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Exploring Early Exits: Doctoral Attrition in the Biomedical Sciences
Abstract
High attrition rates have been a defining characteristic of doctoral education for decades, representing a loss of time, talent, and effort for departing students and their faculty. This qualitative study uses a biomedical science doctoral student sample to collect “real time” data on attrition within the first 2 years of doctoral training. Eighteen students, who represented 16 distinct universities, were interviewed as they engaged in the withdrawal process. Using the conceptual frames of socialization and social cognitive career theory, we explored experiences that preceded these students’ doctoral program withdrawals. Furthermore, we examined how expressed roles of students’ self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and professional goals contributed to the withdrawal process. Findings indicate that faculty advising (both positive and negative), laboratory rotation experiences, self-efficacy components, and changing professional goals all play a role in the early doctoral program attrition process.
... stress, belonging, personal challenges, academic identity, perceptions of struggle or progress), particularly as these pertain to students' attrition or completion (Devos et al., 2017;Kearns et al., 2007;Stevens et al., 2023;Wilkens-Yel et al., 2022). Notably, much of the research illuminates how educational experiences and interactions with others, especially faculty advisors (Lovitts, 2001;Maher et al., 2020;Posselt, 2018;Ruud et al., 2018) may shape psychosocial attributes and, as a result, mediate students' persistence or attrition. ...
... Given the importance of disciplinary differences, particularly at the graduate level (Gardner, 2010;Golde, 2005), this study builds upon recent scholarship, such as Ruud et al.'s (2018) study which took a disciplinary approach to explore graduate student departure by comparing the tipping points of STEM and non-STEM doctoral students considering departure. Recent work has also explored the experiences that preceded biology students' withdrawals from their programs (Maher et al., 2020), while Zerbe et al.'s (2023) study of surviving, thriving, or departing noted that there are "still outstanding questions related to the mechanisms and processes by which engineering graduate students decide to persist in or depart from their programs" (p. 147). ...
... Recently, their framework has been applied to study the role of departmental supports on doctoral completion and time-to-degree (Zhou & Okahana, 2019). Other prior research has emphasized what Girves and Wemmerus (1988) theorized and empirically demonstrated-that the student/advisor relationship is critical to doctoral student outcomes (e.g., Barnes & Austin, 2009;Lovitts, 2001;Maher et al., 2020;Sverdlik et al., 2018), that financial support is influential in educational outcomes such as time to degree and attrition (e.g., Ampaw & Jaeger, 2012;CGS, 2010;Kim & Otts, 2010;Mendoza et al., 2014), and that differences in departmental characteristics shape student progress and completion (De Valero, 2001;Zhou & Okahana, 2019). ...
Given a myriad of recent contemporary challenges graduate students are facing as well as long-standing issues with student attrition, there is a pressing need to reexamine models of doctoral student progress. While existing research commonly examines departure or failure to meet milestones as the outcome of interest, by the time students leave their programs, it is too late for faculty or departments to offer meaningful interventions. Drawing from Girves and Wemmerus’s conceptual framework for doctoral student degree progress, we leverage more recent literature to propose and test an adapted conceptual framework among a recent nationwide sample of computing doctoral students in the United States. Findings illuminate the importance of psychosocial factors (e.g., sense of belonging, researcher self-efficacy), positive perceptions of departmental community, and the role of faculty advisors in reducing doctoral students’ consideration of departure. Implications for departmental efforts and faculty advising practices that can honor students’ agency and identity in the computing Ph.D. process and that may affect change in doctoral education are discussed.
... Some STEM graduate programs, particularly those specializing in the life sciences, chemical sciences, and biomedical sciences, offer lab rotations. In laboratory sciences, researchers have documented how the first year of doctoral programs is characterized by lab rotations-a process in which students navigate short-term placements in several research labs while finding an appropriate match for their training (Hirshfield, 2015;Maher et al., 2019Maher et al., , 2020. Lab rotations are designed to expose graduate students to a variety of research areas, methodologies, and research environments, allowing them to investigate diverse research interests and potential advisors prior to committing to a research lab and advisor (Lee, 2008;Maher et al., 2019). ...
... These lab rotation programs offer several advantages to both students and academic institutions. The following are the primary benefits of lab rotations: exploration of research interests (Wofford and Blaney, 2021), skill development (Cai et al., 2018), networking and collaboration (Maher et al., 2020), fostering independence (Holley, 2006), selecting the right graduate advisor (Blaney et al., 2022), early publication opportunities, and a shorter time to graduate completion. ...
... In addition to developing relationships with their multiple potential advisors and research groups, lab rotations enable PhD students to expand their network within the academic community and foster future networking and collaboration (Maher et al., 2020). Many graduate students join graduate programs with a broad research interest, and lab rotations enable them to explore different research areas in order to narrow down to a particular research emphasis that matches their interests and skills (Maher et al., 2019;Du et al., 2021). ...
Despite being fundamental to graduate education in the sciences, lab rotations are largely unexplored in the academic literature. The purpose of this study is to understand how the laboratory rotation process impacts Black and Latinx STEM graduate students’ advisor selection process. Steeped in Critical Race Theory, this study employed a case study approach to explore the experiences of four Black and Latinx STEM graduate students enrolled at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). The article highlights that students who participated in lab rotations were able to gain more insights into their advisor’s advising style and lab environment before making their decision. Participants felt more comfortable in labs where the advisors provided a hands-on advising style over a hands-off advising style. Ultimately, results indicated that Black and Latinx STEM graduate students benefited from participating in lab rotations prior to selecting their research advisors. This study’s findings may help STEM departments, especially those within PWIs, understand the importance of consistently offering lab rotations for Black and Latinx STEM graduates prior to selecting their graduate advisor.
... A multitude of barriers both internal and external to the student have been associated with doctoral program completion and may be interrelated. Some of the more salient internal barriers to doctoral program completion are lack of motivation [10,25,32,33], not fully understanding expectations, and self-regulation [34]. ...
... Student concerns about faculty advisors are a major reason for students considering leaving their doctoral program [36]. A poor student-faculty advisor relationship is strongly associated with attrition among doctoral students [25,34,[36][37][38]. Specifically, a lack of faculty support, such as low availability, interest, or feedback, or a negative student-faculty advisor relationship have been associated with doctoral student attrition [25]. ...
... Potential barriers to students completing doctoral programs may include low motivation [10,25,32,33], being unclear about expectations of the program [10,38,[40][41][42], feeling isolated [40], an unsupportive relationship with their faculty advisor [25,34,[36][37][38], an unsupportive departmental culture [10,38,39], a lack of support from family and friends [35], and unstable or lack of funding [43][44][45]. Potential ...
About half of all doctoral students who start a doctoral program do not finish it. A variety of factors internal and external to the student have been studied to determine what factors are associated with a student finishing and not finishing a doctoral program. Several factors have been identified and include both barriers and their counterpart facilitators. Barriers include a lack of motivation, not fully understanding expectations, low self-regulation, poor student-advisor fit, and a lack of social integration. Facilitators include being motivated, understanding expectations well, good student-advisor fit, and sufficient social integration. Strategies for improving doctoral program completion have been proposed that intervene on these factors and have focused on the admissions process, student preparedness, isocial integration, and faculty advisor support, but the effectiveness of such strategies has been less studied. This chapter provides an overview of what is known about facilitators of and barriers to doctoral program completion and proposed and successful strategies for improving doctoral program completion. This overview can serve as a guide for the development of evidence-based strategies for improving doctoral program completion at institutions of higher education.
... Previous research concluded that withdrawal may be related to PhD candidates' financial stress, family or employment commitments (Larcombe et al., 2021), or mental health difficulties such as distress, depression or anxiety (Berry et al., 2022;Larcombe et al., 2021). Concerning supervisors' characteristics/conditions and supervising interactions, withdrawal may be related to problematic supervising relationships (e.g., conflicts), a mismatch between the PhD research topic and supervisors' research (Maher et al., 2020), lack of initiative and interest, poor feedback from supervisors (Leijen et al., 2016) or insufficient contact and communication (Berry et al., 2022). On the contrary, completion may be fostered by PhD candidates' motivation, organization or emotional and financial support from family (Lindsay, 2015), supervisors' expertise (McAlpine et al., 2020), interest or commitment, regular supervising meetings (Leijen et al., 2016), constructive and timely feedback (Lindsay, 2015), or a good supervising relationship (van Rooij et al., 2021). ...
... For instance, Jaksztat et al. (2021) conceptualized the decision to withdraw as a rational choice depending on assessment of the costs and benefits of dropout/persistence, which was influenced by individual characteristics/conditions (e.g., parenting; previous academic grades) and academic socialization experiences. Other authors emphasized the role of PhD candidates' agency and self-direction factors such as outcomes expectation and self-efficacy (belief in self-ability to perform an action or achieve a goal) (Maher et al., 2020). Van Rooij et al. (2021) drew on the mini theory of satisfaction of basic psychological needs from the self-determination theory to explain that withdrawal intentions may be influenced by unmet needs for competence (feeling successful), relatedness (connection, caring and feeling cared for by other people) and autonomy (volition and freedom) which were related to the supervision relationship and socialization experiences in academia. ...
... Although other authors have previously pointed out the longitudinal character of the withdrawal process (Bean & Eaton, 2001;Maher et al., 2020), and the need to engage in re-recruitment strategies (Harvey et al., 2017), most studies have focused on the factors and processes at the individual, supervisor-supervisee relationship, departmental, societal and/or supra-societal level leading to withdrawal or persistance (McAlpine et al., 2020;Sverdlik et al., 2018), tending to place withdrawal in an end-of-the-cycle position. On the contrary, this study conceptualized withdrawal as a behavioural dimension of longitudinal processes of disengagement which start before withdrawal, extend after withdrawal, and may ultimately lead to dropout or to re-engagement and re-enrolment. ...
Withdrawal from doctoral education has been recognized as a problem with negative consequences for different actors, leading researchers worldwide to explore its underlying factors and processes. However, even if many PhD candidates who withdrew intend to re-enrol, there is a gap in the literature regarding the factors and processes related to re-enrolment. The aim of this qualitative study is to understand pre- and post-withdrawal experiences of PhD candidates and the factors and processes related to withdrawal, dropout and re-enrolment, through the voices of PhD candidates who withdrew and faculty in social and health sciences in a Portuguese university. Our findings conceptualize withdrawal as a behavioural manifestation of disengagement processes comprising interacting emotional/affective, cognitive, and behavioural dimensions, which start before withdrawal, extend beyond it, and may culminate in dropout or re-engagement and re-enrolment. Factors and processes related to withdrawal, dropout, or re-enrolment were situated in various nested contexts. This study highlights the need for an academic cultural change, to envisage withdrawal as a process that does not necessarily mark the end of PhD candidates’ incursion into doctoral education. It draws attention to the need to provide adequate working conditions for PhD candidates, and also to promote follow-up and communication with PhD candidates who withdrew.
... In relation to lab rotations and selection, Maher et al. (2020b) posited that "when competition between laboratories to recruit students is high, so too is the likely need for the laboratory to offer a 'friendly façade' to their rotating student guests. Once the recruitment deal is sealed, a focus on productivity over student learning needs or project preferences may emerge" (p. ...
... Our findings confirm this view of rotations as an extended recruitment process. Increased research demands may lead faculty to abuse student labor, which only becomes visible when PIs are no longer trying to recruit students (see Maher et al., 2020b;Stephan, 2012). ...
... Indeed, rotations appear to be a disciplinary-specific mechanism of academic capitalism, characterized by competition among students and pressure to be seen as productive, as faculty PIs aim to select and recruit student workers. Focusing on women's experiences elicited vastly different narratives of student agency than prior work on lab rotations (Maher et al., 2020b), which substantiates recent adaptations to socialization (see Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020) that center students' identities and agency. ...
... These findings resonate with the "bait and switch" concept noted by Slay and colleagues (2019), who discussed how faculty mislead prospective graduate students from marginalized groups to believe a program is more diverse and equitable than it is in reality. In relation to lab rotations and selection, Maher et al. (2020b) posited that "when competition between laboratories to recruit students is high, so too is the likely need for the laboratory to offer a 'friendly façade' to their rotating student guests. Once the recruitment deal is sealed, a focus on productivity over student learning needs or project preferences may emerge" (p. ...
... Our findings confirm this view of rotations as an extended recruitment process. Increased research demands may lead faculty to abuse student labor, which only becomes visible when PIs are no longer trying to recruit students (see Maher et al., 2020b;Stephan, 2012). ...
... Indeed, rotations appear to be a disciplinaryspecific mechanism of academic capitalism, characterized by competition among students and pressure to be seen as productive, as faculty PIs aim to select and recruit student workers. Focusing on women's experiences elicited vastly different narratives of student agency than prior work on lab rotations (Maher et al., 2020b), which substantiates recent adaptations to socialization (see Weidman & DeAngelo, 2020) that center students' identities and agency. ...
Building on recent literature addressing graduate socialization and the role of scientific research groups, we explore the gendered nature of laboratory rotations for 54 women pursuing STEM doctorates. Relying on longitudinal interview data and using a feminist phenomenological approach, findings highlight how women’s expectations (mis)aligned with their rotation experiences, the elusive nature of finding a lab with a supportive faculty mentor, and the critical role of departmental support. This study documents how women pursuing STEM doctorates were forced to choose between a prestigious lab that aligned with their research interests or a lab environment that would not be overtly sexist. Practical implications for STEM faculty and administrators are discussed, including suggestions for holding faculty advisors accountable for discriminatory practices.
... Oft-cited reasons for attrition include financial and nonfinancial costs, socialization experiences, and student-advisor relationships (Ampaw & Jaeger, 2012;Ehrenberg, Jakubson, Groen, So, & Price, 2007;Lovitts, 1996;Pauley, Cunningham, & Toth, 1999;Xu, 2015). Several studies highlight tension between the expectations of faculty related to productivity and commitment to the discipline (Barnes, 2010;Lovitts, 2001;Maher, Wofford, Roksa, & Feldon, 2017). Specific tension points include but are not limited to the need for mentorship, integration into the department, career preparation, and collegiality (Lovitts, 1996;Lovitts & Nelson, 2000;Maher et al., 2017;Ruud, Saclarides, George-Jackson, & Lubienski, 2018). ...
... Several studies highlight tension between the expectations of faculty related to productivity and commitment to the discipline (Barnes, 2010;Lovitts, 2001;Maher, Wofford, Roksa, & Feldon, 2017). Specific tension points include but are not limited to the need for mentorship, integration into the department, career preparation, and collegiality (Lovitts, 1996;Lovitts & Nelson, 2000;Maher et al., 2017;Ruud, Saclarides, George-Jackson, & Lubienski, 2018). ...
... The tensions caused by a misalignment of expectations can make student-advisor relationships more difficult, another strong motivating factor for students to leave their programs (Ampaw & Jaeger, 2012;Barnes & Randall, 2012;Golde, 2005;Kniola, Chang, & Olsen, 2012;Lovitts, 1996Lovitts, , 2001Lovitts & Nelson, 2000;Maher et al., 2017;Ruud et al., 2018). Literature suggests a concerning frequency with which students feel that their advisors were unsupportive, demeaning, and disrespectful (Golde, 2005;Lovitts, 1996;Maher et al., 2017;Ruud et al., 2018). ...
Background
Graduate engineering student attrition is prevalent, but most literature that studies graduate attrition is accomplished in disciplines outside of STEM or engineering, yielding an incomplete understanding of either attrition or persistence.
Purpose/Hypothesis
The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationships between motivators of attrition for engineering graduate students.
Design/Method
Data were collected using an online Web‐scraping “bot” that mines data from the online forum Reddit. The anonymous textual forum threads collected were qualitatively analyzed through open‐coding methods.
Results
The emergent themes reveal the interconnectedness between the roles of the advisor, student perception of cost, their support network, goals, their perceptions of how others perceive them, and quality of life and work. Our model is flexible in that it illuminates underlying combinations of factors that can influence student attrition.
Conclusion
This study provides a framework by which various stakeholders can approach the support and education of graduate students, including mentoring students both toward or away from graduate school per the student's goals.
... Studying the factors that influence the quality of Ph.D. students' experiences and motivate them to stay or leave their programs is an important goal for researchers across graduate education [17][18][19][20][21]. Better understanding why doctoral students leave is particularly critical for creating a more diverse and equitable graduate landscape, as attrition from Ph.D. programs disproportionately affects traditionally underrepresented students [22][23][24]. ...
... Concerns with similar prevalence regardless of time to join N (%) N (%) Considering switching or switched groups (19): ...
Studying the factors that influence the quality of physics Ph.D. students’ doctoral experiences, especially those that motivate them to stay or leave their programs, is critical for providing them with more holistic and equitable support. Prior literature on doctoral attrition has found that students with clear research interests who establish an advisor-advisee relationship early in their graduate careers are most likely to persist. However, these trends have not been investigated in the context of physics, and the underlying reasons for why these characteristics are associated with leaving remain unstudied. Using semistructured interviews with 40 first and second year physics Ph.D. students, we construct a model describing the characteristic pathways that physics Ph.D. students take while evaluating the interest congruence of prospective research groups. We show how access to undergraduate research and other formative experiences helped some students narrow their interests and look for research groups before arriving at graduate school. In turn, these students reported fewer difficulties finding a group than students whose search for an advisor took place during the first year of their Ph.D. Finally, we identify two characteristic types of students at a higher risk of leaving their programs: students who enter graduate school with broad interests and struggle to find a group and students who join a research group early based on research interest alone and subsequently encounter issues with a negative mentoring relationship. This work serves as a major step toward creating a comprehensive model of how Ph.D. students find a research group and opens the door for future work to investigate how factors such as group culture and working environment impact the search process.
Published by the American Physical Society 2024
... Much of the graduate student goal literature centers on attrition. Students who enter engineering graduate programs with unclear goals consider attrition more often [39] and changes in goals throughout graduate school can lead to attrition [15], [40], [41]. These changes in career goals can come from a variety of experiences throughout the graduate degree, including experiencing critical and negative events in the degree program [42]. ...
... Only students who were in their first year of a doctoral engineering program were considered for this study, as that was the scope of the research question. We controlled for disciplinary context and selected only those students who were enrolled in mechanical, electrical, or civil engineering programs as literature indicates there are disciplinary differences in socialization and employability even within engineering [41], [56], [57]. These three disciplines were selected because they are the three original branches of engineering and students within these disciplines can find employment without a graduate degree. ...
... While this prior study only focused on doctoral engineering students, the practice of research groups has also been studied in disciplines within the sciences. Maher et al., (2020aMaher et al., ( , 2020b show that students in biosciences doctoral programs evaluate a series of criteria during their rotation periods, such as mentoring style, professional stability, research projects, and peers in the research group. However, in a separate analysis, the authors also demonstrate that behaviors exhibited in the rotation period may not be a perfect representation of daily doctoral life (Maher et al., 2020a), a common phenomenon in doctoral recruitment (Slay et al., 2019). ...
... Maher et al., (2020aMaher et al., ( , 2020b show that students in biosciences doctoral programs evaluate a series of criteria during their rotation periods, such as mentoring style, professional stability, research projects, and peers in the research group. However, in a separate analysis, the authors also demonstrate that behaviors exhibited in the rotation period may not be a perfect representation of daily doctoral life (Maher et al., 2020a), a common phenomenon in doctoral recruitment (Slay et al., 2019). Outside of the U.S. context, not much research has described how students and advisors pair. ...
Although advising relationships are key for doctoral student success, little research has addressed how they form. Understanding the formation of advising relationships can help contextualize their later development and ultimately support a student’s decision to persist in the doctorate. To understand relationship formation, the purpose of this qualitative study is to identify and describe the types of advisor–advisee selection processes that exist in engineering, science, and math doctoral programs and examine patterns across disciplines within those fields. We conducted interviews with doctoral program directors and engaged in document analysis of graduate student handbooks from 55 doctoral programs in the aforementioned fields in high research institutions across the United States. Using principal–agent theory as a theoretical lens, our findings showed that engineering programs tend to decentralize the advisor selection process by funding students across different funding sources upon enrollment. Contrariwise, science and math programs tended to fund all students in a cohort from a common funding source, which allowed students to have more time to gather information, meet, and select an advisor. These findings also show important nuances when comparing graduate education in these programs that directly impact the doctoral student experience and reiterates the necessity to study these fields separately.
... well-educated professionals) [11,19,24,39]. Consequently, doctoral students may feel inadequately prepared for researchfocused careers, contributing to an attrition of research talent [17,29,30,36]. Doctoral programs traditionally viewed poor mental health and attrition as a form of social Darwinism-that only the students committed and "capable" of meeting the demands of the program will succeed [23,29,35]. ...
... Broadly, SRC refers to a student's ability to actively engage with learning through reflection on their meta-cognitive learning processes; it includes the processes of self-goal/expectation setting, self-monitoring, help-seeking, and self-evaluation [40,47]. Without SRC, students may set unrealistic goals, be unable to evaluate their progress, and fear judgment when asking for help, ultimately reducing their selfefficacy and professional growth [30,38,45,47]. ...
Doctoral programs often have high rates of depression, anxiety, isolation, and imposter phenomenon. Consequently, graduating students may feel inadequately prepared for research-focused careers, contributing to an attrition of talent. Prior work identifies an important contributing factor to maladjustment: that, even with prior exposure to research, entering Ph.D. students often have problematically idealized views of science. These preconceptions can become obstacles for students in their own professional growth. Unfortunately, existing curricular and extracurricular programming in many doctoral programs do not include mechanisms to systematically address students' misconceptions of their profession. In this work, we describe a new initiative at our institution that aims to address Ph.D. mental health via a mandatory seminar for entering doctoral students. The seminar is designed to build professional resilience in students by (1) increasing self-regulatory competence, and (2) teaching students to proactively examine academic cultural values, and to participate in shaping them. Our evaluation indicates that students improved in both areas after completing the seminar.
... 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. ...
... 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. ...
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.
... Conversely, the process of socialization can be detrimental when students feel forced to assimilate into a dominant culture that does not accept the students' own identity (McGee, 2020). The process of socialization is important to consider because it has been identified as a driver of student attrition (Lovitts, 2002;Maher et al., 2020;Seymour et al., 2019). This previous work underlines the important role that departments play in structuring students' process through their degree programs and defining the norms, expectations, and values of students' chosen field. ...
This essay deconstructs definitions of success in STEM higher education across four stakeholder levels using the Four Frames model for systemic change. We identify three key bottlenecks that preclude systemic change and discuss opportunities for change agents to leverage these to increase equity in STEM higher education.
... Namely, they argue that when STEM departments and the learning spaces they house amplify students' identity-based ways of knowing rather than silencing them, these spaces can be transformed into identity-affirming spaces that are able to contend with the systems of power that exacerbate oppression at both disciplinary and societal levels. Though their initial postulation of funds of science identity centered undergraduate students and the self-authored epistemologies they form at the nexus of their social and science identities, we feel funds of science identity has unique utility as a framework for exploring the experiences of graduate students, who engage nuanced modalities of socialization, professionalization, and ultimately exclusion during their doctoral experiences in STEM fields [44,45]. ...
Despite knowing physics and astronomy doctoral programs are laden with identity-based inequities, they continue to push minoritized students to the margins. This qualitative social network analysis of 100 women and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and more ( LGBT + ) physics and astronomy Ph.D.’s explores how minoritized physics and astronomy students utilize social networks to navigate departmental exclusion. Our findings indicate that many of the participants’ identities were often unacknowledged or negatively addressed within their graduate education, with only four participants reporting a positive or favorable experience during this period of their career. Direct support from peers, faculty, and identity-based affinity groups was necessary for participants to navigate their educations. This study demonstrated that generic best practices often cannot fully support the diverse range of persons who come to physics and that identity-neutral values in physics further isolate students by insinuating that their own minoritized experiences are not valid.
Published by the American Physical Society 2024
... Fewer studies have gathered doctoral dropouts' narratives from a qualitative perspective. This scholarship has stressed aspects connected to withdrawal, such as disengagement processes (Alves et al., 2023), a sense of stagnation in a non-significant project (Devos et al., 2017), inadequate skills or lack of interest, along with supervisory, financial, and institutional factors (Leijen et al., 2016); and, again, issues related to supervision and personal factors such as low self-efficacy or changing life goals (Maher et al., 2020). Finally, in the only study we could locate that explored reasons for withdrawal among former online candidates (Hunt, 2020), the factors cited were unsupportive supervisors, insufficient time, and a perception that completing the program was not worth the time or effort. ...
Online doctoral dropout is a persistent yet largely overlooked issue by institutions and researchers. This qualitative study investigated the candidates’ circumstances leading to withdrawal, its emotional repercussions, and subsequent academic trajectories. We conducted in-depth interviews with ten former part-time online PhD students and employed thematic analysis to identify dominant narratives of withdrawal. Findings showed three narratives: reluctance, grief, and relief. Reluctant dropouts perceived themselves as “being dropped out" and were more inclined to complete their doctorates in the future due to sustained motivation. Grieving dropouts experienced frustration and guilt, still processing a painful experience. Relieved dropouts viewed leaving the PhD as the right decision considering their circumstances and were ready to move forward in their lives. We argue that online doctoral dropout is polysemic and should not be automatically equated to the final chapter of the doctoral trajectory. Recommendations for institutions include implementing exit interviews, follow-up procedures, and re-engagement paths.
... Faculty advisors are critical agents of socialization, and their relationships with doctoral students play a primary role in student development across the program timeline [10,11]. The nature of student-faculty relationships influences persistence decisions [41], skill building and career paths [42], and development as independent researchers [8]. ...
One of the most important developmental relationships in the doctoral student experience is that of the faculty advisor, and yet we know little about whether and how advisor relationships vary between first-generation and continuing-generation doctoral students. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 83 late-stage doctoral students in biological sciences, we explore differences in student perceptions of their relationships with advisors. Narratives reveal a continuum of relationship types, including strained, evolving, supportive, and equal. In equal relationships, doctoral students feel more like collegial partners working alongside their advisors. While continuing-generation and first-generation students are similarly represented among strained and evolving relationships, first-generation students rarely attain equal relationship status. The presented findings offer implications for understanding how inequality shapes student–advisor relationships, the role of collegiality in doctoral education’s hidden curriculum, and the supports needed to foster equity for first-generation students in graduate programs.
... Los datos de la culminación de una tesis no son alentadores. En Estados Unidos, cerca de la mitad de los futuros doctorandos no superan la fase de tesis [1,2]. Se menciona que el 40-50 % de los estudiantes de programas de doctorado tradicionales no terminan, mientras que, en los programas de doctorado a distancia, las tasas de abandono son 10-20 % más altas que las de los estudiantes de programas tradicionales [3]. ...
Introducción:
Elaborar una tesis es un proceso complejo y algunos estudiantes no la culminan, la abandonan o entran en un estado de postergación permanente.
Objetivo:
Identificar los factores que se relacionan con la presencia del estado Todo-Menos-Tesis (TMT) en los graduados de un programa de odontología.
Método:
Estudio exploratorio con enfoque cualitativo donde participaron 21 graduados. Se utilizó la técnica de la encuesta y una entrevista semiestructurada. El cuestionario recopiló información relacionada a la condición laboral, características personales, tiempo de graduación y características familiares. La guía de entrevista recopiló las categorías de motivos (personales, académicos, económicos y laborales), consecuencias (repercusiones de la postergación de la tesis) y recomendaciones para evitar el estado TMT.
Resultados:
El 57,1 % (n = 12) fueron varones. Los principales motivos para postergar la tesis estuvieron relacionados con la adquisición de recursos económicos, pérdida de interés, prioridades familiares, alejamiento académico y sensaciones de habilidades inadecuadas. Los participantes recomiendan ofrecer otras modalidades de titulación, realizar capacitaciones académicas, mejorar las experiencias investigativas y brindar orientación al graduado.
Conclusiones:
Los graduados de la carrera de estomatología de la Universidad Científica del Sur presentan múltiples factores personales, cognitivos e institucionales que influyen en la decisión de continuar o retomar la elaboración de su tesis de licenciatura. La dedicación laboral y las responsabilidades familiares son los principales factores que limitan el tiempo de dedicación a la tesis.
... Mentors thus play an important role in supporting students' abilities to navigate these unwelcome environments, first building trust and compatibility through sharing their own experiences [44,45]. These advisors must provide positive doctoral coursework advising as well, although this alone will not retain students in their program [46]. Once the relationship is built, mentors then socialize students to academia, such as by helping them publish academic work, involving students in networking opportunities, and answering questions about non-academic career paths. ...
Structural inequities in graduate education perpetuate inequity for students with historically minoritized identities. This paper reviews previous reports of inequities faced by students with minoritized identities and suggests a path forward for improving equitable access to doctoral study. Specifically, this paper suggests investing in the scholarship of teaching and learning while using Gardner's model of doctoral student development to provide targeted support at different levels of operation: the institution, the department, and the individual. Evidence for suggested supports is also provided and a call for further research on the effects of such programs for recruitment, retention, and graduation of minoritized students is made.
... Τέλος, η εν λόγω σχέση παρατηρήθηκε και σε έρευνα των Litalien και Guay (2015) σε δείγμα υποψηφίων διδακτόρων. Αντίθετα, η αντιληπτή ακαδημαϊκή ανεπάρκεια, αποτελεί παράγοντα αποδέσμευσης από τις διδακτορικές σπουδές (Vekkaila et al., 2013), αυξάνει τις σκέψεις εγκατάλειψης τους (Maher et al., 2020) και σχετίζεται με χαμηλά επίπεδα αντιληπτής προόδου και υψηλά επίπεδα εξουθένωσης στις διδακτορικές σπουδές (De Clercq et al., 2021). ...
... Τέλος, η εν λόγω σχέση παρατηρήθηκε και σε έρευνα των Litalien και Guay (2015) σε δείγμα υποψηφίων διδακτόρων. Αντίθετα, η αντιληπτή ακαδημαϊκή ανεπάρκεια, αποτελεί παράγοντα αποδέσμευσης από τις διδακτορικές σπουδές (Vekkaila et al., 2013), αυξάνει τις σκέψεις εγκατάλειψης τους (Maher et al., 2020) και σχετίζεται με χαμηλά επίπεδα αντιληπτής προόδου και υψηλά επίπεδα εξουθένωσης στις διδακτορικές σπουδές (De Clercq et al., 2021). ...
Στόχος της έρευνας ήταν η μελέτη προστατευτικών προβλεπτικών παραγόντων και παραγόντων κινδύνου της πρόθεσης εγκατάλειψης μεταπτυχιακών σπουδών. Η έρευνα βασίστηκε στη Θεωρία του Αυτο-Προσδιορισμού. Συνολικά συμμετείχαν 288 μεταπτυχιακοί/ές φοιτητές/ριες. Οι συμμετέχοντες/ουσες κλήθηκαν να απαντήσουν ηλεκτρονικά σε ένα ερωτηματολόγιο που αποτελούνταν από κλίμακες αυτο-αναφοράς, οι οποίες αξιολογούσαν την αντιληπτή υποστήριξη και ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες, την οικογένεια και τους/τις συμφοιτητές/ριες τους, την αντιληπτή επάρκεια και αυτονομία, το αυτόνομο και ελεγχόμενο κίνητρο και την πρόθεση εγκατάλειψης των σπουδών. Για τη στατιστική ανάλυση εφαρμόστηκε ανάλυση διαδρομών. Ελέγχθηκαν δύο μοντέλα. Στο πρώτο, τις εξωγενείς μεταβλητές αποτελούσαν οι μεταβλητές της ικανοποίησης των αναγκών από φορείς του πλαισίου, ενώ στο δεύτερο η ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους ίδιους φορείς. Διαμεσολαβούσες μεταβλητές και στα δύο μοντέλα ήταν η επάρκεια, η αυτονομία και το αυτόνομο/ελεγχόμενο κίνητρο, ενώ εξαρτημένη μεταβλητή η πρόθεση εγκατάλειψης σπουδών. Στο πρώτο μοντέλο σημαντικοί προγνωστικοί παράγοντες αναδείχτηκαν η υποστήριξη των αναγκών από τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες, η επάρκεια και η αυτονομία, ενώ στο δεύτερο η ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες και τους/τις συμφοιτητές/ριες, η επάρκεια, η αυτονομία και το αυτόνομο κίνητρο για τις σπουδές. Τα ευρήματα συζητιούνται υπό το πρίσμα της σύγχρονης θεωρίας και έρευνας στη διεθνή βιβλιογραφία, ενώ παράλληλα αναφέρονται οι περιορισμοί και διατυπώνονται προτάσεις εφαρμογής και μελλοντικής έρευνας.συμμετείχαν 288 μεταπτυχιακοί/ές φοιτητές/ριες. Οι συμμετέχοντες/ουσες κλήθηκαν να απαντήσουν ηλεκτρονικά σε ένα ερωτηματολόγιο που αποτελούνταν από κλίμακες αυτο-αναφοράς, οι οποίες αξιολογούσαν την αντιλαμβανόμενη υποστήριξη και ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες, την οικογένεια και τους/τις συμφοιτητές/ριες τους, την αντιλαμβανόμενη επάρκεια και αυτονομία, το αυτόνομο και ελεγχόμενο κίνητρο και την πρόθεση εγκατάλειψης των σπουδών. Για τη στατιστική ανάλυση εφαρμόστηκε ανάλυση διαδρομών. Τα μοντέλα ήταν δύο. Στο πρώτο, τις εξωγενείς μεταβλητές αποτελούσαν οι μεταβλητές της υποστήριξης των αναγκών από φορείς του πλαισίου, ενώ στο δεύτερο η ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους ίδιους φορείς. Στο πρώτο μοντέλο σημαντικοί προγνωστικοί παράγοντες αναδείχτηκαν η υποστήριξη των αναγκών τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες, η αντιλαμβανόμενη επάρκεια και η αντιλαμβανόμενη αυτονομία, ενώ στο δεύτερο η ματαίωση των αναγκών από τους/τις καθηγητές/ριες και τους/τις συμφοιτητές/ριες, η αντιλαμβανόμενη επάρκεια , η αντιλαμβανόμενη αυτονομία και το αυτόνομο κίνητρο για τις σπουδές. Τα ευρήματα συζητώνται υπό το πρίσμα της σύγχρονης θεωρίας και έρευνας στη διεθνή βιβλιογραφία, ενώ παράλληλα αναφέρονται οι περιορισμοί και διατυπώνονται προτάσεις εφαρμογής και μελλοντικής έρευνας.
... ; https://doi.org/10. 1101/2023 institutional leadership needs to go beyond individual skill-building to attend to individual values and the promotion of systemic reforms to better achieve the intended outcomes of increasing diversity in student acceptance and enrollment in these types of graduate programs (Gibbs & Griffin, 2013;Maher et al., 2017;St. Clair et al., 2017). ...
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming and literature for historically underrepresented and marginalized students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degree programs often focuses on illuminating the challenges they face. The repeated emphasis on negative experiences creates a deficit-focused thread of inquiry that may unintentionally reinscribe persistent disparities and inequities. In this practice brief, we describe the positive effect of adapting anti-deficit framework with social career cognitive theory in developing and evaluating an Initiative for Maximizing Student Development program at a biomedical sciences graduate school, as well as how other institutions can explore, implement, and evaluate transformative DEI practices. In identifying and emphasizing the enablers of success while facilitating structured opportunities for personal and professional identity development, students and program leadership align values and goals to increase academic and scientific development, as well as community and social support.
... Despite their importance in academic research environments, trainees can experience a number of challenges during their training, research endeavors, and career. These include poor mental health and attrition (Maher et al., 2020;Sverdlik et al., 2018), poor work-life balance, internal and external stress (Evans et al., 2018), and impostor syndrome. A contributor to these challenges may be poor mentorship (Jeste et al., 2009). ...
Mentorship is vital for early career researchers in training positions, allowing them to navigate the challenges of work and life in research environments. However, the quality of mentorship received by trainees can vary by investigator and by institution. One challenge faced by those hoping to improve trainee mentorship is that the extent to which mentorship is offered to and experienced by research trainees is not well characterized. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a survey to examine the quality of mentorship received by trainees in research environments, to identify characteristics of positive and negative mentorship, and to highlight best practices to improve trainee mentorship. We received 2,114 responses from researchers at graduate and postdoctoral career stages worldwide. Quantitative analysis showed that at least ~25-45% of respondents were dissatisfied with some aspects of their mentorship. Qualitative responses revealed that common issues in mentorship include unclear expectations in research and mentoring interactions, lack of guidance, and inadequate support of trainee independence and career goals. Our findings also identified key mentorship elements desired by trainee mentees. Based on trainee suggestions, we describe strategies for individual mentors, departments, and institutions to improve the training experience for graduate and postdoctoral researchers.
... The term imposter fears indicate what they are feeling is a fear, and normalizes the fear as something everyone can experience. 2019; Maher et al., 2020). Without practical and effective interventions to address the the stresses experienced by biomedical trainees, which exacerbate mental health crises, the field will suffer a brain drain and lose talented future scientists and potential for innovation. ...
Compared to the general population, science trainees experience significant challenges and stressors that increase negative mental health outcomes. With COVID-19, the stressors of social distancing, isolation, truncated lab time, and uncertainty about the future have all likely exacerbated the effect. Now, more than ever, practical and effective interventions are vitally needed to address the core causes of science trainee stress and to increase resilience amongst trainee populations. This paper discusses a new resilience program targeted to biomedical trainees and scientists - Becoming a Resilient Scientist Series (BRS), a 5-part workshop coupled with facilitated group discussions dedicated to increasing resilience, specifically focusing on academic and research environments. Results show that BRS increases trainee resilience (primary outcome), with reductions in perceived stress, anxiety, and work presenteeism, and increases in ability to shift and persist, self-awareness, and self-efficacy (secondary outcomes). Furthermore, participants in the program reported high level of satisfaction, would highly recommend the program to others, and perceived positive changes in their resilience skills. To our knowledge, this is the first resilience program explicitly targeted for biomedical trainees and scientists, catering to the unique professional culture and environment in which these individuals work.
... The literature dedicated to identifying and measuring how different factors are associated with students' decisions to persist in or drop out of Ph.D. programs has expanded substantially in recent decades (Maher et al. 2020;Maloshonok and Terentev 2019;Bair and Haworth 2004). The main predictors of outcomes suggested by this literature are financial support and educational debt (Zhang 2013), university features and institutional support (Bolli, Agasisti, and Johnes 2015;Muschallik and Pull 2016), students' characteristics and socioeconomic status (Ampaw and Jaeger 2012), ability and previous academic record ( Van Der Haert et al. 2014) and excellence of supervision (Jiranek 2010). ...
A growing number of doctoral students work during their Ph.D., which is commonly associated with higher risks of dropout. This paper investigates whether the sector of employment (public or private) is also a predictor of student outcomes in Ph.D. programs. Using a dataset on doctorate students in Brazil, the association of employment with the likelihood of graduation and dropout is estimated using a logistic regression and an event history analysis. The results indicate that students employed exclusively in the public sector during the program are approximately 80% more likely to graduate than those working only for private organizations.
... Attrition can be considered a process, in which PGRs weigh the costs and benefits of persisting or discontinuing, and then do or do not actually end their studies accordingly (Jaksztat et al., 2021). Attrition may be provoked by reasons outside of the PhD, such as other opportunities, changing goals, or family obligations (Maher et al., 2017), and is not in itself 'bad'. However, for many PGRs, attrition results in adverse psychological, financial and employment outcomes, as well as there being problematic consequences of non-completed PhD research for supervisors, institutions, and society (Litalien & Guay, 2015). ...
High rates of postgraduate researchers (PGRs) terminate their studies early. This attrition can have detrimental personal consequences, and results in a loss of productivity, and research and innovation for the higher education sector and society as a whole. PGRs are vulnerable to the experience of mental health problems; a factor that appears to be increasing attrition amongst students in the UK. However, investigation of the determinants of problems with PGRs’ attendance and influencing intention to discontinue their studies is rare. Here, we consider the relative predictive validity of a set of putative predictors (mental health symptoms, demographic, occupational, psychological, social, and relational) of attendance behaviours (absenteeism, presenteeism, mental health-related intermission) and early attrition intention amongst UK PGRs. Depression, anxiety, and suicidality predicted attendance behaviours and greater attrition intention. Individual demographic and occupational factors predicted all outcomes. Psychological, social and relational factors had less predictive validity, although individual variables in these conceptual clusters did significantly predict some outcomes. Our results suggest that interventions to reduce high rates of mental health problems are likely to improve attendance behaviours, and reduce the extent to which PGRs intermit or consider ending their PhD studies for mental health-related reasons. Initiatives designed to improve supervisory relationships and reduce loneliness may also reduce absenteeism, intermission and attrition intention.
... We intend to demonstrate how the practice of Langar as supervision pedagogy can exist within a climate of 'turn and churn' doctoral work. Despite existing in a structure of mechanics and metrics, we argue that the nourishment of relational supervision practices warrants exploration for the benefit of student and supervisor, particularly as evidence abounds that a primary cause of doctoral students' noncompletion is poor pedagogical practices (Maher et al., 2020). Considering Langar as a pedagogy for doctoral supervision, we seek clarity into how research relations within supervision pedagogies are interwoven and how their sensibilities bear onto the shared research experience. ...
In research, particularly within the pedagogies of doctoral supervision, the significance of relational experiences is less explored and understood. Such relational aspects determine the nature and quality of the doctoral research output and are a crucial element of successful doctoral completions. A conscious assessment, estimation and management of the vulnerable sensibilities surrounding these relation fosters a deeper insight into the way student-researchers and supervisors experience their doctoral journeys. In this paper, to feature the importance of these relational experiences and to accentuate ideas and concepts for pedagogical change, my co-authors and I forsake the repetitious and employ Langar - a Sikh cultural practice of congregational cooking and consumption of a shared meal as a postqualitative methodological alternative. We utilise the innovative insights of Langar to reflect on our own research experiences and demonstrate the complexities of ‘becoming’ researchers to explicate how a sometimes-distant cultural practice could induce a shift in our research thinking. In context of methodological approaches, and within an educational framework, we argue that such a shift may instil freshness into the way doctoral journeys and cognate supervision pedagogies are viewed, navigated, and experienced. Methodological innovation, we submit, may occasion pedagogical transformation.
... A standard practice in lab-based biological sciences doctoral programs is for students to participate in lab rotations during the first year before they select a permanent lab (and corresponding advisor) by the start of their second year (see Maher et al., 2018). Thus, after students indicated that they entered a permanent lab, we administered a short survey asking them to provide the name and rank (1 = non-tenure track, 2 = assistant, 3 = associate, 4 = full) of their advisor. ...
While previous research documents that women in STEM doctoral programs tend to fare better when their advisor shares their gender identity, this study provides new insights into the role of student-advisor gender identity congruence, relying on a longitudinal sample of doctoral students in biology and using structural equation and latent growth curve modeling. Findings show that advisor gender played an inconsistent and typically indirect role in predicting student outcomes. Further, all students, regardless of gender, tended to report higher quality advising when their advisor was a woman, pointing to potential gender inequities in advising expectations of faculty. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.
... Preventative strategies could help protect against the onset of poor mental health and wellbeing, while robust early intervention strategies could aid with the identification of doctoral researchers needing support, and/or enable doctoral researchers to access this support promptly if concerns arise. The implementation of these strategies is paramount as poor mental health and wellbeing are contributing factors to doctoral student attrition (Maher et al. 2020), which some figures suggest could be as high as 30-50% (McAlpine and Norton 2006). As doctoral researchers represent the future of academic research and leadership, understanding why mental health and wellbeing are impacted in this population is important to inform the development of policies and/or practices that address the unique challenges they face. ...
Calls to address concerning evidence surrounding mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers have grown internationally in recent years. Adopting an ecological systems approach, this article explores doctoral researchers’ perspectives on what influences mental health and wellbeing in early-stage doctoral research. Forty-seven doctoral researchers took part in focus groups exploring mental health and wellbeing in the first year of doctoral study. The framework generated through our thematic and connecting analyses emphasises the interdependency of the various layers of the environment surrounding early-stage doctoral researchers. In line with our theoretical perspective, we describe the influence of: individual factors; the microsystem; the mesosystem; the exosystem; and the macrosystem. Participants highlighted the impact of the broader working culture in academia on their mental health and wellbeing, which permeated other, more proximal layers within their environment. This article contributes knowledge that can aid the development of interventions seeking to support mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers. Furthermore, our findings suggest that without the adoption of a whole-systems approach, efforts to improve mental health and wellbeing in these researchers could be difficult.
... A recent report indicated that there are no empirical conceptualizations of the construct of negative mentoring in STEM graduate education (NASEM, 2019). The paucity of knowledge on this subject warrants attention, given graduate students' dependence on their advisors for support and the significant role that advisors play during graduate students' education (Zhao et al., 2007;Maher et al., 2017;Sverdlik et al., 2018). ...
Effective mentoring promotes the development and success of graduate students. Yet mentoring, like other relationships, can have negative elements. Little knowledge exists about the problematic mentoring that graduate students experience despite its potentially detrimental impacts. To begin to address this gap, we conducted an exploratory interview study to define and characterize negative mentoring experiences of 40 life science doctoral students. Students attributed their negative mentoring experiences to interacting factors at multiple levels-from interpersonal differences and poor relationship quality to issues at the research group, departmental, organizational, and discipline levels-all of which they perceived as harmful to their development. We found that doctoral students experienced forms of negative mentoring similar to those reported in workplace and undergraduate research settings, but they also experienced negative mentoring that was unique to academic research and their stage of development. Our results are useful to mentors for reflecting on ways their behaviors might be perceived, to mentees for avoiding situations that might be conducive to negative mentoring, and to programs and institutions for improving structures and processes to prevent negative mentoring. Our findings also serve as a foundation for future research on the prevalence and impacts of negative mentoring experiences in graduate education.
... In STEM fields-especially those that rely on laboratory research groups-doctoral socialization experiences hinge on students' relationships with their PI. Indeed, STEM doctoral students' relationships with their faculty advisors underscore their skill-and career-related developmental trajectories (Blaney et al., 2020) and their persistence decisions (Maher et al., 2020a). Yet despite extant research documenting the faculty advisor's important role in doctoral student development, few studies have investigated students' early expectations for a faculty advisor's role in the socialization process. ...
One of the central goals of doctoral programs is to develop independent researchers and scholars who will lead the next generation of knowledge production. Despite extant evidence of inequalities in doctoral education, few studies have closely examined the experiences of first-generation college students who pursue a Ph.D. We examine how first-generation and continuing-generation doctoral students conceptualize the role of the faculty advisor/principal investigator (PI) in supporting their development as researchers. Our analysis of interviews from 111 first-year Ph.D. students in the biological sciences indicates that first-generation and continuing-generation students had similar overarching conceptions of PIs and the role of PIs in their development. However, the two groups ascribed different meanings to the same concepts. First-generation students expected more direct, skill-based guidance and assistance with learning to do research the “right” way. Conversely, continuing-generation students expected independence and support for their specific needs. We rely on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of habitus to explain these differences and conclude by offering implications for advancing equity in doctoral education and supporting first-generation students, particularly regarding the alignment of student–advisor expectations.
... Furthermore, studying college student's cellular phone behaviors may offer insight toward practical and effective educational classroom interventions that may increase college student retention rather than attrition. Early attrition has been examined at the doctoral level (Rudd et al., 2018) in the Educational (Pauley et al., 1999) and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic fields (Lott et al., 2009;Maher et al., 2017), Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic first-year college majors (Daempfle, 2003), nursing programs (Wells, 2007), women as business major in urban Community Colleges (Karlen, 2003), and Veteran needs (Alschuler & Yarab, 2018). Further, early attrition has also been used to assess sociocultural influences in relation to academic support services (Weuffen et al., 2018), student perceptions of college (Campbell & Mislevy, 2013), including student-centered retention programs (Sieveking & Perfetto, 2001), presemester college orientation programs (Perrine & Spain, 2008), and freshman first-year programs (Colton et al., 1999;Daempfle, 2003;Kamer & Ishitani, 2019;Whiteley, 2002). ...
Cellular phone distractions inhibit faculty delivering and students learning the curriculum by reducing student attendance and active engagement. Arguably, cellular phone usage during precious class times can be a risk factor for student attrition, but scarce solutions have been offered to address this problem in colleges. The Flipd App, a cellular phone distraction reduction technology was tested on 266 college students. The results showed a positive linear relationship between usage and attendance rates and a negative linear relationship between usage and ≥ 3 absence rates, and ∼10% of students resisted its use. The Flipd App may serve as a predictive educational intervention tool that increases active learning, reduces attrition, and increases retention. It may be useful in classes with less hands-on activities to reduce distractions and increase active student engagement. The Flipd App may prove useful in helping college students curb their screen time habits from the Fear of Missing Out to the Joy of Missing Out.
Background
Although most engineering graduate students are funded and usually complete their degrees faster than other disciplines, attrition remains a problem in engineering. Existing research has explored the psychological and sociological factors contributing to attrition but not the structural factors impacting attrition.
Purpose/Hypothesis
Using systems theory, this study seeks to understand nuance in how underlying structural causes affect engineering graduate students' attrition experiences in ways that may differ from their official reasons for departure.
Design/Methods
Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with seven departing or already departed engineering doctoral students from R1 graduate programs across the United States. Using thematic analysis, root cause analyses were conducted to understand participants' attrition experiences to explore how structures influence causes of departure.
Results
The ways participants discuss root causes of their departure indicate differences in formal reasons for departure and underlying causes of departure. We highlight the role of informal and formal policy as root causes of a different attrition rationale often passed off as interpersonal issues. When interpreted as evidence of structural issues, the causes of departure show ways in which action–inaction, policy–“null” policy serve as structural features governing student attrition decision processes. We also highlight a form of benign neglect toward struggling graduate students.
Conclusion
This study reveals important nuances underlying face‐value reasons of attrition indicating foundational structural issues contributing to engineering graduate student attrition. Coaching faculty in team management and encouraging close revision of departmental policies could help mitigate students' negative graduate experiences and decrease unnecessary attrition.
Doctoral students experience high rates of mental health distress and dropout; however, the mental health and wellness of engineering doctoral students is understudied. Studies of student persistence, wellness, and success often aggregate fields together, such as by studying all engineering students. Thus, little work has considered the experiences of biomedical engineering (BME) doctoral students, despite differences between doctoral BME research, course content, and career expectations compared with other engineering disciplines. In this qualitative interview case study, we explore stressors present in the BME graduate experience that are unique from engineering students in other disciplines. We analyzed a longitudinal interview study of doctoral engineering students across four timepoints within a single academic year, consisting of a subsample (n = 6) of doctoral students in a BME discipline, among a larger sample of engineering doctoral students (N = 55). BME students in the sample experienced some themes generated from a larger thematic analysis differently compared with other engineering disciplines. These differences are presented and discussed, grounded in a model of workplace stress. BME participants working in labs with biological samples expressed a lack of control over the timing and availability of materials for their research projects. BME participants also had more industry-focused career plans and described more commonly coming to BME graduate studies from other fields (e.g., another engineering major) and struggling with the scope and content of their introductory coursework. A common throughline for the stressors was the impact of the interdisciplinary nature of BME programs, to a greater extent compared with other engineering student experiences in our sample. We motivate changes for researchers, instructors, and policymakers which specifically target BME students and emphasize the importance of considering studies at various unit levels (university department level vs college level vs full institution) when considering interventions targeting student stress and wellness.
This chapter aims to provide an overview of mentorship within the context of biomedical research. After a brief introduction about mentoring and the rationale for mentorship in biomedical sciences, the chapter describes different types and models of mentoring relationships. The process of mentorship in biomedical sciences is detailed with suggestions for best practice tips for mentees and mentors. The challenges to successful mentorship and suggestions for managing conflict are highlighted along with a description of when and how to end unproductive mentoring relationships. The chapter concludes with a description of mentoring networks and suggestions for augmenting mentorship in biomedical research in the future.
Universities benefit from recruiting and retaining diverse students, as it leads to more creative and rigorous problem solving. Efforts to improve the diversity, equity, and inclusion of graduate education have historically been focused on recruitment but are now shifting to retaining enrolled students. A low percentage of doctoral students, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups (URGs), complete their PhD within 10 years. To increase support of incoming doctoral students from URGs, UCLA established the Competitive Edge (CE) bridge program. CE provides six weeks of professional development and research training at the start of the PhD program. We surveyed 55+ first-year doctoral students (14 CE students, eight non-CE students from URGs, and 34 well-represented (WR) students) in STEM fields to understand CE′s effectiveness. We found that the CE program aided students in four areas that influence graduate student attrition: mentor/mentee relationship, socialization, finances, and preparedness. At the end of their first academic year, CE students reported that the program helped them in multiple areas relating to student success, such as mental wellbeing and sense of belonging. CE students reported a larger mean growth in seven of eight skills needed in graduate school compared to NonCE URG and WR students. Short answer responses revealed that NonCE students wished for more support in areas covered by the CE program, such as managing advising relationships and protecting mental health. Additionally, CE students received significant funding during the program. The CE program's successful model at UCLA can be adapted to improve support for underrepresented doctoral students at other institutions.
Background
While attrition from the PhD has been attributed to many high‐level causal factors, such as funding, advisor relationship, and “fit” into a department, few studies have closely examined the mechanisms of attrition or why and how graduate engineering students begin to consider attrition from their doctoral programs.
Design/Method
This study analyzed interviews with current and former doctoral engineering students at research universities across the United States, collected through two closely‐related studies on graduate engineering experiences and attrition consideration. We used critical event analysis as a methodological approach to understand the experiences of a subset of 13 participants, who, at some point in their graduate career, experienced a singular event that caused them to question whether to persist in their PhD program.
Purpose/Hypothesis
The purpose of the present paper is to investigate how graduate engineering students begin to question whether they should remain in their PhD programs of study.
Results
We categorized the environments in which critical events occurred into four quadrants along the lines of University and Nonuniversity Settings and Routine versus Unexpected Contexts, mapping critical events and supporting events to themes from prior literature. The findings demonstrate how seemingly mundane experiences for faculty can be cataclysmic in the eyes of the student; how critical events serve to magnify other issues that had been accumulating over time; and how students may not self‐reflect on their rationale for pursuing a PhD until a critical juncture occurs.
Conclusions
Critical events are one mechanism by which students may begin considering departure from their engineering PhD programs. Some critical events masquerade within mundane contexts, like conversations or conferences (although, in retrospect, students can identify other relevant features contributing to dissatisfaction). From this work, we provide implications geared toward administrators, advisors, and graduate students on how to address and potentially mitigate critical events or their effects, including engaging in conversations about leaving.
Background: As greater career development support for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers has been emphasized, the individual development plan (IDP) has become a recommended mentoring tool. However, little is known about the effect of IDPs on mentoring and career development. This study proposed two conceptual models to examine the interrelationships among the use of IDPs, mentoring support, and career preparedness with a diverse sample of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in the life sciences.
Methods: The data leveraged for this study was collected over a three-month period, March 2016 to June 2016, as part of a cross-sectional, online survey. The survey was distributed through social media and direct email to participants enrolled in life/biological/medical or physical/applied doctoral programs at U.S. institutions. To test the proposed conceptual models, this study employed the design-based multilevel structural equation modeling.
Results: The analytic sample comprised 660 doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in the life sciences from 91 institutions. The results suggested that 1) using the IDP could enhance mentoring support and career preparedness of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers; 2) greater mentoring support and career preparedness would motivate mentees to continue utilizing the IDP with their principal investigator (PI) or advisor; and 3) females, postdoctoral researchers, and international scholars might need more support throughout the mentoring and career development process.
Conclusions: This research offered empirical evidence for how an IDP, mentorship, and career preparedness interact. Findings revealed the IDP enhances mentoring support and career preparedness, as well as mentoring support and career preparedness predict IDP use. We conclude the IDP is an important mentorship tool that enhances trainees’ overall career preparation.
Concerns about mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers have grown in recent years. To address these concerns, preventative strategies that seek to mitigate the onset of poor mental health and wellbeing could be valuable. This article outlines the co-design approach adopted to generate evidence that could inform the design of inductions to support mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers. Over a 9-month period, we collaborated with 47 doctoral researchers from 24 institutions and 13 stakeholders from one university, collecting qualitative data via focus groups and follow-up surveys. After analysing our data thematically and making refinements based on feedback from participants, actionable strategies that could be considered in the design of induction programmes for doctoral researchers were generated and captured by five themes: peer connections; supervisor relationships; information and resources; student services advice and support; and training and development. Feedback on the co-design process suggested participants felt positive about their involvement, with the doctoral researchers valuing the opportunity to contribute to the development of the co-designed evidence. Further research is required to examine the efficacy of the identified strategies, but we suggest that co-design shows promise for developing inductions to support mental health and wellbeing in doctoral researchers.
Background: As greater career development support for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers has been emphasized, the individual development plan (IDP) has become a recommended mentoring tool. However, little is known about the effect of IDPs on mentoring and career development. This study proposed two conceptual models to examine the interrelationships among the use of IDPs, mentoring support, and career preparedness with a diverse sample of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in the life sciences.
Methods: The data leveraged for this study was collected over a three-month period, March 2016 to June 2016, as part of a cross-sectional, online survey. The survey was distributed through social media and direct email to participants enrolled in life/biological/medical or physical/applied doctoral programs at U.S. institutions. To test the proposed conceptual models, this study employed the design-based multilevel structural equation modeling.
Results: The analytic sample comprised 660 doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers in the life sciences from 91 institutions. The results suggested that 1) using the IDP could enhance mentoring support and career preparedness of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers; 2) greater mentoring support and career preparedness would motivate mentees to continue utilizing the IDP with their principal investigator (PI) or advisor; and 3) females, postdoctoral researchers, and international scholars might need more support throughout the mentoring and career development process.
Conclusions: This research demonstrated the empirical evidence an IDP has within mentorship and career preparedness, and that an IDP is an important career development tool that enhances trainees’ overall career preparation.
As concerns about poor mental health and psychological wellbeing (wellbeing) in doctoral students grow, the early stage of doctoral study could be a prime opportunity for early intervention and prevention strategies. To inform the development of such strategies, it is important and timely to understand what is known about doctoral student mental health and wellbeing in the early stages. The aim of this systematic mixed studies review was to synthesise published research on mental health and wellbeing in early-stage doctoral students (ESDS). After conducting electronic searches on 10 databases and manual searches, 26 studies matching the eligibility criteria were identified. Thematic synthesis revealed there is limited evidence regarding the prevalence of mental health and wellbeing concerns and the effects of the transition to doctoral study on mental health and wellbeing. More promisingly, the synthesis generated understanding of factors related to mental health and wellbeing in ESDS. Finally, a single mental health and/or wellbeing intervention in ESDS was identified. The review underscores the need for more high-quality research to allow more robust conclusions to be drawn about mental health and wellbeing in ESDS.
This issue of the Journal of Higher Education Management is dedicated to those American college and university leaders who have confronted the challenges of the COVID-19 and Racial & Ethnicity crises which have tested and continue to test our industry in an unprecedented fashion. 3 CONTENTS
Science is one of the top interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journals with a very wide audience, and since 1996 it has dedicated a section of its website, Science Careers, to career news and advice. As Science Careers has been active, the academic job market has been transforming, most notably by a decrease in the availability of tenure-track academic positions. Using a dataset of 6111 full-text Science Careers articles we perform an exploratory text analysis to characterize the changes in framing, topics, and scope of career content. We analyzed tag frequency and word frequency to examine topics over time. We tracked the relative prominence of articles that explicitly present advice to the reader, as opposed to more descriptive articles about workforce dynamics or personal experiences of career scientists. We find that although the number of articles tagged Advice had remained consistently high from the inception of the Science Careers section, 2015 marked the beginning of a significant decrease in the number of explicitly tagged Advice articles. The apparent disinclination for strongly prescriptive advice may indicate a growing sense, even within an academic-oriented venue, that career-pathways for researchers have become less predictable, making dispensing broadly applicable advice more challenging.
Purpose
To examine completion and attrition of students in nursing PhD programs.
Methods
Total 5,391 students who matriculated into nursing PhD programs in 2001 to 2010 were selected from the AACN database.
Findings
The completion rate of the students was 74.2% and the attrition rate was 22.7%. On average, it took 5.7 years for the students to graduate and 3.7 years for the students who left without graduating to drop out. The mean age at matriculation and graduation was 42.4 and 47.5, respectively. Male students, part-time students, students of post-baccalaureate programs, students who were not faculty or held a part-time faculty position, students of the 2001 to 2010 matriculation cohorts, and students in PhD programs with 25% or more of the courses taught online were more likely to experience attrition.
Conclusion
The study findings provide useful information for the nursing education community to better address the issue of nursing PhD shortage.
Academic careers are becoming less linear and secure, and are increasingly shaped by environmental constraints. As a result, highly qualified early and mid-career researchers, in particular from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines, are pursuing careers outside academia. This paper advances theory and empirical research on career transitions and sustainable careers by investigating how junior academics transition into the field of data science by exploring the facilitators of their career transition and the ways in which they experience career sustainability in their new occupational field. This study relies on 28 in-depth interviews with early and mid-career STEM researchers from elite universities who decided to join a data science ‘bootcamp’ to pursue a new career as data scientists. Our study reveals the career barriers that junior researchers experience in academia and how career catalysts increase their career adaptability, facilitating a career transition into sustainable careers in data science. Our study shows that career sustainability is experienced through the reaffirmation of interviewees' identity as researchers outside of academia as well as in the reconciliation between their previous career expectations and actual career outcomes after transitioning into data science.
In the laboratory-based disciplines, selection of a principal investigator (PI) and research laboratory (lab) indelibly shapes doctoral students' experiences and educational outcomes. Framed by the theoretical concept of person-environment fit from within a socialization model, we use an inductive, qualitative approach to explore how a sample of 42 early-stage doctoral students enrolled in biological sciences programs made decisions about fitting with a PI and within a lab. Results illuminated a complex array of factors that students considered in selecting a PI, including PI relationship, mentoring style, and professional stability. Further , with regard to students' lab selection, peers and research projects played an important role. Students actively conceptualized trade-offs among various dimensions of fit. Our findings also revealed cases in which students did not secure a position in their first (or second) choice labs and had to consider their potential fit with suboptimal placements (in terms of their initial assessments). Thus, these students weighted different factors of fit against the reality of needing to secure financial support to continue in their doctoral programs. We conclude by presenting and framing implications for students, PIs, and doctoral programs, and recommend providing transparency and candor around the PI and lab selection processes.
This exploratory mixed-methods study examines factors contributing to doctoral students’ consideration of departure from their graduate programs with comparisons made by sex and affiliation with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs. Logistic regression and qualitative analyses point to the importance of strong relationships with advisors and faculty, collegiality, and preparation for students’ desired careers. Yet, results also suggest that women in STEM may be less satisfied than their male peers with the advising and career preparation received. The findings propose that university administrators and faculty should foster better faculty–student relationships and help students make more informed decisions prior to entering doctoral study.
The primary aim of this study was to better understand the antecedents of doctoral students' emotional well-being, and their plans to leave academia. Based on past research, antecedents included departmental support, the quality of the supervisory relationship, and characteristics of the supervisory relationship. We used a mixed-methods study, and surveyed 186 doctoral students from nine countries. We found that supportive relationships, at the departmental and advisor level, reduced emotional exhaustion and intentions to leave academia, and that emotional exhaustion was positively related to doctoral students' intentions to leave academia. Findings also indicated that advisor experience and frequency of meetings reduced students' emotional exhaustion but did not affect their intentions to leave academia. Recommendations to reduce emotional exhaustion and to temper doctoral student attrition before and after degree completion are offered.
This chapter addresses the experiences of doctoral students as they develop the capacity to do research that is recognized within academic fields and disciplines through publication. It looks at these experiences through the lens of socialization, namely, the processes through which doctoral students develop the knowledge, skills, and values that will equip them to be producers as well as consumers of research. Research productivity is a key dimension of a successful academic career in terms of both salary (Fairweather, 2005) and reputation/status as an academic. While this has long been the case for faculty in upper echelon research universities, it has begun to permeate the entire spectrum of graduate degree awarding institutions as shown by a recent study documenting increasing pressure on faculty in comprehensive institutions to provide evidence of research productivity in order to gain tenure and advance in rank (Youn & Price, 2009).
The chapter begins with the general conceptual framework for socialization at the graduate level that frames the discussion, focusing on the longitudinal process and the aspects of institutional context, especially department/program and broader institutional support structures, as well as external disciplinary/academic communities that are key elements. Results from several recent studies of doctoral students are used to illustrate the nature of relevant socialization processes (Gardner, 2007, 2008; Gardner & Barnes, 2007; Golde, 2005; Golde & Dore, 2004; Nettles & Millett, 2006; Weidman & Stein, 2003). The concluding section provides suggestions for ways in which universities might facilitate doctoral student socialization for research.
The relationships between faculty and students in graduate school have been found to have a significant effect on most aspects of the doctoral experience. Yet we know little about the emotional landscape of these relationships and what makes them work. This study, which conducted qualitative interviews in one academic department, looks inside faculty-doctoral student relationships by examining the emotional competencies that both faculty and students display within them. Emotional competencies displayed by both students and faculty were influenced by the program structure and culture of the department, and facilitated positive student and faculty outcomes.
The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession-and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved with simplistic approaches. Instead, it is time to confront the dangers at hand and rethink some fundamental features of the US biomedical research ecosystem.
This chapter explores the unique, often horizontal, peer education dynamics found in doctoral education, which are far less understood than the role of undergraduate peer educators.
Interest in faculty careers decreases as graduate training progresses; however, the process underlying career-interest formation remains poorly defined. To better understand this process and whether/how it differs across social identity (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender), we conducted focus groups with 38 biomedical scientists who received PhDs between 2006 and 2011, including 23 women and 18 individuals from underrepresented minority (URM) backgrounds. Objective performance and quality of advisor relationships were not significantly different between scientists with high versus low interest in faculty careers. Career interests were fluid and formed in environments that generally lacked structured career development. Vicarious learning shaped similar outcome expectations about academic careers for all scientists; however, women and URMs recounted additional, distinct experiences and expectations. Scientists pursuing faculty careers described personal values, which differed by social identity, as their primary driver. For scientists with low interest in faculty careers, a combination of values, shared across social identity, and structural dynamics of the biomedical workforce (e.g., job market, grant funding, postdoc pay, etc.) played determinative roles. These findings illuminate the complexity of career choice and suggest attracting the best, most diverse academic workforce requires institutional leaders and policy makers go beyond developing individual skill, attending to individuals' values and promoting institutional and systemic reforms.
Successful studying in Ph. D. education is a complex matter. Although Ph. D. students are a highly select group, some never finish. This paper explores the problems that doctoral candidates face during their doctoral studies as well as students' well-being in relation to their studying engagement. The study is part of a larger research project on doctoral education. Altogether 669 doctoral students from the Faculties of Arts, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences responded to the survey. Doctoral students' perceptions of the problems they encountered during their studies varied. The problems reported were related to general working processes, domain-specific expertise, supervision, the scholarly community, and resources. Doctoral students' well-being and study engagement showed a clear relationship. More effective means are needed to foster students' ability to overcome problems encountered during their Ph. D. studies.
The STEM fields, otherwise known as the Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics areas, have become the focus of multiple studies and funding initiatives in recent years. Despite these efforts, lingering concerns exist about who enters, who is retained, and who completes the doctorate in STEM fields. This study utilizes discrete-time event history analysis to model doctoral attrition for 10,088 individuals, in 56 STEM departments, at one research-extensive institution, located in the South, over a 20-year period. Results show that the odds of attrition are the greatest in the first year. Additionally, the odds of attrition are greater for females, Asians, and for those who belong to a hard-applied science major (versus a hard-pure major). The odds of attrition are lower for married students and for those who have higher relative GRE scores than their peers in the same program. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between particular characteristics of doctoral students and programs on attrition rates over time.
This report on the process of graduate and professional student socialization provides information that can be of use to graduate program faculty and administrators, professional associations, state legislatures, and professional licensing bodies charged with assuring clients that well qualified professional practitioners are being prepared in the nation's universities. It addresses implications of issues raised in current literature for designing more effective graduate programs. Socialization in graduate school refers to the processes through which individuals gain the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for successful entry into a professional career requiring an advanced level of specialized knowledge and skills. The first two sections, "The Professional and Socialization" and "Conceptualizing Socialization in Graduate and Professional Programs," describe the various elements of this socialization process, drawing from research on adult socialization, role acquisition, and career development. The third section, "A Framework for the Socialization of Graduate and Professional Students," presents a conceptual model of graduate and professional student socialization that assumes socialization occurs through an interactive set of stages. The fourth section, "Institutional Culture: Recurrent Themes," illustrates several changing patterns in graduate education that are exerting pressure for reform. The fifth section, "Institutional Culture and Socialization: Differences among Academic Programs," contrasts socialization processes across academic program goals, faculty expectations, and student peer culture. The final section, "Easing the Perilous Passage," discusses modifying the graduate degree program and faculty and administrator roles, increasing diversity, and offering support to students.
This paper explains doctoral student attrition as a consequence of inadequate academic integration, a concept developed to explain undergraduate attrition. Theoretically, poor integration results from either isolation from or mismatch with the departmental (local) or disciplinary (national) communities. Interviews with students who left four departments at one university reveal six reasons (each present in at least three of the departments) that fit into a modified framework. A third category, "the discipline as filtered through the department," is added.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of self-efficacy on academic success of first-generation college sophomore students. The participants in the study consisted of college sophomores from 5 of the 23 California State University campuses. An online College Self-Efficacy Inventory was employed to measure participants’ self-efficacy levels. The study explored four areas: the relationship between self-efficacy scores and academic success as defined by GPA and persistence rates, the academic success and persistence rates between first-generation and second-and-beyond-generation college sophomore students, the effects of the demographic factors of gender and ethnicity on self-efficacy, and the relationship between institution size and self-efficacy. Findings show that self-efficacy beliefs affect GPA and persistence rates of sophomore students and second-generation college sophomores outperform their first-generation peers.
A longitudinal study of 1st-year university student adjustment examined the effects of academic self-efficacy and optimism on students' academic performance, stress, health, and commitment to remain in school. Predictor variables (high school grade-point average, academic self-efficacy, and optimism) and moderator variables (academic expectations and self-perceived coping ability) were measured at the end of the first academic quarter and were related to classroom performance, personal adjustment, stress, and health, measured at the end of the school year. Academic self-efficacy and optimism were strongly related to performance and adjustment, both directly on academic performance and indirectly through expectations and coping perceptions (challenge-threat evaluations) on classroom performance, stress, health, and overall satisfaction and commitment to remain in school. Observed relationships corresponded closely to the hypothesized model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article presents a social cognitive framework for understanding three intricately linked aspects of career development: (a) the formation and elaboration of career-relevant interests, (b) selection of academic and career choice options, and (c) performance and persistence in educational and occupational pursuits. The framework, derived primarily from Bandura's (1986) general social cognitive theory, emphasizes the means by which individuals exercise personal agency in the career development process, as well as extra-personal factors that enhance or constrain agency. In particular, we focus on self-efficacy, expected outcome, and goal mechanisms and how they may interrelate with other person (e.g., gender), contextual (e.g., support system), and experiential/learning factors. Twelve sets of propositions are offered to organize existing findings and guide future research on the theory. We also present a meta-analysis of relevant findings and suggest specific directions for future empirical and theory-extension activity.
Advice about how to achieve a PhD usually falls short of relevance because the ways of creating and reporting knowledge differ dramatically from one disciplinary field and specialisation to another. Yet supervisors and doctoral candidates alike know that there are certain protocols or parameters, often inexplicit in nature, that govern its achievement and that need to be mastered. This book sets out to explore the nature of these protocols and parameters, linking them to the cognate characteristics of fields of knowledge and to social conventions constraining how new knowledge is reported.
‘Disciplines and Doctorates’ provides a detailed analysis of the experience of learning to make new knowledge at the level of the research doctorate. It does so from the perspectives of both supervisors and candidates across a range of disciplines in different university settings. It draws principally upon a very large-scale, empirical investigation at a number of Australian universities. It also provides a comparative account of doctoral study in different national systems.
This study examined department supports that influence doctoral completion and time-to-degree among 5,001 doctoral programs at 212 universities in the United States. Multiple regression models were used to determine the relationships between financial support and academic support and doctoral retention and how these relationships vary across STEM and non-STEM fields. Analyzing the American National Research Council’s data, we found that a department’s financial support significantly predict doctoral completion and time-to-degree. However, no overarching relationship was found between department academic support and doctoral completion and time-to-degree. These findings provide a better understanding of how department supports are associated with doctoral student success. The article concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research.
Doctoral students are educated in U.S. institutions of higher education to become tomorrow's educators, researchers, leaders, and innovators. Only a little more than 50 percent of all doctoral students will actually complete the degree, however. Understanding the complexity of the doctoral experience may assist in educating these students and ensuring their success.
This monograph presents a model of doctoral student development, viewing the experience as three phases of increasing complexity. Using theories developed from psychology, sociology, and education, the monograph provides an overview of doctoral education in the United States and the sources of challenge and support that characterize the doctoral student's experience and development.
This study examined the relationship between selected demographic and situational variables and the completion of the education administration doctorate from the West Virginia University—Marshall University Cooperative Doctoral Program. Surveys were sent to the 226 students who were admitted to the program between 1980 and the fall of 1993. Responses were received from 62 percent of those surveyed, and analysis revealed that a positive relationship existed between six of the twelve variables and the completion of the doctorate. Factors found to be positively related to the completion of the doctorate were the level of financial support available to the student, familial support, peer support, faculty support, chairperson support, and the motivation of the student.
We examine attributions of responsibility in advice-taking. In contrast to the well-documented self-serving bias, we find the opposite phenomenon, whereby decision-makers view an advisor as more responsible for a positive rather than a negative outcome, while they view themselves as more responsible for a negative rather than a positive outcome. We propose that this other-serving pattern of attributions is driven by a hindsight bias in the positive-outcome condition. Namely, knowledge that the outcome is positive and consistent with the advisor’s recommendation makes the outcome appear to be under the control of the advisor, which increases the perceived responsibility of the advisor relative to that of the decision-maker. No such bias is observed in the negative-outcome condition. We conduct five studies that show the robustness of this bias, provide evidence for the mechanism, and rule out several alternative explanations.
Two models of graduate student degree progress were developed: one at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The models link department and student characteristics, financial support, and student perceptions of the faculty with grades, involvement in one's program, satisfaction with the department, and alienation in order to predict graduate degree progress.
Logistic regression analysis was utilized to predict the retention of 477 master's and 124 doctoral candidates at a large Canadian university. Selected demo-graphic (e.g., sex, marital status, age, citizenship), academic (e.g., GPA, disci-pline, type of study, time to degree completion) and financial support variables (e.g., funding received from internal and external scholarships and from research, graduate and teaching assistantships) were used as independent vari-ables. The dichotomous dependent variable was whether the student successful-ly completed the degree. Results for master's students indicate that higher graduate GPAs, increased length of time in the program, increased funding from all sources, full-or part-time registration status in the coursework only program, and full-time registration status in the coursework plus major research paper program significantly improve the student's chances of graduating with the degree. For doctoral candidates, only increased length of time in the program and increased funding from all sources significantly increase the chances of graduating with the doctorate.
The past twenty years have been an incredibly productive period in science studies. Still, because recent work in science studies puts a spotlight on agency and enabling situa tions, many practitioners in the field ignore, underplay, or dismiss the possibility that historically established, structurally stable attributes of the world may systemically shape practice at the laboratory level. This article questions this general position. Draw ing on data from a participant observation study of a university biology laboratory, it describes five features of the institutional landscape that shape this laboratory's practice.
The purpose of this paper is to create a framework for dealing with social isolation in doctoral programs. Previous studies have focused on the issue of attrition among doctoral students and the factors that cause the same students to drop-out prior to completing their degrees. Among the fac- tors that affect students' decisions to leave doctoral programs is the feeling of social isolation. However, such previous studies have focused on identifying the causes rather than establishing a framework for dealing with isolation feeling in doctoral programs. This paper intends to fill in the gap and to establish a framework for dealing with isolation feelings in order to minimize doctoral attrition.
The high attrition rate from doctoral programs has been called a "hidden crisis" in graduate education (Lovitts & Nelson, 2000). Previous research has identified a constellation of factors that may contribute to doctoral attrition. However, the literature suggests that one of the most powerful influences on doctoral persistence is the relationship doctoral students develop with their advisors (Berg & Ferber, 1983; Ferrer de Valero, 2001; Girves & Wemmerus, 1988). Although there is a growing body of literature that has explored the advisor-advisee relationship with respect to persistence, little attention has been given to the examination of the expectations that advisors have of their advisees and how these expectations might impact degree completion. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative study examined the expectations that 25 exemplary advisors have of their doctoral advisees. Findings revealed 5 specific expectations advisors hold that, if met, could lead to improved doctoral student retention.
Few women and even fewer African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans complete doctoral degrees in mathematics in the United States. This article proposes a framework for understanding the small numbers of women and students of color who persist in doctoral mathematics based on the notion that academic and social integration are critical to persistence and that integration develops through particular types of participation in the communities of practice of graduate school. An integrated summary of previous research on attrition and persistence of doctoral students identifies particular obstacles faced by women and students of color in doctoral mathematics and directs attention to ways in which faculty and others involved in doctoral education can work to improve the persistence rates, experiences, and diversity of their doctoral students.
We tested the fit of the social cognitive choice model [Lent, R.W., Brown, S.D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance [Monograph]. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 79–122] to the data across gender, educational level, and type of university among students in a variety of computing disciplines. Participants were 1208 students at 21 historically Black and 21 predominantly White universities. They completed measures of self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, goals, and social supports and barriers with respect to computing majors. The SCCT model yielded adequate fit to the data across each of the grouping variables. Implications for future research on SCCT’s choice hypotheses in the context of science and engineering-related fields are discussed.
This article focuses on socialization processes that involve tenure-track faculty in four-year colleges and universities. It presents a two-year study of promotion and tenure in which over three hundred individuals were interviewed. The author takes issue with previous "modernist" views of socialization and offers a schema based on postmodernism for how we might think about organizational socialization.
This study explored the gender issues that contributed to the differential attrition rate of men and women graduate students in two science departments (biology and chemistry) at a large research university. Departmental records were used to compute the student attrition rate while surveys from 170 students, and interviews with 32 of them, were used to explore students' perspectives on the reasons affecting the attrition of men and women graduate students in each department. Analysis of the data indicated a significantly larger student attrition rate in chemistry than in biology. In each department the attrition rate for women was also significantly larger than the attrition rate for men. The study uncovered different gender issues, in each department, related to the significantly larger attrition rate for women students.
National statistics indicate that approximately 50 percent of all graduate students fail to complete their degree; thus, understanding the factors that influence their persistence is an important research objective. Using data from a nationally representative sample of bachelor's degree recipients, the study aimed to answer three questions: What proportion of 1992-1993 bachelor's degree recipients enrolled in graduate school by 2003? Of those, what proportion persisted in graduate school? Controlling for background and academic differences, what effect do financial factors have on persistence in graduate school? Descriptive and hierarchal binomial logistic regression results suggest that 36 percent of bachelor's degree recipients has enrolled in a graduate program by 2003; 74 percent of initial enrollees has persisted by 2003, and financial factors (e.g., total loan, tuition reduction, deferment status) were related to persistence. Implications for future policy, practice, and research are highlighted. (Contains 3 tables.)
This resource book on the place of film study today is designed to assist in the planning of college courses in the history, criticism, and appreciation of motion pictures. Representative course descriptions and appraisals are given by (1) Jack C. Ellis, who describes a two-part course in film aesthetics and types of films, (2) Edward Fischer, who discusses his course in film criticism, (3) Arthur Knight, whose course in film history provides background in the tradition of films and film making, (4) Hugh Gray, who discusses the analysis and comparative study of the art of film, and (5) George Stoney, who sees the function of film teaching as breaking word barriers and giving visual training. Comments on the place of film study in education are offered by John E. Burchard, Pauline Kael, and Colin Young who also suggests ways to create an American Film Institute. Lists of films, film distributors, professional associations, archives, libraries, and film societies; tables of film courses offered at the major colleges and universities; and a selected bibliography of books, reviews, and periodicals are included. (JM)
Examines the relationship between selected demographic and situational variables and completion of doctorate in educational administration from the West Virginia University-Marshall University Cooperative Doctoral Program. Analysis of survey responses (n=140) identified six factors positively related to degree completion: student financial support, familial support, peer support, faculty support, chairperson support, and student motivation. (DB)
Provides an overview of a social cognitive framework for understanding career interest, choice, and performance processes. Derived primarily from A. Bandura's (1986) general social cognitive theory, the framework features several variables (e.g., self-efficacy, outcome expectations, personal goals) through which people help to guide their own career development. It also includes a discussion of how these variables interrelate with other aspects of persons (e.g., gender) and their environments (e.g., supports, barriers) within the process of career development. The framework is intended as a base both for unifying existing career theories and for conceptualizing developmental and remedial career interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)