Exploring Graduate Students’ Attitudes towards Team Research and Their Scholarly Productivity: A Survey Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract

This study explores the attitudinal and motivational factors underlying graduate students’ attitudes towards team research. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior, we hypothesize that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control are three major determinants of graduate students’ intentions to conduct team research. An instrument was developed to measure the influences of these factors on students’ intentions and relevant scholarly productivity. A total of 281 graduate students from a large, comprehensive university in the southwest United States participated in the survey. Descriptive statistics reveal that around two-thirds of graduate students have no co-authored manuscripts submitted for publication since they started graduate school. Factor analyses validated the factor structure of the instrument, and the results of Structural Equation Modeling show that (a) graduate students’ attitudes towards team research have a positive correlation with their attitudes towards individual research; (b) attitude towards team research, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, along with students’ discipline/major areas and classification, account for 58% of the variance in the intention to conduct team research; and (c) subjective norm appears to be the most influential factor in the model, followed by attitude; while perceived behavioral control is not of much importance. These findings provide implications for academic departments and programs to promote graduate students’ team research. Specifically, creating a climate for collaborative research in academic programs/disciplines/universities may work jointly with enhancing students’ appraisals of such collaborations.

Exploring the Psychological Benefits of Using an Emerging Video Technology to Coach and Retain Doctoral Learners

“…The results from this study supported prior research on the importance of psychological factors such as social presence (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;Short et al, 1976), research self-efficacy (Coryell & Murray, 2014;Wei et al, 2015), isolation (Golde & Dore, 2001;Hawlery, 2003;Lovitts, 2001), and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Gardner, 2010) to improve doctoral student success. The findings of the current study indicated that social presence enabled research self-efficacy, reduced isolation, and contributed to intrinsic motivation.…”

“…Various psychological factors including social presence (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;Short et al, 1976), research self-efficacy (Coryell & Murray, 2014;Wei et al, 2015 ), isolation (Golde & Dore, 2001;Hawlery, 2003;Lovitts, 2001), and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Gardner & Gopaul, 2012), influence retention of doctoral students. The purpose of this article was to share the experience of one university that implemented an emerging global cloud-based video technology for dissertation chairs to coach and mentor online doctoral students during their dissertation.…”

“…Psychological factors such as lack of social presence, research self-efficacy, and intrinsic motivation, coupled with a sense of isolation, can hinder or, if remedied, support doctoral students. There is no lack of research indicating the importance of psychological factors such as social presence (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997;Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976), research self-efficacy (Coryell & Murray, 2014;Wei, Barnard-Brak, & Wang, 2015), isolation (Golde & Dore, 2001;Hawlery, 2003;Lovitts, 2001), and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000;Gardner, 2010). Thus, academic knowledge is not the only indicator of doctoral success; psychological factors can also propel doctoral students to complete a doctoral degree.…”

Investigating working adults' intentions to participate in microlearning using the decomposed theory of planned behaviour

“…Ajzen (1985) then proposed the TPB, introducing perceived behavioural control (PBC) into the TRA model. The TPB has its roots in the expectancy-value framework (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), which posits that one's motivation to perform a behaviour is a result of both the expectation of a specified outcome and the perceived value of those outcomes (Wei et al, 2015). Ajzen (1985) went a step beyond the expectancy-value account and incorporated the component of PBC into the TPB, which is most compatible with perceived self-efficacy (SE) in the social cognitive theory.…”