 3: empirical paper with authentic data (submission)

Conclusions

Model 2: 1 publication and 3 submissions

Introduction

Chapter 1: theoretical/conceptual paper

Chapter 2: design paper/curriculum materials/intervention

Chapter 3: empirical paper with authentic data

Chapter 4: empirical paper with authentic data

Conclusion

Model 3: 3 publications

Introduction

Chapter 1: systematic literature review or conceptual paper (published)

Chapter 2: empirical paper with authentic data (published)

Chapter 3: empirical paper with authentic data (published)

Conclusion

The final word, if the PhD thesis is at an acceptable level, rests first of all with the promotors, but also with the 3-4 members of the reading committee that make the final judgement after the promotors have accepted the thesis. The Institute director has responsibility to ensure that institute-wide quality is maintained.