Doctoral Journey Research Articles

Current issues in doctoral supervision practice in the UK

ABSTRACT Doctoral study remains the most popular form of research degree globally. The student and supervisor relationship is an integral part of the postgraduate researcher (PGR) experience. Supervisory relationships can be complex and multi-faceted, with differing expectations from both supervisor and PGR. However, comparing different perspectives of the PGR supervisory journey is relatively unexplored. This study aimed to explore how both PGRs and supervisors perceive the evolution of supervisory relationships throughout the doctoral journey. Employing a mixed methods design, the findings indicate that there is a transition in the dynamics of the relationship between the supervisor and the student which changes during this process. The role of the supervisor moves from being a more knowledgeable other operating in an advisory capacity, described by one participant as a ‘balance of expertise’ that ‘swings’ as the relationship evolves. Drawing upon Jindal-Snape’s multiple and multi-dimensional transitional theory, the results suggest that managing expectations, supporting the transition to doctoral study, the role of peer support for PGRs and supervisors are fundamental to a positive supervisory experience. The global pandemic affected the supervisory relationship and research journey posing some challenges for data collection; however, it facilitated opportunities to adapt and evolve supervisory practice.

Correlation between impostor syndrome among doctoral students and supervisor empathy in Tunisia.

The prevalence of impostor syndrome among PhD students has increased rapidly in recent years, having very negative effects on their mental and psychological health as well as on their doctoral journey. This exploratory study aims to examine whether there is a causal correlation between impostor syndrome among PhD students and empathy among supervisors. This study encompasses 562 doctoral students (300 females, 262 males) and 152 Tunisian supervisors (68 females, 84 males). Employing ANOVA, significant influences on impostor syndrome emerge for gender, marital status, professional status, and the doctoral enrollment level (p < 0.001). Concurrently, supervisors' empathy is significantly affected by gender, marital status, and experience (p < 0.001). Linear regression establishes a noteworthy negative correlation (p = 0.045): a 1-unit increase in empathy correlates with a 0.122-unit decrease in impostor syndrome. These findings underscore the intricate relationship between socio-professional factors, empathy, and impostor syndrome within the academic milieu, offering crucial insights for interventions and psychological support. The study aligns with the broader context of understanding mental health challenges in academia, emphasizing the imperative for ongoing support initiatives.

More than a checkpoint: the pedagogic potential of a dialogic approach to doctoral progression assessment

In the UK, all doctoral programmes are expected to include some form of periodic progression assessment, with individual institutions having autonomy to design and implement their own structures. Yet, despite the potential significance of this assessment to individual doctoral journeys, the design of progression assessment processes has previously received very limited attention. This paper reports on a study which investigated doctoral students’ experiences of progression assessment at one UK university, where the process involved both written and oral components. Utilising the concept of assessment for learning to support the analysis of narrative interviews with six doctoral students studying in the social sciences and humanities, the paper considers the pedagogic potential of doctoral progression assessment. The findings of the study indicated that the students perceived the dialogic aspects of the assessment to have the most significant potential for supporting learning and understanding, particularly where invitational, reflective, coaching format questions were utilised. The potential of assessment dialogue to present opportunities for reframing and disrupting thinking is explored, as well as the significance of this assessment in supporting autonomy, permission and motivation. The paper advocates careful consideration of both assessment design and practice in relation to these aspects.

International doctoral students’ perspectives on the qualities of supervisors: Expectations for intercultural supervision in Portuguese higher education

Considering internationalisation of doctoral education and the crucial role of supervisors in doctoral journeys, this paper explores the perspectives of international doctoral students regarding the qualities of a good supervisor. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 students from Angola, Brazil, East Timor and Mozambique, attending a PhD Program in Education at a Portuguese university. Results from thematic analysis show that students value intrapersonal, interpersonal and communicative qualities associated specifically to pursuing a doctorate overseas. Within those, they underline: knowledge of their origin contexts (cultural characteristics, educational backgrounds and research traditions); acknowledgement of the influence of those contexts in learning and research approaches; and flexibility regarding students’ variety of Portuguese language. Directly related to this, qualities such as personal and emotional support, availability, commitment and empathy are highly appreciated. Findings highlight the importance of supervisor professional development for intercultural doctoral supervision.

The entangled becoming in humanities doctoral education

PurposeInstitutional framings of doctoral education mostly do not recognize the existential dimension of doctoral experience. This paper aims to offer an expanded understanding of experiences of doctoral researchers in the humanities with the concept of entangled becoming. This concept is developed through an existential lens by using Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy – particularly his emphasis on emotions such as passion, anxiety and despair – and Denise Batchelor’s derived concept of vulnerable voices.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual framing is used for an empirical study based on ethnographic interviews with 10 doctoral researchers and supplementary observational notes from fieldwork at a university in Denmark. Two of the interview cases were selected to showcase variation across lived experiences and how doctoral researchers voice their entangled becoming.FindingsCommon experiences such as loneliness, insecurity(ies), vulnerability(ies) or passion for one’s research were identified across the interviews. On the other hand, this study shows that each doctoral journey in the humanities envelops a distinct web of entanglements, entailing distinct navigation, that makes each case a unique story and each doctoral voice a specific one.Originality/valueCombining an existential philosophical perspective with a qualitative study, the paper offers an alternative perspective for doctoral education. It connects the humanities doctoral experience to the broader condition of human existence and the sophisticated uniqueness of each researcher’s becoming.

Memory studies and design? The mnemotopic approach

At the beginning of the fourth wave of memory studies, the relationship with design appears poorly explored, although the memory project is fundamental for the contemporary and interdisciplinary past reframing. From this perspective, the article proposes an intrinsic but not yet evident link between memory studies and communication design for the territory, a young discipline that has taken up the “stratified place” as its own specific dimension, focusing on its valorization and visual translation. This novel connection is highlighted by the mnemotopic approach in which place and memory coexist in a unique meaning formation, supporting the remembrance of the territorial experience. Through a lexical transfer of the term mnemotope, generally used in other fields of knowledge (e.g. cultural anthropology), to design, it becomes a performative concept integrated into processes and artifacts as an active part of project development. The mnemotope as a plural object of territorial interpretation, sailing from Nora’s lieux de memoire, passing through Assmann’s cultural memory reflections, and landing in communication design, can be adopted as an alternative interpretative criterion that not only proposes a resematization of the memory of places but can be considered as a real medium for exploring the past that can also operate on a didactic level by being included in experimental design courses. In this context, the article will show how the mnemotopic approach has been developed during my personal doctoral journey and pedagogically implemented by the DCxT research group of the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano.

Exploring the expansion of British Practical Theology: an enquiry using c/Critical i/Intersubjectivity, conversation, and autoethnography as a methodological approach

ABSTRACT Can I, as a Brown British Muslim Woman, belong in British Practical Theology? Deploying conversational and autoethnographic methods, and using Courtney Goto’s c/Critical i/Intersubjectivity approach, I reflect on an eight-year doctoral journey. Unexpected insights and deeper awareness into the challenges encountering those engaging in intercultural bridge building are generated. First, I describe the research context and include a relevant précis of my background. Second, I summarise Goto’s c/Critical i/Intersubjectivity approach and emphasise some key ethical considerations in its use. Third, I advocate for bringing dimensions of ‘power, privilege and oppression’ [Goto 2018, 98] into the reflexive work of Practical Theology. Finally, I present a case study deploying c/Critical i/Intersubjectivity by British Practical Theologians and demonstrate the mutual reflexive effect of conversation and autoethnography as methodological approaches. The paper concludes by drawing attention to the enhanced personal and relational awareness created by engaging with those who appear to be different to ourselves. I propose that c/Critical i/Intersubjectivity influences and deepens individual and collective understanding of humanity, and creates space for mutual presence and engagement despite obvious and hidden differences. A call is made for Practical Theologians to undertake intercultural and interreligious exchange with the aim of getting to know one another.

The Need For The Development Of Emerging Postgraduate Supervisors

The demand for more doctoral education puts pressure on universities to increase the number of academics with doctoral degrees who can supervise the next generation of researchers. The Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF, 2013) indicates that being able to supervise is one of the outcomes of attaining a doctorate. Still, this study found this to be rarely the case. The study participants often took on the supervision role before they felt that their capacity had been sufficiently developed. Although emerging supervisors have been supervised during their doctoral journey, their new role may still be daunting. This study aims to provide evidence for institutions and academic developers to develop and support emerging supervisors. The qualitative study employs critical realism as an underlabourer and uses Margaret Archer's (1995) social realist framework to account for the interplay between structure, culture, and agency. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 54 participants from 20 South African institutions. The key finding is that supervisors were thrown into the deep end and relied on trial and error. They also had to supervise from experience while faced with high teaching workloads.

Developing a distance-based doctoral supervisory model: Inquiry over disrupted trajectories

This paper proposes a distance-based doctoral supervisory model to support students in the process of navigating self, agency, and emotions over their doctoral journey. The model emerged through our examination of the lived experiences of three Chinese female doctoral students who, though enrolled as internal students in our New Zealand university, were prevented by the pandemic from returning from their Spring Festival sojourn to China, and continued their study by distance. We employed narrative analysis to deeply engage with their stories shared in diaries and one-on-one interviews, alongside social media interactions. These revealed a strong commitment to study emanating from answerability toward their research projects, already underway, and agentive actions to maintain peer-to-peer academic and emotional support, enabling resilience and reflexivity about personal values and needs. Learning from this experience, we emphasize in our model the need to nurture important bonds between students, their peers and their supervisors in online environments.

Single-case learning analytics: Feasibility of a human-centered analytics approach to support doctoral education

Recent advances in machine learning and natural language processing have the potential to transform human activity in many domains. The field of learning analytics has applied these techniques successfully to many areas of education but has not been able to permeate others, such as doctoral education. Indeed, doctoral education remains an under-researched area with widespread problems (high dropout rates, low mental well-being) and lacks technological support beyond very specialized tasks. The inherent uniqueness of the doctoral journey may help explain the lack of generalized solutions (technological or otherwise) to these challenges. We propose a novel approach to apply the aforementioned advances in computation to support doctoral education. Single-case learning analytics defines a process in which doctoral students, researchers, and computational elements collaborate to extract insights about a single (doctoral) learner's experience and learning process. The feasibility and added value of this approach are demonstrated using an authentic dataset collected by nine doctoral students over a period of at least two months. The insights from this exploratory proof-of-concept serve to spark a research agenda for future technological support of doctoral education, which is aligned with recent calls for more human-centred approaches to designing and implementing learning analytics technologies.

Power, positionality and practitioner research: Schoolteachers' experiences of professional doctorates in education

AbstractThe growth, internationally, in professional doctorates over the last 25 years has been well documented, as are the forms, fields and disciplines that such doctorates embrace. Yet relatively little is known about the professional tensions teachers encounter, in relation to their positionality, when carrying out doctoral research in the schools where they work. This paper draws attention, not only to the contribution the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) makes to research as a whole, but also to the significance of teachers as invaluable members of the research community. Findings will be presented from interviews with 30 senior teachers from schools in England who are carrying out practitioner research as part of their doctoral studies. The paper draws attention to how power relations in the research process ferment the structural and agentic concerns of the participants in this study when discussing their researcher positionality. The scholarly significance of this study is its contribution to knowledge of how schools are increasingly becoming both sites of research and research‐rich environments. With its focus on researcher positionality the paper draws attention not just to the tensions and dilemmas these participants encounter on their doctoral journey, but also to the importance of teacher researchers and their role in research knowledge production.

A review of: The Power of Women. A doctor's journey of hope and healing written by Denis Mukwege

A review of: The Power of Women. A doctor's journey of hope and healing written by Denis Mukwege

Challenges Faced by Part-Time Doctoral Students in Managing Psychological Well-being: A Qualitative Study

The emergence of alarming statistics on Psychological Well Being (PWB) among doctoral students has received critical attention in the media and across the higher education sectors. Complex work in the doctoral journey has been perceived to be draining thus affecting students’ well-being which could lead to mental depression. Understanding relevant challenges in managing PWB could be a prime opportunity for intervention strategies in managing PWB among part-time doctoral students. This paper hopes to contribute to the dearth of studies of PWB on part-time doctoral students, particularly in Malaysia. A qualitative study would uncover detailed accounts and underlying issues on the challenges of managing PWB faced by part-time doctoral students in Malaysia. Purposive sampling and snowball sampling were used in this study. Five part-time doctoral students were selected and invited to participate in the semi-structured interview. The participants expressed their PWB by describing their experience in the doctoral journey. This study's findings concluded on two main themes involved in maintaining PWB; internal and external challenges. Personal occurrences represent the internal challenge, whereas the internal environment and academic process represent the sub-themes under external challenges. It is essential for doctoral students to focus on their personal occurrences especially maneuvering things that are within their control and dealing with external challenges in managing PWB during the doctoral journey.

How motherhood enhances and strains doctoral research/ers

ABSTRACT Motherhood is often positioned as incompatible with further education, and various cohort studies have revealed the many ways in which mothers are discouraged from and disadvantaged in higher education. Guided by role theory, we investigated the experiences of more than 1300 ‘PhD mums’ from across the world as they simultaneously navigate the roles of doctoral researcher and mother (or mother-like role). Using a mixed-methods survey design, qualitative and quantitative results were analysed to reveal the contradictions and complexities of the PhD mum experience, with motherhood both straining and enhancing the doctoral journey. Motherhood may place considerable strains on doctoral researchers, including on their ability to conduct and write-up their research. These strains are exacerbated by inequitable and gendered role expectations, finite resources, and limited support, often at the expense of doctoral researchers’ physical and mental well-being. However, it is not all negative, and PhD mums can bring a range of skills and attributes that are valuable to individual doctoral studies as well as doctoral programmes and institutions more broadly. The benefits also extend to the PhD mums themselves, their families, and their communities. This paper challenges unfounded assumptions about the commitment and ability of mothers to succeed in doctoral education, but also raises serious concerns about the role of institutions in perpetuating social inequalities while espousing commitment to diversity, equity, access, and inclusion.

Top 10 Tips for Doctoral Students in Physical Education: Navigating the Journey

Individuals who want to earn a doctoral degree aim to change or develop their careers. Some potential doctoral students have a clear goal to pursue a doctoral degree, some are uncertain if they can manage the rigor associated with a doctorate program, and others might have already been involved in their program. This article aims to provide insights and strategies for current and future doctoral students in physical education teacher education (PETE) during their doctoral journey. The article provides top ten tips to help current and prospective PETE doctoral students to be successful.

Promoting Effective Doctoral Supervision through Relational Pedagogy: The Supervisor as Shepherd and Counsellor in Doctoral Education

This paper examines relational pedagogy as an effective approach to promoting success in doctoral supervision. The author reflects on his relationship with his thesis supervisor and advocates for teachers and supervisors to consider ways in which relational pedagogy may become a key element and approach in doctoral supervision and education. It reveals how his doctoral supervisor cultivated a trusted shepherd-counsellor relationship that led to the expected outcomes. The study proposes that promoting shepherding and counselling roles in doctoral supervision is a supportive way to foster such rapport for successful candidature. The paper positions dialogue as a vital element of relational pedagogy. It sees the need for supervisors and higher educational institutions to adopt shepherding-counselling roles to provide students with the right assistance to become successful in their doctoral journey. Keywords: Doctoral Supervisor, Doctoral Education, Relational Pedagogy, Doctoral Candidate, Shepherding and Counselling

Qualitatively speaking: Deciding how much data and analysis is enough

As I traverse my (post) doctoral journey, reworking my thesis into publications, I was immersed again in a debate around the utility of the concept of data saturation. I believe this debate to be emblematic of the process of unlearning and relearning that unfolded during my doctoral journey, coming from a biomedical sciences background into qualitative educational research.

The dual journey of navigating the ‘awa of higher education’ from a Māori doctoral student’s lens

For many Māori students, staying in the main flow of the awa (river) is not easy in New Zealand’s mainstream education system. But with the right support mechanisms and structures in place, it is possible, for a Māori doctoral student to achieve educational success as Māori in higher education. This paper discusses what is entailed in the dual journey of a first in family, Māori doctoral student when completing a doctoral qualification alongside a Māori journey in strengthening connections within te Ao Māori (the Māori world). The narrative shares insights of the researcher’s experiences which led to the development of an Indigenous methodology model called ‘He Pūtauaki Model’. A number of key factors for ensuring her success as a Māori doctoral candidate was the continual support and guidance provided from kaumātua (elders), whānau (family), hapū (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe), over a four-year period of completing the doctoral journey, and when a Mahitahi approach was adopted by her supervisors and reinforced by other Te Ipukarea Research Institute postgraduate students made a difference for her in overcoming the challenges that an Indigenous Māori doctoral student can face when navigating the awa (structural mechanisms and psychosocial challenges) at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER

Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER

Developmental mentoring: tailoring a mentoring program to the changing needs of scholar-practitioner EdD students

ABSTRACT Scholar-practitioner doctoral students face a unique set of challenges and developmental milestones throughout their doctoral programs, calling for specialized support. Mentoring is one such support that provides academic, career, and psychosocial support to students throughout their doctoral journey. In this study, we implemented an innovative mentoring pathways program for second-year Doctorate of Education (EdD) students, consisting of monthly presentations and discussions led by mentors who are graduates of the EdD program. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with mentees. After analyzing the data, four themes were discovered: 1) the format of mentoring support is important to scholar-practitioner mentees, 2) mentees desire mentoring tailored to their developmental experiences, 3) mentees appreciate support from mentors and faculty, and 4) mentoring is an opportunity for mentees to network and connect. Recommendations are given on tailoring mentoring programs to the developmental needs of scholar-practitioner doctoral students.