Learning transitions of three doctoral students in a Portuguese higher education institution facilitated by the use of ICT

Abstract

The growing complexity of the information society and the Bologna Declaration contributed to renewed understandings of teaching, learning and research. This paper reports the learning transitions of three doctoral students with different backgrounds working together in the context of a first year module integrated in the curriculum of a Portuguese doctoral programme. This auto-ethnoraphic research aims to discuss the collaborative learning process in which the doctoral students were deeply involved throughout and beyond the semester module. A qualitative content analysis of five types of documents produced by the group was conducted. The data analysis scheme was developed considering the characteristics of an active and independent high quality researcher, although some dimensions emerged from the corpora. The outputs of this study might be relevant for the facilitation of the learning transitions of PhD students to early career researchers, thus supporting fine tunings of research training strategies implemented in doctoral programmes.