Online Doctoral Students Research Articles

Use of Social Media and Artificial Intelligence Tools by Online Doctoral Students

Our paper aims to explore how doctoral EdD students in their thesis stage made use of digital technologies, social media (SM), and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. In this study, AI does not involve data on the use of the new generation of AI, which has been introduced in more recent years after this study took place. This paper refers to a 2nd stage qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews collected from research undertaken in 2018 into student use of digital technologies in an online professional doctorate programme. The original study utilised an exploratory case study approach, an online survey (n = 28), and a series of semi-structured interviews (n = 9). This study will add further qualitative findings and perspectives to those that emerged in the previous study. This study will help to provide new insights into the interview data that was used to inform the initial paper resulting from the research in 2018. We argue that the unique characteristics of online doctoral students as both individuals and learners determine the popularity of some digital tools and that, in order to make the best use of the full range available they need to develop new skills and a better understanding of the pedagogy associated with those digital tools and the value they can add to an educational context. This can be achieved through the provision of more systematic coaching and support systems. This in turn will contribute to enhancing students’ feelings of belonging to a real academic learning community and their self-confidence and autonomy as online learners in general and in their performance in a Viva in particular.

Strategies Used by Educational Technology Faculty to Mentor Online Doctoral Students in Research Experiences

ABSTRACT As online doctoral education continues to grow, faculty members are faced with mentoring an increasing number of students. To effectively support these students’ research projects, faculty mentors need to develop strategies that take into account the unique challenges of online environments. This study, based on Crawford et al. (2014) theoretical framework for online graduate mentoring, aimed to identify the strategies used by faculty members who advise online students in Educational Technology doctoral programs during research experiences. The data was collected through a survey completed by 24 mentors, and five of them also participated in individual interviews. These mentors were faculty members in online educational technology programs in the USA and Canada. The study found that faculty mentors used strategies associated with both the academic and psychological domains of Crawford et al.‘s framework. The practical implications of these findings are discussed in relation to enhancing the quality of mentoring in online doctoral education.

Collaboration, Socialization, and Support: Accountability Partners in an Online Doctoral Learning Environment

Non-traditional doctoral students encounter numerous challenges seeking a doctoral degree in an online learning environment. Non-traditional online doctoral students tend to be working adults who are integrating their online doctoral studies with the existing challenges of work and family. Effective online accountability partners must work within a framework of virtual mentoring competencies for online doctoral students to successfully collaborate, communicate, and learn together. The qualitative exploratory study explored the experiences of successful online doctoral students at working with accountability partners during their doctoral journey. The research question guiding the study was: How can accountability partner relationships be effective for online doctoral students when almost no face-to-face and in-person interaction takes place? The three themes emerging from the study addressed the online doctoral student's need for (1) collaboration, (2) socialization, and (3) support from their accountability partners. Study participants emphasized the many characteristics of a successful accountability partner relationship, including bidirectional support, feedback, communication, encouragement, cooperation, and collaboration. The study findings aligned with existing literature and illustrated the many challenges faced by online doctoral students that their more traditional student counterparts studying in a more traditional brick-and mortar university environment do not encounter. Numerous practical implications and recommendations resulted from this study. The researchers created the Collaboration, Socialization, and Support (CSS) framework using the thematic analysis of the coded interview results. The CSS framework is a practical model for creating and maintaining successful accountability partner relationship between online doctoral students.

Virtual Meetings: Fostering Self-Determined Learning to Connect Online Doctoral Students

Virtual Meetings: Fostering Self-Determined Learning to Connect Online Doctoral Students

Exploring Doctoral Writing Self-Efficacy and Apprehension in a Dissertation Writing Course

Aim/Purpose: This study explored changes in writing self-efficacy and writing apprehension among online doctoral students throughout their first dissertation writing course. By examining the facilitators and obstacles to online doctoral student writing success, we concluded that receiving specific, concrete, and iterative feedback is instrumental for the growth of doctoral students’ confidence during the early stages of the dissertation process. Background: Previous scholarship has recognized that the dissertation writing process is a key contributor to attrition rates in doctoral programs. However, there is limited research on how online doctoral students experience writing apprehension and self-efficacy during this crucial stage. Drawing upon self-efficacy theory as a framework, our study sought to fill this gap by investigating changes in these constructs among 53 participants as they composed their first two chapters. Methodology: This convergent mixed methods study employed both quantitative surveys and qualitative reflections collected before and after the completion of a one-term dissertation writing course intervention. We examined participants’ self-perceptions of their mechanics skills, essentials efficacy (overcoming difficulties), relational-reflective efficacy (connecting with others), and relationship building. Contribution: This study contributes to existing research on online doctoral student dissertation writing experiences by revealing the importance of specific, concrete, and iterative feedback in fostering students’ writing confidence. Findings: Our findings revealed small effect sizes in participants’ overall confidence levels related to their academic writing self-efficacy but no statistically significant changes. Nonetheless, qualitative data indicated positive experiences of growth in terms of scholarly proficiency development, which contributes to existing literature gaps. Recommendations for Practitioners: Faculty working with online doctoral students who are writing their dissertations should provide specific, concrete, and iterative feedback to support the growth of students’ writing confidence during the early stages of the dissertation process. Recommendation for Researchers: Future researchers on this topic should expand the scope of their focus beyond just the first term or course and conduct longitudinal studies that encompass different phases of dissertation work in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of changes in writing self-efficacy and apprehension among online doctoral students. Impact on Society: By providing specific, concrete, and iterative feedback to doctoral students during the dissertation writing process, faculty can empower them towards disciplinary mastery and expertise, enabling successful completion of the program and equipping them with expert knowledge to make a meaningful impact in their respective fields and industries. Future Research: Future research should expand the scope of the focus on doctoral student writing apprehension, anxiety, and self-efficacy to include other stages of the dissertation research and writing process, perhaps also examining these writing constructs and how they vary given student characteristics.

Assessing Online Doctoral Student Research Competencies

The purpose of this study was to investigate online education doctoral students’ perceptions of their research competencies. The researchers utilized the Scholar-Practitioner Research Development Scale (Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2018) which consisted of 24 Likert-based items to assess research competency in five areas: attitude toward or value of research, critical evaluation and application of research, research knowledge, research skills, and research dissemination. For each of the five research competencies students reported their competency at 4.0 or above (on a scale of 1- 5) each year, with students most strongly agreeing with statements related to the value of research, evaluation and application skills, and research knowledge. This study illuminates the development of research competencies in online doctoral students. Recommendations include using the Scholar-Practitioner Research Scale to assess program effectiveness, track program improvements, and identify gaps in the curriculum.

Faculty and Student Online Mentoring Preferences

Isolation of online doctoral students intensifies when they transition from coursework to the dissertation/capstone phase, limiting them to interacting with their mentors. A three-round modified Delphi study was conducted to examine mentoring preferences of online doctoral students and faculty. The first round provided qualitative data regarding the preferred mentoring practices for faculty and alumni. Round 1 qualitative data were organized into Likert questions and used in the second round, which resulted in data about frequency of mentoring practices for the same participants from Round 1. The third round provided data about importance of each preference rated by faculty and current students. Findings indicated a dichotomy was present in that mentees’ academic self-esteem appeared to be tied to faculty being responsive. Faculty emphasized mentee autonomy while mentees wanted frequent contact with faculty.

A systematic literature review on technology in online doctoral education

ABSTRACT Alongside the growing demand for doctoral degrees, there has been an increasing number of online doctoral programmes and online doctoral students enrolled across the globe. While the importance of mediating roles that communication technology plays in online doctoral education has been extensively documented, a comprehensive account of how and for what purpose online doctoral students use different technological tools has been lacking in the literature. To address the gap, the present authors have conducted a systematic literature review on doctoral students’ use of technology in distance programmes. The review results suggest that the range of technology used by online doctoral students is limited – asynchronous and synchronous communication technology for discussing and community building being predominantly top. Arguably more advanced technology was rarely discussed in the reviewed literature. How online doctoral students learn and use other information technology to support their research activities was largely unknown. Based on the results, the directions of future research efforts have been suggested.

Online Doctoral Cohort Mentors: Model Implementation and Evaluation

Doctoral students benefit extensively from direct mentorship throughout their degree programs and this mentorship can be particularly beneficial for doctoral students completing their degrees in the online format. This study provides an analysis of the implementation of a Doctoral Cohort Mentor Model at the Online Campus of a mid-sized University. Internal and external needs of online doctoral students were explored. Further, online faculty needs and the experience of the initial group of mentors were evaluated utilizing the focus group method. Data were examined utilizing qualitative coding procedures and the results are discussed in the context of relevant theories pertaining to internal and external aspects of motivation.

Virtual Faculty Strategies for Supporting Motivation of Online Doctoral Students

Our study focused on online faculty members and their perceptions of the strategies and activities they use to promote progress for and motivation in their online graduate students, particularly at the dissertation/doctoral study phase of the program. Results show high-achieving faculty members vary their strategies according to each students’ needs. High-achieving faculty members reach out to students often, offer encouragement throughout the process, and establish realistic goals.

Virtual Faculty Strategies for Supporting Motivation of Online Doctoral Students

Our study focused on online faculty members and their perceptions of the strategies and activities they use to promote progress for and motivation in their online graduate students, particularly at the dissertation/doctoral study phase of the program. Results show high-achieving faculty members vary their strategies according to each students’ needs. High-achieving faculty members reach out to students often, offer encouragement throughout the process, and establish realistic goals.

Listening to and Crafting Stories: Cultivating Activism in Online Doctoral Students

The Johns Hopkins online EdD program prepares students as scholar-practitioners who become leaders and agents of change across educational contexts. Advocating for equity and social justice requires our students to not only immerse themselves in the relevant literature and learn the traditional skills of applied research but to master the art of communication through a sort of storytelling. Storytelling, in this sense, represents a means to gather and analyze data and understand and integrate diverse perspectives to engage and persuade relevant stakeholders (Moezzi, Janda, & Rotmann, 2017). The Hopkins first-year EdD programming and coursework emphasize the use of deficit-free language to understand people and problems, consideration of diverse perspectives and structuring inquiry with a systems-approaches to explore contextual problems using a mixed methods research paradigms. Together, the program's approach to student learning and practice-oriented courses and dissertation research contribute to training scholar-practitioners as activists who ask relevant questions, draw on multiple perspectives to craft potential solutions, adapt to a variety of contexts and circumstances, engage with diverse stakeholders, reflect on their own assumptions, and admit to and learn from mistakes throughout the process. Through a detailed accounting and examination of the JHU onboarding features and processes, particular course content and assignments, as well as the interplay of these elements, this paper will demonstrate how attending to language, perspective taking, context, and research inquiry support the development of scholar-activists.

An Overview of Virtual Communities of Faculty Practice

Virtual communities of faculty practice (CoP) provide support for and supplement the demanding doctoral curriculum with the purpose of assisting doctoral students through a holistic support system. This virtual community provides a positive private environment where faculty engage, share, and discuss current research questions or issues to encourage scholarship and collegiality. This scholarly essay presents an overview of faculty virtual CoPs in the context of mentoring online doctoral students. Attention is given to the definition of communities of practice, Wenger’s communities of practice model, producing and sustaining communities of practice, and incorporation of virtual CoPs at the doctoral level.

Design, Development, and Evaluation of an Online Statistics Course for Educational Technology Doctoral Students: a Design and Development Case

The purpose of this design and development case is to document the design, development, and evaluation of a statistics course tailored for educational technology doctoral students in an online program. The course is intended to prepare online doctoral students to both consume and produce quantitative research in the field of educational technology using relevant and authentic learning experiences. This paper first outlined the course features used to engage students in the learning materials. Twenty doctoral students enrolled in this online statistics course provided relevant data on three occasions (pre-, mid-, and post-surveys) during a 16-week academic semester. Drawing from both quantitative and qualitative data sources, this paper demonstrates that the use of authentic and relevant datasets based on peer-reviewed publications from the field of educational technology coupled with engaging practice assignments, designed for students to exercise the use of various statistical techniques using SPSS, was a successful strategy. Students found learning about analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) along with factorial and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) in the same module overwhelming. Results showed that students’ level of statistics anxiety significantly decreased in three key areas. The discussion provides interpretations of the findings as well as our lessons learned.

Lived Experiences of Asian and Latinx Online Doctoral Students

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, Asian and Hispanic immigrants who have been living in the United States for ≥ 10 years has increased substantially. Yet, Asian and Latinx students are behind Caucasians in doctoral degree completion rates. Enhancing enrollment, time-to-completion rates, and decreasing attrition, are of national concern among promoters of higher educational for these groups. We conducted a phenomenological study to explore the lived experiences of seven Asian and 10 Latinx online doctoral students (N = 17). Participants were recruited using nonrandom purposive convenience sampling and snowball techniques. Data were collected by one of three members of the research team. The other two research team members independently coded and conducted the thematic analysis of the de-identified transcribed interviews and reached consensus for inter-rater reliability. The major findings were that both Asian and Latinx students experienced a sense of duty and rely on family to earn a doctoral degree. Asian students were typically not the first in their families to pursue a doctorate whereas Latinx students usually were. Asian students feel pressure to succeed in the “respectable professions” by their families. Latinx students rely on “cultural capital” to succeed. Language barriers were more of a challenge for Latinx students than for Asian students. Asian and Latinx students desire shorter timeframes for feedback. The research implications include that integrating a limited amount of synchronous teaching could improve their feeling of cohesiveness which coincides with collectivism. Also, shortening timeframes for feedback during the dissertation phase could impact time to completion and decrease attrition rates.

What about online doctoral students? A review of e-Learning literature

Recent increases in accessibility, enrollment in e-learning, and diversification of distance learning format delivery (such as MOOCs) have put e-learning in a state of perpetual evolution. The result is a dynamic environment where research as recent as five years ago may no longer be relevant. A review of contemporary e-learning research is needed to understand current trends in the industry of e-learning as well as determine where further research is needed. This article describes six themes identified in the literature by reviewing journal articles centric to e-learning from 2014 to 2019 using qualitative content analysis. The themes represent what is largely covered in the literature (e-learning anxiety, e-learning pedagogy, and student-centered models), and what is underserved in the literature?namely the dissemination and investigation of online doctoral programs. This article will briefly discuss these themes using highlighted works. The researchers will also explain the need to continue researching specialized e-learning subgroups, specifically online doctoral students.

Doctoral student persistence and progression: a program assessment

PurposeGlobally, traditional and online doctoral programs face difficulties with student persistence and progression. An online doctoral school implemented a first-year program sequence taught by a cadre of 20 specialized faculty members who engage in best practices to assist students in persisting and progressing toward program completion.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative program assessment using content analysis examined the program effectiveness of one online doctoral program's first-year program sequence. Two research questions guided this program assessment, they were: RQ1. Based on online doctoral students' perspectives, what motivators contribute to online doctoral student persistence and progression in an online doctoral program? RQ2. How do online faculty contribute to online doctoral student persistence and progression? Data collection included myriad of program metrics: content area meetings (CAMs); closing the loop assessment data; faculty and student end of course survey data; and faculty and student semistructured interviews.FindingsThe resultant themes indicated that students are motivated by support from family, friends and religious beliefs; and students persist based on support from fellow doctoral students and faculty members. Additional themes revealed that faculty members motivate students through building faculty–student relationships, individual coaching, providing university resources and through clarification of program requirements; and faculty members perceive that face-to-face doctoral residencies greatly contribute to student persistence and progression through interpersonal interaction and through improved clarity.Originality/valueImplications of this program assessment have far-reaching impact on how doctoral granting institutions can structure small cadres of faculty to develop interpersonal relationships with doctoral students with focus on support and development.

Achieving Critical Dialogue in Online Doctoral Programs: an Exploration of Student Perceptions and Experiences with Multiple Modalities

Critical pedagogy employs dialogue that is embodied, reflective, and authentic with aims to promote action toward social justice. Although online learning is well suited to support several characteristics of critical dialogue (i.e., participant diversity, student discussions, emphasis on reflection), it can also be impersonal and disembodied. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences and perceptions of online doctoral students in a course designed to facilitate critical dialogue about education. The course experimented with three discussion formats aimed at achieving critical dialogue: (a) traditional, text-based discussion board; (b) asynchronous video (voice thread), and (c) recorded small-group, synchronous video discussions followed by asynchronous discussion board interactions. In this paper, we share results from student surveys of three semesters of the course (n = 22 of 46 students enrolled). The findings suggest that students preferred synchronous video chats and perceived this format as most supportive of critical dialogue. Students, on average, rated the discussion board format as the least enjoyable, least engaging, and least supportive of critical dialogue. Students’ open-ended comments emphasized that the discussion board and voice thread formats promoted reflection but were less supportive of interactive dialogue. We conclude by discussing implications regarding course design and student support for online instructors who aim to promote critical dialogue in online courses.

My wellness is

Purpose As online education proliferates, little attention has been given to understanding non-cognitive success factors, such as wellness, in online graduate student success. To begin to address this gap in understanding, this paper aims to explore the experiences of doctoral student wellness within the context of online distance education. Doctoral students, and their instructor, in an advanced qualitative research course sought to use collective autoethnography to address the following questions: How do the authors perceive the wellness as doctoral students engaged in distance education, and how do the authors understand the influence of the doctoral program cultures on the perceptions of the own wellness? Design/methodology/approach This paper emerged from a 12 week advanced qualitative research course where students opted to engage in a poetic arts-based collective autoethnography to reflect on and analyze their experience of wellness as doctoral students taking online courses. Data collection included the use of reflective journaling, creation of “My Wellness Is” poetry, and weekly group debriefing. Journals and poems were analyzed individually, then collectively. First and second cycle coding techniques were used, with the first cycle including process and descriptive coding and second round coding involving pattern coding. Findings Through first and second round coding, three primary themes emerged: positionality as an element of wellness, the role of community in maintaining wellness and awareness and action regarding wellness. Research limitations/implications Due to the inherent nature of qualitative research, and specifically autoethnographic methods, the findings of this study may be difficult to generalize to the broader online graduate student population. Future research on this topic may use the experiences explored in this study as a basis for the development of future quantitative studies to measure the extent of these findings in the broader population. Practical implications This paper includes implications for the development of interventions that may support wellness in graduate students in online environments including support interventions from faculty advisors, leveraging academic curriculum to promote wellness, and suggestions for building community among online graduate students. Social implications As technology advances, online education is quickly becoming a leading mechanism for obtaining a graduate education. Scholarship in this discipline has primarily focused on academic outcomes of online students and has largely focused on undergraduate populations. This paper broadens the conversation about online education by illustrating a non-cognitive dimension of the student experience, i.e. wellness, through the perspective of graduate students. Originality/value This paper addresses a gap in the current understanding of online graduate student experiences and outcomes using methods that provide vivid illustrations of the nuanced experience of online doctoral students.

Fostering Motivation When Virtually Mentoring Online Doctoral Students

Online learning in higher education has become commonplace as more working adults and nontraditional aged students return to pursue advanced degrees. Graduate education, specifically, has grown in recent years (Allen & Seaman, 2014), including doctoral degrees. Pursuing a doctoral degree requires writing a culminating paper (e.g., dissertation, doctoral study, capstone study). Writing and conducting such a study requires support and mentorship from faculty of the program. Establishing a positive relationship in which the student feels supported by the mentor is crucial to encourage dialogue and motivation throughout the process. In this case study, online doctoral students’ perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness were investigated, along with how these connections with their dissertation chair influenced students’ motivation to make progress. Results show that feelings of relatedness were crucial to the students’ motivation to continue in the doctoral study and dissertation process. Also, internal locus of control motivated students to complete their doctoral study and dissertation.