A systematic review of doctoral graduate attributes: Domains and definitions

Doctoral graduate attributes are the qualities, skills, and competencies that graduates possess, having completed their doctorate degree. Graduate attributes, in general, lack conceptual clarity, making investigation into quality assurance processes attached to doctoral outcomes challenging. As many “unseen” or implicit, full range of actually possess needs be synthesized, so they may recognized utilized by educational stakeholders. The aim this study was establish describe what from degrees possess. A systematic review peer-reviewed, primary literature published between January 2016 June 2021 conducted, identifying 1668 articles. PRISMA reporting followed, after screening text critical appraisal, 35 articles remained for summation through thematic synthesis. attribute domains identified included knowledge, research communication organizational interpersonal reputation, scholarship, higher order thinking personal resourcefulness, active citizenship. Many were conceptualized as transferable interdisciplinary, highlighting relevance findings align with existing frameworks yet extend those tend focus on generic “seen” include a “unseen”, intrinsic qualities contributes development synthesizing actual outcomes, opposed prospective attributes-in-process. should integrate both alongside important employability. Increased awareness scope among stakeholders, such supervisors, students, employers, facilitate improved Future contextual how developed beneficial. could involve context-relevant scales empirically measure alumni populations, outcome indicator. Such inform program reform, improving education employability graduates.