Organic Collaborative Teams: The Role of Collaboration and Peer to Peer Support for Part-Time Doctoral Completion

Littlefield, Cathy M.; Taddei, Laura M.; Radosh, Meghan E.

doi:10.28945/2113

Cited by 22 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This was particularly helpful when deadlines were looming, providing valuable stress relief which enabled re-focussing; research supports the contention that socialisation relieves stress (Littlefield et al, 2015). As a result, developing relationships in the academic arena can help relieve stress and anxiety and at the same time provide academic support.…”

Section: Saiyidimentioning

confidence: 58%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Peer-mentors Reflect on the Benefits of Mentoring: An Autoethography

Booth

Merga

Roni³

2016

IJDS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many PhD candidates bring with them a wealth of knowledge and skills; however, these may not sufficiently prepare candidates to work with high autonomy on a project with often limited interaction with the wider research community. A peer-mentor program model, in which a mentor delivers dyadic and group support to higher degree by research students from different disciplines and backgrounds, has the potential to enhance candidates' knowledge and skills. However, the mentors themselves can experience significant advantages, as peer-mentoring can also have a positive effect on the mentors' research experience. In order to further understanding of the potential benefits of peer-mentoring for mentors, three researchers explore their experiences as peermentors through an autoethnographic framework. Through discussing their personal experiences as peer-mentors, the researchers identified a range of benefits for themselves. These benefits involved finding that peer-mentoring enhanced their own learning, fostered reflective practice, and provided current tertiary teaching and research support experience. Peer mentoring also gave them broad exposure to a breadth of disciplines, theories, and methods; provided project management insights; created opportunities for professional networking; supported their social needs; and gave them invaluable insight into other candidate/supervisor relationships. Their role in a peer-mentor model has shaped their experiences as PhD candidates and also informed their decisions after graduation.

show abstract

Section: Saiyidimentioning

confidence: 58%

“…As social relationships are a key factor in contributing to a successful completion (Littlefield, Taddei, & Radosh, 2015), discussing issues with peers was extremely helpful. Also my knowledge of each of the SOAR Staff skills enabled me to know who to talk to for a specific issue.…”

Section: Saiyidimentioning

confidence: 99%

Peer-mentors Reflect on the Benefits of Mentoring: An Autoethography

Booth

Merga

Roni³

2016

IJDS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Conversely, trainees with more confidence in their own career search abilities are more likely to seek out specific resources in an ad hoc manner. We know that the psychosocial support that a trainee receives can affect this confidence (Littlefield et al, 2015;Maher et al, 2018); but if the individual's efficacy was already high, the need for a community to offer such resources to enhance efficacy may not be necessary. Trainees with confidence in their own career search abilities are more likely to seek out specific resources in an ad hoc manner, perhaps suggesting they are confident and supported in learning about specific activities or information they lack and then demonstrate the agency to seek them out.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Among the various social capital resources that trainees may acquire (leads, connections, etc. ), access to psychosocial support for doctoral and postdoctoral trainees is important because the lack of this support (or perceived lack of support) can have a negative effect on trainee confidence or efficacy in their ability to perform and succeed, in turn leading to attrition or dropout (Abedi & Benkin, 1987;Littlefield, Taddei, & Radosh, 2015;Maher, Wofford, Roksa, & Feldon, 2018). Empirical evidence has shown that psychosocial support can come from a variety of sources including supervisors, nonsupervisor faculty, and peers (Baker, Pifer, & Griffin, 2014;Flores-Scott &, Nerad, 2012;Gardner, 2007;Gotlieb et al, 2019;Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000;Jazvac-Martek et al, 2011;Lovitts, 2001;Meschitti, 2019), each of whom may provide different types of resources and advice.…”

Section: Social Capital and Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Doctoral Trainee Preferences for Career Development Resources: The Influence of Peer and Other Supportive Social Capital

Clair

Melkers

Rojewski

et al. 2019

IJDS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand doctoral and postdoctoral trainee preferences for different models of career development resources and how career-relevant social capital affects these preferences. Background: The supply and demand mismatch within the academic job market is augmented by a growing complaint that trainees are not prepared for a range of careers beyond the academic. So, trainees are often put in a position to seek out resources to navigate their career search processes, yet, the career development strategies that they pursue and the preferences that they have for different types of career development resources is not well understood. Drawing from existing higher education and social capital theory literatures, we examine how trainee preferences for career development resources are shaped by the career support received from their Principal Investigator (PI) and peers, as well as their own self-efficacy. Methodology: We focus on doctoral and postdoctoral trainees in the biomedical science and engineering disciplines at two sites (but involving three institutions) funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) Program, a program designed to help prepare trainees for a broad variety of bio-medically related careers within and outside of academic research. Using a survey of both BEST and non-BEST trainees (those not formally in a BEST program), we conducted descriptive and logistic regression analyses of survey data to assess the factors affecting trainee preferences for three different types of career development models: (1) an intensive cohort career development experience (BEST “cohort”), (2) ad-hoc resources (“cafeteria”), or (3) choosing not to seek any career development resources at all. Contribution: This study contributes to the doctoral trainee research base by (1) taking a quantitative approach to cohort based interventions for career development, concepts historically largely examined by qualitative methods, (2) distinguishing among the types and sources of support to better tease out the different types of relationships trainees may have, (3) identifying these issues for both the experiences of the doctoral student and the lesser-studied postdoctoral fellow, and (4) moving beyond a single institution study context by examining data from three different university programs, which allows us to control for institutional and demographic characteristics which importantly is recognized as a significant need in cohort model research. Findings: We find that social capital in the form of a supportive environment and peer support was critical for shaping career development preferences. Cohort programs were particularly attractive to trainees interested in careers outside of academic science and who had low career self-efficacy. Trainees who reported high levels of PI support were less likely to pursue other career development resources, while students reporting low levels of PI support were more likely to choose to participate in a career development focused BEST cohort community. Trainees who reported low levels of PI, department, and peer support were less likely to participate in formal career development events or resources offered by academic institutions. Recommendations for Practitioners: These findings can inform university and career development administrators about the social context in which trainees develop and how that matters for how they prefer and value different formats and intensities of career support. Our recommendations point to the importance of developing (if possible) different models for providing career development resources, so trainees can take advantage of the ones most suitable for them. We further recommend programs consider different marketing strategies for the types of career development programs they offer in order for trainees to understand their options and engage in the resources that make the most sense for them. Highlighting the benefits of cohort based programs will help attract those trainees who desire and need that type of support. This clarity in program goals not only helps to set and manage expectations for trainees to know what the outcomes can be, it also helps to inform programs in terms of what resources to use and measure in helping move trainees along in their own career progression. Recommendation for Researchers: We recommend empirically differentiating the different types of support trainees may receive, as our results emphasized that the source of support matters. We also recommend that this study be replicated across different disciplines to assess the extent to which these findings apply universally. Impact on Society: This research is especially important for its impact for the job market and graduate higher education. With the growth in graduate career development training available across U.S. campuses, by designing and targeting the appropriate interventions for career development in academic institutions we can better prepare trainees for their next steps after training as they enter into the job market. Future Research: Future research needs to further examine the black-boxes that are the doctoral student and postdoctoral experiences. This literature is growing, but we need a more concerted effort to understand how factors like support (in its various forms) work with other factors, like career development efficacy. Within this context, future research should look at first generation trainees, as well.

show abstract

“…The doctoral students balance in the limited time resources under the pressures of their own and external expectations. Under the pressure of the competition and individuality, the peer-to-peer support has emerged as a significant factor according to the doctoral students' experiences (Littlefield, Taddei, & Radosh, 2015). In the future the different web-based solutions will increasingly make individual networking possible which for its part may challenge the significance of the traditional physical working conditions (McAlpine & Mitra, 2015).…”

Section: Doctoral Student In the Changing Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Typical and Individual Doctoral Processes and Lifecourses: The Types of Narratives of the Project Manager, the Survivor and the Seeker

Maunula

2015

WJE

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One task of the doctoral education is, globally as well as nationally, to produce and renew the highest expertise and knowledge in a high quality and efficient way. Even though in this global time the high-quality knowledge and skills are a competition factor which the success of the societies is expected to be able to lean on, also the doctoral students and their individual factors are significant. The accelerating global change is strongly reflected at the individual level: an attempt is made to respond to the changing expectations and to prepare individually and diversely. The individual doctoral students and the graduating doctors come from different everyday lives and contexts. The graduating doctors' expertise and skills are individually colored during the individual doctoral processes. Often the doctoral students' and the graduating doctors' individuality is ignored -even though individuality in other contexts is identified more clearly than before. In this article I examine the lifecourse experiences and stories of under-40-year-old female doctoral students with a family and form three different types of doctoral student on the basis of the material. The examination concentrates on the areas of the lifecourse; the family, doctoral studies and work as well as on the dynamic wholeness formed by them in the temporal continuum of the lifecourse. The objective is to make the generalized doctoral process more comprehensively intelligible.

show abstract

Organic Collaborative Teams: The Role of Collaboration and Peer to Peer Support for Part-Time Doctoral Completion

Cited by 22 publications

References 17 publications

Peer-mentors Reflect on the Benefits of Mentoring: An Autoethography

Peer-mentors Reflect on the Benefits of Mentoring: An Autoethography

Doctoral Trainee Preferences for Career Development Resources: The Influence of Peer and Other Supportive Social Capital

Typical and Individual Doctoral Processes and Lifecourses: The Types of Narratives of the Project Manager, the Survivor and the Seeker

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About