A Prebaccalaureate PhD Option: Shaping The Future of Research-Focused Doctoral Education

Abstract

The future of PhD education in nursing is at a crossroads. Our current practice of primarily enrolling post-master’s students with years of clinical experience is not producing an adequate number of graduates who are able to make significant and sustained contributions to nursing research. Therefore, it is timely to consider educational innovations that encourage a different population of students to consider doctoral research training. A prebaccalaureate or early-entry option to the PhD in nursing is a means toward this end. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a select group of prenursing students and students beginning the nursing major are offered an early admission to PhD education. A key component of the Early Entry PhD Option is immediate and intensive research training with an established nurse faculty researcher. In this article, the authors describe the curriculum of a prebaccalaureate, research-focused doctoral option and its early results.