<p>The non-completion of doctoral degrees has been a concern due to its economic, social, and personal consequences. In the current study, the researchers investigated perceived barriers of select doctoral students in completing their doctoral degrees by utilizing a fully mixed sequential mixed research design. The quantitative and qualitative data were concurrently collected using identical samples (<em>n </em>= 205) via a Reading Interest Survey questionnaire. A sequential mixed analysis revealed 6 emergent themes: <em>external obligations </em>(36%),<em> challenges to doctoral-level researchers </em>(34%),<em> practical/logistical constraints </em>(23%),<em> emotional concerns </em>(15%),<em> program structure </em>(9%), and <em>support for completion </em>(8%). Also, 3 meta-themes were identified (i.e., <em>dissociation</em>,<em> external/internal barriers</em>, and <em>institutional/personal barriers</em>), which aided in explaining the relationships among the 6 primary themes.<em> </em>Implications of the findings are discussed.</p>

The purpose of this collective case study was to use a critical dialectical pluralistic (CDP) philosophical lens to investigate select doctoral students' perceptions about the challenges that they encountered while in a doctorate program and the coping strategies that they found effective in mitigating these challenges. A major goal of CDP is to empower research participants maximally by giving them the role of participant-researchers. Participants were 10 doctoral students enrolled at a Tier-II university in the United States, who were selected via convenience sampling. Each student participated in a face-to-face interview with a member of the research team-consistent with a CDP approach. A qualitative-dominant crossover mixed analysis was used wherein both quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to analyze the qualitative data, with the qualitative analysis phase being dominant. The qualitative analyses (e.g., constant comparison analysis, classical content analysis) revealed the following five themes: compartmentalization of life, outside support systems, justification for participation in program, emotional status, and structure of program. These themes indicated that although challenges are plentiful, particularly in terms of balancing one's academic life with other obligations, participants found support and encouragement from family, friends, and other doctoral students to be the most beneficial coping strategy. These findings have important implications for the structuring of doctoral programs.Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee.

The application of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) in this article is used to provide a background into the instructional concept of CRT in higher educational settings and to provide examples for classroom pedagogical practice. This article provides instructional approaches that can be used in higher education classes to promote a cultural context to engage preservice teaching candidates who are seeking initial certification to become teachers-of-record and graduate-level teachers who are certified to understand and embrace the intersection of race, gender, religion, and regional cultures that contribute to identity. This article outlines instructional activities that can be used by faculty in higher education programs to assist their students with learning to co-construct culturally responsive lessons. This type of instruction should lead to a process in which faculty in higher educational settings can assist their preservice teacher candidates and graduate-level students in understanding the community in which they will serve or currently serve and to bring the funds of knowledge of their students into positive and productive learning environments.

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This mixed research study of the experiences of select women doctoral students was guided by feminist standpoint theory. Specifically, the standpoints of 8 women doctoral students were examined, with 2 men doctoral students included in the study for comparison purposes. This study involved the inclusion of participant-researchers in order to obtain emtic (i.e., both emic and etic) viewpoints. A fully mixed concurrent dominant status design was utilized. Findings revealed 4 themes which indicated that although the women doctoral students received support and encouragement to tackle the multitude of challenges that they faced, particularly in terms of balancing one's academic identity with other identities, they still felt a strong sense of remorse and guilt towards the sacrifices that they had to make in order to succeed within their doctoral programs-in contrast to the men doctoral students who, although they felt some guilt, faced their challenges more by focusing on achieving their goals and the implied results (i.e., career success) of that achievement. These findings have important implications-at least for these students-with regard to the structuring of doctoral programs.