Undergraduate courses are not properly equipping students to pursue doctorates, meaning that many undertaking PhDs are ¡°less confident¡± than those in past cohorts, a conference has heard.

Alison Hodge, professor of engineering leadership at Aston University, made the warning as universities prepare for a new government loan scheme that could help more students to enter doctoral study.

Undergraduate programmes ¡°have been quite heavily structured¡±, she told delegates at a conference in London on 7 April. Course leaders have tried to encourage ¡°independence¡± among undergraduates, but students are nonetheless ¡°less confident, less standalone when they embark on PhDs¡±, than in the past, she said.

Later during the conference, she added: ¡°With the expansion in numbers there are more people going into PhDs than perhaps were formerly¡±. But not all of these have the independence, self-reliance and ¡°slightly rebellious¡± streak needed to get through a doctorate, Professor Hodge warned.

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More students believe ¨C having done well at undergraduate level ¨C that they can ¡°sail through¡± a PhD using the same ways of working, she argued. The conference heard that a sizeable minority of PhD students still start a doctorate without studying a master¡¯s first.

Asked whether she agreed with Professor Hodge, Clare Jones, a senior careers advisor for research staff and students at the University of Nottingham, said: ¡°I do think there is a bigger difference [now] between being on an undergraduate programme and then moving through to a PhD¡±.

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New PhD students ¡°need to get hold of the fact very quickly that they are working differently¡±, she said.

A total of 12.8 per cent of research degree students in England will end up leaving without a qualification within seven years, according to relating to those who started a doctorate in 2010-11. However, this is a very slight improvement on earlier cohorts.

In March's Budget, it was confirmed that from 2018-19 doctoral students will be able to take on a ?25,000 loan to help cover the cost of a PhD.

Steven Hill, Hefce¡¯s head of research policy, told the event, Next Steps for Postgraduate Research: Funding, Quality of Provision and the High-Skilled Workforce, organised by the Westminster Higher Education Forum, that this sum would not cover the full living and fees cost of a PhD. Many students would therefore still need to find other sources of funding.

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Dr Hill added that 56 per cent of postgraduate research students now enter with a master¡¯s qualification, a figure that had been increasing in recent years.

david.matthews@tesglobal.com