Student reflections on doctoral learning: challenges and breakthroughs

Abstract

Purpose There has been sustained interest in how to support doctoral students through the often-gruelling journey they undertake from enrolment to graduation. Although doctoral numbers and successful completions have been steadily increasing globally as well as in Australia, the quality of student progression and outcomes has been widely interrogated and criticised in the literature that is reported in this paper. The authors’ interest as experienced research higher degree supervisors and research leaders in the creative arts and humanities prompted a research project that aimed to better understand the challenges and breakthroughs involved in completing a doctorate from the perspective of candidates themselves. Design/methodology/approach This was implemented through an action learning collaboration with 18 students from three Australian universities facilitated by four research supervisors. Findings The main findings presented in this paper include the necessity for maintaining, brokering and supporting a range of relationships; understanding expectations of research study and embracing the need for agility in managing these; and finally, using techniques to improve personal agency and ownership of the transformative journey of research higher degree candidature. The importance of establishing an understanding of the multidimensional human experience of doing a doctorate and providing appropriate support through enhanced forms of research training emerged as a core finding from this research project. Research limitations/implications The relatively small number of research participants in this study and the discipline-specific focus prohibits generalizability of findings; however, the collaborative, action learning method adopted represents an approach that is both productive and transferable to other contexts and disciplines. Practical implications Further research might investigate the relevance of the findings from this research to doctoral students in other disciplines and/or institutions or apply the collaborative action learning approach to doctoral training presented here to a range of contexts and cohorts. Social implications Improving doctoral training options to support the multidimensional needs of candidates can better assure the mental and emotional well-being of doctoral students (essential to their continuing intellectual development and sense of agency) through developing sustainable relationships and realistic expectations. This in turn has the potential to address the consistently high attrition rates in doctoral programmes. Originality/value This research contributes new insights from doctoral students on the challenges and breakthroughs experienced by them as they pursue original research through formal study and present a novel, collaborative and empowering approach to doctoral training that can be applied in diverse setting.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Doctoral Students’ Thesis/Dissertation Progress

“…Lastly, we complicate the idea of progress in a dissertation and how the pandemic may have helped our participants define what is meaningful to them. Owens et al (2020) found that the 18 doctoral students in their study had trouble managing the relationship with their supervisors, and described students being "at the mercy of a supervisor's career changes, periods of leave, illness, retirement, redundancy and/or death" (p. 113). The pandemic stressed this often precarious relationship.…”

“…These challenges may be of a personal nature, including stress (Barry et al, 2018), gender-related issues (Carter et al, 2013;Erichsen et al, 2014), feeling like an imposter (Fernandez et al, 2019), and managing the identity transformation process (Koole & Stack, 2016). There are also academic and institution-based challenges, such as funding (Fernandez et al, 2019), the academic environment (McAlpine, 2017), and managing relationships between the advisor and the advisee (Owens et al, 2020). Together, these challenges on a personal and institutional level contribute to doctoral students' attrition rates, with additional issues related to technology and to faculty and peer interaction for online doctoral students (Deshpande, 2016;Lee et al, 2020).…”

Conceptualizing Thriving: An Exploration of Students’ Perceptions of Positive Functioning Within Graduate Education

“…The experience of graduate students is fundamentally different to that of their undergraduate peers and, thus, requires unique attention and support from higher education leaders, stakeholders, and researchers (Canadian Association for Graduate Studies [Canadian Association for Graduate Studies [CAGS], 2012). Graduate students frequently operate within less structured environments, when compared to undergraduate students who may study within tightly defined course schedules, that require self-motivation and self-directed independent study far in excess of undergraduate programs (Peters, 1997;Owens et al, 2020). In addition, most graduate programs require students to work alongside a supervisor, whose supportiveness (or lack thereof) has been shown to be a predictor of graduate student satisfaction (Dericks et al, 2019;Blanchard & Haccoun, 2020).…”

“I didn’t want to be a troublemaker” – doctoral students’ experiences of change in supervisory arrangements

“…A limited number of studies focus on the choice to remain in an unhappy supervisory relationship (Barnes et al, 2010;Kulikowski et al, 2019;Al Makhamreh and Stockley, 2019;Owens et al, 2020). Those studies usually focus on "overcoming" and emphasize doctoral students' pride in succeeding despite negative experiences and supervisory problems (Bryan and Guccione, 2018).…”