Becoming a scholar: a duoethnography of transformative learning spaces

Seeking “better ways”: early career faculty researcher development

“…As Evans (2011) cautioned, no one strategy will uniformly facilitate development among all researchers. For those mentoring and preparing doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars for the professoriate, our study supports a developmental approach to graduate and postdoctoral education (Gardner and Mendoza, 2010; McAlpine and Åkerlind, 2010; Niehaus et al , 2017; Perez, 2016; Perez et al , 2017; Snipes and LePeau, 2017). We concur with prior recommendations to re-imagine researcher socialization “as a process of identity development” (Niehaus et al , 2017, p. 56) and to partner with students in constructing educational experiences that facilitate holistic development (Baxter Magolda and King, 2004; Perez et al , 2017; Snipes and LePeau, 2017).…”

“…For those mentoring and preparing doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars for the professoriate, our study supports a developmental approach to graduate and postdoctoral education (Gardner and Mendoza, 2010; McAlpine and Åkerlind, 2010; Niehaus et al , 2017; Perez, 2016; Perez et al , 2017; Snipes and LePeau, 2017). We concur with prior recommendations to re-imagine researcher socialization “as a process of identity development” (Niehaus et al , 2017, p. 56) and to partner with students in constructing educational experiences that facilitate holistic development (Baxter Magolda and King, 2004; Perez et al , 2017; Snipes and LePeau, 2017). Our findings support prior suggestions for encouraging constructive written feedback and discouraging binge writing (Niehaus et al , 2017), providing team-based research and writing opportunities (Niehaus et al , 2017; Snipes and LePeau, 2017) and centering inequities that constrain students and scholars (Jones et al , 2014; Snipes and LePeau, 2017).…”

“…Our findings affirm and expand on prior studies related to researcher and early career faculty efficacy and development. Relational, disciplinary and situational elements can influence development when research is collaborative (Kahn et al , 2009; Snipes and LePeau, 2017), yet these dimensions were influential in our work publishing both solo-authored and collaborative pieces based on our dissertations (e.g. activating mentoring networks involved all three dimensions).…”

“…Additionally, our dual roles as both researchers and participants and our social identities contributed to the boundaries of this instrumental case study (Stake, 1995). Given the iterative, episodic and ongoing nature of researcher development (Evans, 2011) and relational influences on becoming a scholar (Snipes and LePeau, 2017), we recognized the pedagogical value of our shared context and positioned ourselves as participants in this study. Further, we both identify as cisgender white women who consider our social identities to be inextricable from systemic constraints surrounding qualitative inquiry and higher education (Jones et al , 2014), including intersections of racism and sexism and their influence on faculty careers (Croom, 2017; Eagan and Garvey, 2015), methodological conservatism (Lincoln and Cannella, 2003) and the dominant status of post-positivist, objectivist, and quantitative approaches to social science research (Jones et al , 2014).…”

“…Other studies and conceptual papers have explored the role of relationships and personal intentions in navigating the post-PhD transition (McAlpine et al , 2013), the association between mentored learning experiences (among other “researcher development interventions”) and external funding (Mazmanian et al , 2014), organizational strategies for facilitating researcher development (Browning et al , 2016; Cusick, 2015) and the role of research teams in facilitating transformative learning among doctoral students and faculty members (Snipes and LePeau, 2017). Collectively, these studies offer a foundation for future scholars to explore researcher development in contexts within and beyond higher education.…”