Doctoral students in education, enrolled on PhD or EdD programmes of study, are often expected or required to perform substantial teaching duties including lecturing, organising and conducting tutorials, supervision and marking. Limited attention, however, has been given to their development as university teachers, especially when compared with the emphasis on their development as researchers. In this post, we argue that it is essential to understand what doctoral students believe about university teaching and how this relates to their academic field, so that they are supported in their academic development as university teachers. This is important since only approximately half of education doctoral students in the UK receive guidance and support on how to teach (Slight, 2017). At the same time, between 2009/10 and 2020/21 there has been a 16 per cent decline in the number of academic staff employed by higher education institutions to teach education, mainly due to the reduction of government funding for teacher training (HESA, 2021). Lack of support and guidance, coupled with reduced funding for education, has therefore led to reduced opportunities for employment with a higher education institution.
