Graduate School Experience Research Articles

‘For once I Felt Useful’: A Self Study of A Physical Education Teacher Navigating School Culture through Professional Learning Communities during Induction

ABSTRACT Teachers in contemporary schools carry a host of work-related responsibilities. As such, the act of teaching (delivering content) is only one aspect of being a teacher. Interactions with colleagues, administrators, and students combine to form a complex socialization process as teachers, especially novice teachers in their induction years, learn to navigate the sociopolitical climate and culture of schools. In many schools, professional learning communities (PLCs) are utilized as one method for continuous professional development, but these formations introduce unique considerations for a teacher’s socialization because of the various ways they are structured. Guided by Occupational Socialization Theory, this self-study explores Molly’s experiences navigating two school cultures during her induction years. Molly’s graduate school experience coincided with her induction years of teaching in the K-12 setting. As Molly learned more about PLCs in her master’s program, she desired to learn how she could more fully contribute to them. Molly found her reflections returning repeatedly to the notions of belonging and community while striving to find her way as a beginning teacher. Implications from this study include the necessity to conceptualize teaching as more than delivering content. Schools are political spaces with built-in mechanisms designed to reproduce the culture. Teachers in physical education have often reported feeling marginalized within the school community. Physical education teachers may need more experience with cross-curricular collaborative work designed to improve the learning and well-being of young people. Learning how to specifically contribute to and navigate PLC school structures is perhaps underemphasized in teacher preparation programs.

Graduate to Professional: Career Conversations by Early Career Professionals to Support HFE Students

Career opportunities for students in HFE, and related fields are plentiful across academia, government, and industry, but a graduate student choosing a career has limited opportunities to understand what these careers involve, especially as an early career professional. This gap often results in students having to make a career choice with little information about what to expect in their new jobs. Early career professionals (here referring to those with <4 years of professional experience) who are experienced enough in their professional lives but close enough to remember their graduate school experiences are in a unique position to offer advice to graduate students about motivations/experiences in graduate school that shaped their career choices, and their current responsibilities. Additionally, with the COVID-19 pandemic, starting a new job and establishing a career that is remote/hybrid and poses new challenges which will be addressed by the panelists, many of whom onboarded under these circumstances.

The Racial Contract: Challenging White Supremacy in Sociological Theories and Providing a Global Theory for Race

In The Racial Contract Charles Mills argues that the social contract is an epistemological theory that is steeped in white supremacy. I do two things in this essay. First, I use my personal experiences in graduate school to show how gate keeping in academia is still perpetuated via promoting scholarship that was created for white experiences by white scholars. I use Mills’ work to highlight how scholars of color who study communities of color are still struggling with theoretical frameworks that do not adequately explain or represent the lived experiences of the populations they are studying. In the second portion of the essay, I call on race scholars in the United States to think more broadly about colonialism and global racism, something that Charles Mills advocates for in The Racial Contract.

Mentoring Relationships in Academe: An Examination of URM Graduate School Experience

Recent research has provided evidence that underrepresented racial minorities receive substantially less support than their White and Asian counterparts from academic advisors. This presents a critical issue: beyond providing custodial duties, advisors are also known to supply their current and former students with intangible support such as advocacy, coaching, and ongoing support in graduate school and their early careers. Hence, to better understand how to retain a diverse faculty in the professoriate, I examine the circumstances in which an advisor is likely to take on a mentoring role in the advising relationship, i.e., one that extends beyond their custodial duties, for White and Asian versus for underrepresented racial minority doctoral students. In doing so, I extend the mentoring literature, showing that, in the context of academia, the progression of mentorship through distinct stages (i.e., initiation, cultivation, and separation or redefinition) cannot be understood without considering what takes place in the early stages of the relationship through graduate school and into the first academic job of the advisee. To better understand the behavioral processes that define the progression of advising relationships, I use a multi-method design including a survey and the construction of a database of research publications conducted jointly by junior faculty members and their former dissertation advisors in the context of a business school setting. In examining the development and transformation of the relationship between the advisee and advisor, I shed light on underrepresented racial minorities’ career progression in the academic pipeline.

Paso a paso se va muy lejos: Traveling the Path with AFS

<i>Paso a paso se va muy lejos</i>: Traveling the Path with AFS

It’s a Vibe: understanding the graduate school experiences of Black male engineering faculty

PurposeIn spite of ongoing and recent initiatives aimed at broadening participation in engineering, the representation of diverse groups of learners in engineering graduate programs in the USA remains a challenge. Foregrounding the voices of 26 Black male engineering faculty, this study aims to investigate how institutions might recruit and retain more Black men in engineering graduate programs.Design/methodology/approachFor this study, inductive thematic analysis was used.FindingsThe authors show that three themes, namely, representation as an asset, invested mentors and faculty, and supportive peer networks described as the “Vibe” manifest as crucial elements for successful recruitment and retention of Black men in engineering graduate programs.Originality/valueThese findings are meant to augment the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion in engineering graduate programs and to address a dearth of published research on the Black male engineering population. This work is also meant to help institutions conceptualize ways to create a “Vibe” that might be transferable to their institution’s sociocultural context.

Stress-Related Disorders of Family Members of Patients Admitted to the Intensive Care Unit With COVID-19

The psychological symptoms associated with having a family member admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) during the COVID-19 pandemic are not well defined. To examine the prevalence of symptoms of stress-related disorders, primarily posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in family members of patients admitted to the ICU with COVID-19 approximately 90 days after admission. This prospective, multisite, mixed-methods observational cohort study assessed 330 family members of patients admitted to the ICU (except in New York City, which had a random sample of 25% of all admitted patients per month) between February 1 and July 31, 2020, at 8 academic-affiliated and 4 community-based hospitals in 5 US states. Having a family member in the ICU with COVID-19. Symptoms of PTSD at 3 months, as defined by a score of 10 or higher on the Impact of Events Scale 6 (IES-6). A total of 330 participants (mean [SD] age, 51.2 [15.1] years; 228 [69.1%] women; 150 [52.8%] White; 92 [29.8%] Hispanic) were surveyed at the 3-month time point. Most individuals were the patients' child (129 [40.6%]) or spouse or partner (81 [25.5%]). The mean (SD) IES-6 score at 3 months was 11.9 (6.1), with 201 of 316 respondents (63.6%) having scores of 10 or higher, indicating significant symptoms of PTSD. Female participants had an adjusted mean IES-6 score of 2.6 points higher (95% CI, 1.4-3.8; P < .001) than male participants, whereas Hispanic participants scored a mean of 2.7 points higher compared with non-Hispanic participants (95% CI, 1.0-4.3; P = .002). Those with graduate school experience had an adjusted mean score of 3.3 points lower (95% CI, 1.5-5.1; P < .001) compared with those with up to a high school degree or equivalent. Qualitative analyses found no substantive differences in the emotional or communication-related experiences between those with high vs low PTSD scores, but those with higher scores exhibited more distrust of practitioners. In this cohort study, symptoms of PTSD among family members of ICU patients with COVID-19 were high. Hispanic ethnicity and female gender were associated with higher symptoms. Those with higher scores reported more distrust of practitioners.

Love, loss and a doctorate: an autoethnography of grieving while writing a PhD

ABSTRACT The death of a parent can strike at our very core, rattling our sense of self and raising questions of how we could possibly continue beyond their departure. For the PhD student, parental loss can act as a significant disruption, saddling them with a heavy emotional toll to carry alongside the typical challenges of completing a thesis. Yet, parental death can also be transformative, providing the doctoral student with a powerful reason to persevere. Through an autoethnographic account of losing my father during my PhD, I reveal how parental death, and the desolation it engenders, can be transformed into a productive influence for the doctoral journey. This work contributes to international literature on parental loss, grief and graduate school experiences, while revealing how dialoguing with the dead can act as an effective learning tool. Methodologically, it demonstrates the usefulness of autoethnography for higher education scholars transnationally.

Professional development and career-preparedness experiences of STEM Ph.D. students: Gaps and avenues for improvement.

This study presents the experiences of current science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) Ph.D. students and alumni with respect to professional development opportunities in their Ph.D. training. Specifically, it investigates if and how the Ph.D. training supports graduates to pursue non-academic and non-R&D roles, which have become increasingly common career paths post-graduation. A mixed-methods questionnaire was developed to obtain quantitative and qualitative data regarding the graduate school experiences of current Ph.D. students and recent Ph.D. graduates pursuing diverse career paths. The study investigates the values, needs, and conceptions of professional development from the student perspective, as well as the contributions of peers and mentors in graduate school towards their professional development. Experiences of Ph.D. alumni are used to identify the barriers for transitioning to the first job post-graduation and to provide an assessment of the current professional development opportunities in Ph.D. programs. It is reported that although Ph.D. training allowed alumni to develop a robust skillset that includes research, teaching, and scientific writing; some common barriers associated with obtaining a job post-graduation were lack of awareness about career options, limited or no professional networks outside academia, and a lack of preparation and support for non-academic job transitions. Through analyzing the student perspective on various aspects of professional development, the study identifies gaps and avenues for improvement for professional development in Ph.D. training, including increased awareness of diverse career paths for STEM PhDs, increased networking opportunities for PhD students with sectors outside academia, embedding professional development in the PhD curriculum, and others; so that programs can support students in entering the labor market in a variety of careers that extend beyond academia and traditional R&D jobs, using interventions that resonate with the students and meet their needs.

A Survey of Doctoral Internships Offering Clinical Neuropsychology Training: Updated Expectations for Competitive Applicants.

The specialty of clinical neuropsychology has experienced significant professional growth and increasing standardization of educational and training guidelines over the past 20years. Previous literature demonstrated the importance of routine distribution of selection criteria used by training directors and supervising neuropsychologists for competitive applicants aiming to specialize in neuropsychology during internship. This study examined supervisors' updated expectations for competitive applicants from a more diverse sample of doctoral internship programs offering neuropsychological training. These data also provide cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons to help trainees tailor their graduate training experiences. The sample included training directors and/or supervising neuropsychologists from 80 internship programs (73.4% of submitted surveys). Spearman correlations, analyses of variance, and chi-square tests of independence were conducted for cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons. Clinical experience in assessment and the personal interview were consistently the two most prioritized criteria across all groups, whereas prioritization of the additional criteria was variable based on the program's characteristics. Internship programs generally preferred practica experience at university-affiliated medical centers, Veterans Affairs medical centers, and private/community-based hospitals. University-affiliated medical centers and internships offering ≥50% neuropsychology training showed similar preferences for applicants with a depth and breadth of graduate school experience in neuropsychology. Longitudinally, the applicant expectations for programs offering ≥50% neuropsychology training remained largely unchanged between 2000 and 2020. This study updated expectations for competitive applicants from a diverse sample of neuropsychology training programs, underscored the importance of fit between trainee and program, and demonstrated consistency over time for trainees seeking neuropsychology training during internship.

Social and Professional Impact of Learning Communities Within the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate Program at Michigan State University.

At Michigan State University (MSU), the AGEP learning community features the participation of over 70% of the African-American, Latinx, and Native-American under-represented minorities (URM), also referred to as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) doctoral students in fields sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Monthly learning community (LC) meetings allow AGEP participants to create dialogues across disciplines through informal oral presentations about current research. The learning communities also offer opportunities to share key information regarding graduate school success and experience; thus providing a social network that extends beyond the academic setting. At MSU, AGEP also provides an interdisciplinary and multigenerational environment that includes graduate students, faculty members, post-docs and prospective graduate students. Using monthly surveys over a 4-year period, we evaluated the impact of this AGEP initiative focusing on the utility of the program, perceptions of departmental climate, career plans and institutional support. Findings indicate that AGEP participants consider their experiences in the program as vital elements in the development of their professional identity, psychological safety, and career readiness. Experiences that were identified included networking across departments, focus on career placement, involvement in minority recruitment and professional development opportunities. Additionally, AGEP community participants resonated with the “sense of community” that is at the core of the MSU AGEP program legacy. In this article, we proposed a variation of Tomlinson’s Graduate Student Capital model to describe the AGEP participants’ perceptions and experiences in MSU AGEP. Within this 4-year period, we report over 70% graduation rate (completing with advanced degrees). More than half of Ph.D. students and almost 30% of master’s degree students decided to pursue academia as their careers. In addition, we found a high satisfaction rate of AGEP among the participants. Our analysis on graduate student capital helped us identify motivating capital development by years spent at MSU and as an AGEP member. These findings may provide some insight into which capitals may be deemed important for students relative to their experiences at MSU and in AGEP and how their priorities change as they transition toward graduation.

Reflections on Six Decades of Research

A brief autobiographical history is presented covering my 57-year career as a criminologist. I begin with my early childhood experiences, growing up during World War II, my undergraduate and graduate school experiences, and my early career years at San Diego State University and the University of Colorado, Boulder. I then discuss two of the major themes in my research developed during these early career years: self-report measures of delinquent behavior and the Integrated Theory of delinquency. My later career years are described, and the third major theme of my work, the identification and promotion of effective delinquency prevention programs, is discussed.

Factors That Influence Career Choice among Different Populations of Neuroscience Trainees.

Specific groups have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce, especially academia. Career choice is a multifactorial process that evolves over time; among all trainees, expressed interest in faculty research careers decreases over time in graduate school, but that trend is amplified in women and members of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (Golde and Dore, 2004; Fuhrmann et al., 2011; Sauermann and Roach, 2012; Gibbs et al., 2014; Roach and Sauermann, 2017). This work was designed to investigate how career interest changes over time among recent neuroscience PhD graduates, and whether differences in career interests are associated with social identity, experiences in graduate school and postdoctoral training, and personal characteristics. We report results from a survey of 1479 PhD neuroscientists (including 16% underrepresented scientists and 54% women scientists). We saw repeated evidence that individual preferences about careers in general, and academic careers specifically, predict current career interest. These findings were moderated by social identity and experiences in graduate school and postdoctoral training. Our findings highlight the important influence of the advisor in shaping a trainee’s career path, and the ways in which academic culture is perceived as unwelcoming or incongruent with the values or priorities of certain groups. They suggest several areas for positive growth, ways to change how we think about the impact of mentorship, and policy and programmatic interventions that extend beyond trying to change or “fix” the individual and instead recognize the systemic structures that influence career choices.

Equity for women and underrepresented minorities in STEM: Graduate experiences and career plans in chemistry

Recent events prompted scientists in the United States and throughout the world to consider how systematic racism affects the scientific enterprise. This paper provides evidence of inequities related to race-ethnicity and gender in graduate school experiences and career plans of PhD students in the top 100 ranked departments in one science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) discipline, chemistry. Mixed-model regression analyses were used to examine factors that might moderate these differences. The results show that graduate students who identified as a member of a racial/ethnic group traditionally underrepresented in chemistry (underrepresented minorities, URM) were significantly less likely than other students to report that their financial support was sufficient to meet their needs. They were also less likely to report having supportive relationships with peers and postdocs. Women, and especially URM women, were significantly less likely to report supportive relationships with advisors. Despite their more negative experiences in graduate school, students who identified as URM expressed greater commitment to finishing their degree and staying in the field. When there was at least one faculty member within their departments who also identified as URM they were also more likely than other students to aspire to a university professorship with an emphasis on research. Men were significantly more likely than women to express strong commitment to finishing the PhD and remaining in chemistry, but this difference was stronger in top-ranked departments. Men were also more likely than women to aspire to a professorship with an emphasis on research, and this difference remained when individual and departmental-level variables were controlled.

A Critical Study of Women Graduate Student Experiences in Agricultural and Extension Education

The American Association for Agricultural Education (AAAE) aims to build a more inclusive and collaborative organizational culture. In 2017, women faculty and graduate students comprised 37.8% of the total AAAE membership. The need to recruit and retain diverse faculty and students in agricultural and extension education (AEE) remains if the AAAE organization is to achieve its goal. Women faculty experiences in AEE were studied previously, yet less attention was given to women graduate students. The purpose of this critical inquiry study was to develop a profile of women graduate students in postsecondary AEE by describing the mentoring experiences and organizational climate for women graduate students in the profession. Four emergent themes described women graduate students’ experiences in AEE: (a) reflections on graduate school, (b) realities of graduate school, (c) future in academia, and (d) the pursuit of mentorship. Participant reflection on the graduate school experience was conflicting. The realities of graduate school in AEE described a man’s world, the Good Ol’ Boys Club, microaggressions toward women, and the questioning of women’s competency. Participants seemed confident, unsure, or concerned about a career in postsecondary AEE. Faculty and fellow graduate students are considered encouraging mentors, but a void of women leaders to serve as role models in AEE was identified. AAAE should promote a more positive, inclusive, and intentionally mentored graduate school experience to retain more women in postsecondary AEE. More critical research related to graduate student experiences is encouraged to improve the inclusivity of the AEE profession.

A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 as a Community of Practice

With the onset of COVID-19 in the Spring of 2020, my graduate school experience changed abruptly. That disruption, however, led to my involvement in the creation and implementation of the digital archive A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of COVID-19 (JOTPY). In this article, I describe the creation of both the archive and the community of practice that developed, and how that community of practice upended traditional models found within higher education. I also describe the processes that created a space within the archive for educators to use, both as a repository and teaching tool. These processes could then be replicated to serve other needs, such as creating a space for museums, creating exhibits or creating a page within JOTPY to highlight a group. By framing the work of A Journal of the Plague Year as a community of practice, I show how the community worked toward shared goals while learning from each other along the way to create a rapid-response, online digital collection during a worldwide pandemic.

Nuanced navigation: narratives of the experiences of Black ‘All but Dissertation’ (ABD) women in the academy

In this article, the authors examine the experiences that contribute to the delayed completion of doctoral programs among Black women. Building upon prevailing applications of doctoral student socialization, this study explores the ways race and gender intersect to shape the graduate school experiences of Black women pursuing EdD and PhD degrees. Semi-structured interviews with current graduate students and doctoral degree recipients reveal that the intersecting identities held by Black women are largely ignored during interactions with graduate faculty and peers, complicating the graduate school socialization process. Gendered priorities constrained time available to dedicate to studies, particularly during the writing stage. Black women described efforts to navigate dominant culture communication styles and the necessity to create networks of their own to overcome these challenges and move towards degree attainment. Implications for institutional policy and practice are shared.

The Hawthorne Society, The Scarlet Letter, and Me

The Hawthorne Society, <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, and Me

일반대학원 교육학과 석사과정생의 대학원 학습경험과 진로에 관한 연구

본 연구는 연구중심대학과 교육중심대학 일반대학원의 교육학과 석사과정 학생들과 교수들이 인지하는 대학원 석사과정의 목적과 기대, 대학원 학습경험과 진로 탐색 과정을 면담을 활용하여 심층적으로 분석하였다. 연구의 주요결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 석사과정에 진학하는 학생들의 진학 동기는 일반대학원이 추구하는 ‘학문후속세대 양성’의 목적 즉, ‘연구에 대한 관심’, ‘연구자가 되기 위한’ 동기에서부터 ‘제2의 인생을 준비하기 위한 과정’, ‘취업을 준비하기 위해서’ 등 상대적으로 다양하고 광범위하게 나타나고 있으나 교수들은 ‘학문후속세대 또는 전문가 양성을 위한 단계’로 인식하는 경향이 나타난다. 둘째, 석사과정생들은 ‘연구자’, ‘학생’, ‘프로젝트 보조자’ 등의 역할과 대학원 공부에 대한 기대 사이에서 정체성의 혼란을 경험하기도 한다. 특히 방임적인 대학원 문화 속에서 학생들의 혼란은 더욱 가중되는 것으로 나타난다. 셋째, 석사과정 학생의 진로에 대한 교수의 상담 및 지도는 거의 부재한 것으로 나타나며, 교수들은 석사학위가 가지는 노동시장의 가치를 매우 낮게 인식하고 있었다. 따라서 이러한 연구 결과는 일반대학원 석사과정 운영에 있어 대학 특성과 학생 요구를 반영한 구체적인 교육과정 및 학사관리 방안, 그리고 진로 준비와 진로에 대한 수퍼비전이 필요함을 시사한다.

Working through grief.

I never imagined my graduate school experience would be so heavily impacted by a personal crisis. Yet, during the second year of my Ph.D. program, the COVID-19 pandemic marked the beginning of the most difficult chapter of my life. My university shut down, I moved out of my roommate-filled house to protect my immunocompromised partner, and I lost my older brother to suicide. As the dust started to settle, I went through an unexpected breakup: My partner was going to Alaska, where I had planned to join him for the summer, and he ended our relationship days before his departure. Within a span of 2 months, my life had become nearly unrecognizable. > “For me, goal setting and task completion are forms of self-care.” I was overwhelmed by heartbreak and the feeling that my world had fallen apart. My sense of time all but disappeared, and my mind went into overdrive to process the rapid succession of losses. To make matters worse, I didn't even have the comfort of friends from closer than 6 feet. My adviser told me to take the personal time I needed, and other graduate students took over my teaching responsibilities for the rest of the semester. I visited my family in the immediate aftermath of my brother's death. I also met regularly with my therapist and, in the weeks that followed, I gave myself time to process my grief in other ways, such as by regularly calling friends and family and going on long runs and bike rides. Well-meaning friends and family suggested I take a leave of absence from my Ph.D. program. But I didn't think that was a good idea. I feared that too much unstructured time would cause me to dwell on past events outside of my control, which would not be good for my mental health. On a more practical level, I needed my graduate stipend, and the last thing I wanted was to add financial instability to my worries. So I stuck with my program, taking each day as it came. At first, I attempted to work on my dissertation. But preparing for qualifying exams and planning an international field season that—given the pandemic—might not even happen felt overwhelming. Through a process of trial and error, I found small projects, unrelated to my research, that consumed me and gave me a sense of moving forward without driving me to burnout. I sat down and wrote science communication pieces that I had been meaning to tackle for the past 2 years. I reached out to old connections and potential collaborators to strengthen my professional network. And I took an online course that taught me how to learn more effectively. Some may argue that if I could work on side projects, then I could also work on my dissertation. Logically, I can't disagree. But grieving and healing are not logical processes so much as intuitive ones. Each time I thought about diving back into my research, it filled me with panic—not how I want to feel about the work I love so much. So, I gave myself permission to wait and try again in a few days. In the meantime, my small projects reassured me that I was capable of setting and achieving goals. They also helped me see my own creativity and resilience in a time of crisis—skills that I had worked hard to develop during my first year of grad school, when I struggled with depression. Nearly 4 months have passed since my brother's death, and I still break down at certain reminders of him. Yet, with the help of an incredible support network, I am moving through the grief of his passing and my other losses. Slowly but surely, I'm also developing the mental space to work on my core grad school tasks. I'm now spending the bulk of my workdays studying for my qualifying exams, which I'm slated to take in September. In the midst of a crisis, it can be difficult to disentangle what you think you need from what you actually need. “Do what you need to take care of yourself” is a nice sentiment, but it didn't help me. I needed a program. My crisis taught me that I benefit from daily doses of healthy distractions—and that, for me, goal setting and task completion are forms of self-care. Yet I'm grateful I had a chance to find my own way forward without the pressure of a predetermined timeline. I hope other students dealing with crises can be given the same freedom.