Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
This topic is being broadly studied in the literature not only as an educational issue
but also at different professional activities (e.g. [2][4][7]). However, under the
Portuguese advanced education scenario, the relatively new role of tutor/mentor is not
well understood. So, the findings of this work can be a contribution to knowledge
acquisition in the field by shedding light on important mentorship relationships issues
in advanced engineering education in Portugal.
2
Status of Postgraduate Education in Portugal
The academic landscape is, nowadays, far different than it was three decades ago
when formal mentoring programs were introduced into higher education [2]. It is a
competitive environment, where collaboration is required and new ways of
communication and working methodologies should be adopted in order to improve
knowledge exchange. In addition, and based on the available Portuguese statistics,
there was an increase of PhDs over the period between 2000 and 2012. Figure 2
presents the growth of the number of completed PhD thesis for that period, by gender.
The total number of PhD concluded is also shown (secondary vertical axis in
Figure 2). The data was obtained from the Portuguese General Directorate of
Statistics of Education and Science (DGEEC) [8]. In fact, over the last decade
Portugal registered a gradual increase in postgraduate education and, considering the
gender of the individuals, the proportion of males was always higher than the
proportion of women in higher education level.
16 000
24 000
Male
Female
Total
14 000
20 000
12 000
16 000
10 000
8 000
12 000
6 000
8 000
4 000
4 000
2 000
0
0
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Ye ar
Fig. 2. Number of completed PhD thesis between 2000 and 2012, by gender. Adapted from [8].
Besides the gender, another analysed factor was the scientific field of PhDs. In
Figure 3, the number of doctorates held in Portugal is presented accordingly to the
scientific field for the period between 2000 and 2012. The data shows that the three
scientific fields with highest attendance in postgraduate level are: Social Sciences
(SS); Exact and Natural Sciences (ENS); and the Engineering Science and
Technology (EST). Social Sciences up until 2005, was the third scientific field behind
ENS and EST. As matter in fact, the SS have registered a huge increase of PhD
students, overtaken EST in 2008 up to 2012; and ENS from 2010.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search