4,455 research outputs found
Pursuing Success in a Hybrid PhD Nursing Program
No full textBackground:
Little is known about hybrid PhD nursing students\u27 experiences. Method:
The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the experiences of PhD nursing students in a hybrid program using a convergent mixed methods design. Recent nursing PhD alumni (n = 18), and current PhD students (n = 4) were recruited at a research-intensive university in the southwestern United States. Results:
Four metainferences were identified: (1) the facilitator of faculty as both advisors and mentors; (2) the facilitator of peers as support, motivation, and a source of advice that preceded advisors; (3) the barrier of receiving conflicting feedback from advisory and dissertation committees; and (4) the barrier of not understanding the PhD student process. Conclusion:
Peer support is fundamental for hybrid PhD nursing student success; conflicting feedback and not understanding the process are significant barriers. Strategies are recommended to mitigate barriers to facilitate hybrid PhD nursing students\u27 success. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(5):328–331.
Dispelling the myth: comparable duration and impact of research training for MD-PhD and PhD graduates
No full textThe average time to degree for completing a life sciences PhD in the United States is longer for single-degree than dual-degree trainees, supporting a perception that the PhD training of MD-PhDs is less rigorous or fulsome. To determine whether degree format influences the duration and impact of graduate training, we analyzed data for the 2011–2016 graduates of 3 Harvard Medical School PhD programs. Linear mixed effects models were used to determine the association between degree type (MD-PhD vs. PhD) and research outcomes, including time to degree, time to thesis defense, and publications submitted during the PhD. Although pursuing an MD-PhD was associated with a 1.5-year shorter time to PhD degree, basing this calculation on the official PhD period does not account for completion of early PhD requirements, including research rotations and qualifying coursework, during the first 2 years of medical school. There was no association between degree format and total number of first-author or overall publications, though pursuing a dual degree was associated with increased impact metrics of published papers. The results highlight that despite the seemingly shorter PhD durations of MD-PhD graduates based on graduate program enrollment period, research training is on par with their single-degree peers, rendering MD-PhD graduates well equipped to become successful scientific investigators
PhD graduates pursuing careers beyond academia: a scoping review
No full textAs the issue of PhD graduates (PhDs) pursuing careers beyond academia gains attention, the existing literature remains disparate and fragmented. In this scoping review, we examine how this phenomenon has been studied over the last two decades. Drawing on 71 publications, we used science mapping and content analyses to synthesise findings and identify research gaps. Eight dominant research foci emerged: outcomes of doctoral education, industry-oriented PhD programmes, career development initiatives, PhDs’ career choices/intentions, PhDs’ employment, transitions to non-academic sectors, labour-market demand, and employer perceptions of PhDs. This literature primarily reflects Western perspectives, emphasises STEM fields, and highlights broad trends concerning PhDs’ career preferences and destinations. Most publications draw on descriptive methods, suggesting an exploratory and under-theorised field. Gaps remain in understanding PhDs’ subjective experiences (particularly from social sciences and underrepresented groups), non-academic stakeholders’ perspectives, and the effectiveness of institutional career-support mechanisms. Future research should prioritise these areas to identify best practices in preparing PhDs for diverse careers. However, our findings show that a cultural shift within academia is needed to normalise diverse career paths, alongside formal institutional support and stronger collaborations with non-academic sectors. This paper advances the discussion on equipping PhDs for an increasingly complex and competitive career landscape
Ability, academic climate, and going abroad for work or pursuing a PhD
No full textWe investigate whether highly able students are being creamed off from Dutch universities. Therefore, we examine the relation between ability and the destination of recent graduates of Dutch universities. Students can choose to continue their academic career by investing in a PhD degree instead of working, taking into account that both options can be realized in the Netherlands as well as abroad. Using a data set of workers and PhD students who recently graduated from Dutch universities, we simultaneously estimate two probit equations, one for the migration decision and one for the choice between working and pursuing a PhD. We take into account that both decisions can be affected by the climates in certain fields of study and universities to promote going abroad and starting a PhD. Our findings indicate that highly able graduates are significantly more likely than average graduates to go abroad. They also invest more often in a PhD programme, which is positively correlated with their likelihood to go abroad. The odds of going abroad and participating in a PhD programme are shown to be associated with control variables indexing the climates promoting going abroad and starting PhD study
Ability, academic climate, and going abroad for work or pursuing a PhD
No full textWe investigate whether a creaming off of highly able students from Dutch universities is taking place. Therefore, we examine the relation between ability and the destination of recent graduates of Dutch universities. Students can choose to continue their academic career by investing in a PhD degree instead of working, taking into account that both options can be realized in the Netherlands as well as abroad. We also investigate whether these choices are affected by the climate in certain fields of study and universities. Using a data set of workers and PhD students who recently graduated from Dutch universities two probit equations are estimated simultaneously, one for the migration decision and one for the choice between working and pursuing a PhD. Our findings indicate that highly able graduates are significantly more likely than average graduates to go abroad. They invest more often in a PhD programme, which is positively correlated with their likelihood to go abroad. In addition, the climate promoting going abroad and starting PhD study is shown to have positive effects on the odds of going abroad and participating in a PhD programme. This particularly holds for the highly able
Invisible students: The lived experiences of international PhD students who are mothers of dependent children
No full textAcademic women have long asserted that the university community ignores the issues they face when combining their studies with work commitments and maternal responsibilities. Recent studies in this field indicate women encounter many obstacles when pursuing an academic journey. These challenges encompass the struggles involved with fulfilling a number of roles – particularly those created by motherhood. Nevertheless, there has been relatively little research into how international PhD student-mothers manage to reconcile the tensions between their studies and the demands of their personal lives. Earlier literature has not focussed on the challenges faced by international PhD student-mothers when they are attempting to integrate into a new society and a different culture while studying and/or working and looking after their children. This study provides a feminist perspective to investigate the barriers and challenges international PhD student-mothers face when seeking to combine PhD study with their mothering responsibilities in a New Zealand context.
This research project involved semi-structured interviews with 17 international PhD student-mothers from nine different countries studying at a leading New Zealand university. The interviews reveal their emotions involved in being international PhD-mothers, their personal learning and mothering challenges, as well as how they forged a sense of belonging within a neoliberal university environment. The thematic analysis of the interviews provides insight into not only the tensions which are a daily reality for international PhD student-mothers’ but also the joy and motivation of them.
This study analyses the specific and distinctive hurdles faced by PhD-mothers who are also international students, and who have to determine how to construct personal and intimate relationships, and provide effective, quality childcare. These women described the requirement to abide by the implicit norms of “mothering” within a New Zealand context which, at times, contradicted their own cultural norms as well as meeting the tacit expectations of the academy. The issues they face stem from the academic settings, emotional anguish, an absence of extended family help, the stress of coming to terms with new cultural norms, visa restrictions and motherhood ideologies. Although the number of solutions to these problems is quite limited, help comes from family members, supervisors' support, peer support and the women's own resilient characters. This thesis presents data which offers an understanding of these women's experiences of integrating studying and motherhood away from their home country in a neoliberal university. The participants describe several tensions that include financial hardship, the gap between expectations and reality, the gap between the support structures of the university and the PhD-mothers' actual needs, and most significantly – the societal pressure to be a perfect mother as well as the ideal scholar
The PhD Coach Kit: A coaching tool for PhD students
No full textPursuing a PhD can be highly stressful for PhD students. With challenges such as publication pressures, struggles to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and insufficient support, PhD students’ well-being and mental health are at risk. To address well-being in academia, particularly for PhD students, individual-level interventions such as coaching, stress management, and peer support may have promise. However, access to these resources remains limited in academia. In response, we developed the PhD Coach Kit, a self-coaching tool designed to provide accessible, on-demand support for PhD students. Featuring reflection cards that cover 10 key topics, this tool encourages self-reflection and solution-focused thinking to help PhD students navigate the diverse challenges encountered throughout their PhD journey
Emotional Geographies Experienced by an Indonesian Doctoral Student Pursuing her PhD in New Zealand during the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textThis narrative study explores the emotional experience of a female Indonesian pursuing her PhD in New Zealand when the COVID-19 pandemic hit this country. Garnered from the results of several virtual interviews with the participant, the data were analysed with the Hargreaves‟s emotional geography framework (2001) focusing on five different emotional dimensions: physical, sociocultural, moral, professional, and political. The findings showed that during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted PhD study, the participant experienced different emotions shaped by physical, sociocultural, moral, professional, and political factors while negotiating and coping with such emotions
Perceiving and pursuing novelty : a grounded theory of adolescent creativity
No full textCreativity plays an increasingly important role in our personal, social, educational, and community lives. For adolescents, creativity can enable self-expression, be a means of pushing boundaries, and assist learning, achievement, and completion of everyday tasks. Moreover, adolescents who demonstrate creativity can potentially enhance their capacity to face unknown future challenges, address mounting social and ecological issues in our global society, and improve their career opportunities and contribution to the economy. For these reasons, creativity is an essential capacity for young people in their present and future, and is highlighted as a priority in current educational policy nationally and internationally.\ud
Despite growing recognition of creativity’s importance and attention to creativity in research, the creative experience from the perspectives of the creators themselves and the creativity of adolescents are neglected fields of study. Hence, this research investigated adolescents’ self-reported experiences of creativity to improve understandings of their creative processes and manifestations, and how these can be supported or inhibited. Although some aspects of creativity have been extensively researched, there were no comprehensive, multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks of adolescent creativity to provide a foundation for this study. Therefore, a grounded theory methodology was adopted for the purpose of constructing a new theory to describe and explain adolescents’ creativity in a range of domains. The study’s constructivist-interpretivist perspective viewed the data and findings as interpretations of adolescents’ creative experiences, co-constructed by the participants and the researcher.\ud
The research was conducted in two academically selective high schools in Australia: one arts school, and one science, mathematics, and technology school. Twenty adolescent participants (10 from each school) were selected using theoretical sampling. Data were collected via focus groups, individual interviews, an online discussion forum, and email communications. Grounded theory methods informed a process of concurrent data collection and analysis; each iteration of analysis informed subsequent data collection. Findings portray creativity as it was perceived and experienced by participants, presented in a Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity.\ud
The Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity comprises a core category, Perceiving and Pursuing Novelty: Not the Norm, which linked all findings in the study. This core category explains how creativity involved adolescents perceiving stimuli and experiences differently, approaching tasks or life unconventionally, and pursuing novel ideas to create outcomes that are not the norm when compared with outcomes by peers. Elaboration of the core category is provided by the major categories of findings. That is, adolescent creativity entailed utilising a network of Sub-Processes of Creativity, using strategies for Managing Constraints and Challenges, and drawing on different Approaches to Creativity – adaptation, transfer, synthesis, and genesis – to apply the sub-processes and produce creative outcomes. Potentially, there were Effects of Creativity on Creators and Audiences, depending on the adolescent and the task. Three Types of Creativity were identified as the manifestations of the creative process: creative personal expression, creative boundary pushing, and creative task achievement. Interactions among adolescents’ dispositions and environments were influential in their creativity. Patterns and variations of these interactions revealed a framework of four Contexts for Creativity that offered different levels of support for creativity: high creative disposition–supportive environment; high creative disposition–inhibiting environment; low creative disposition–supportive environment; and low creative disposition–inhibiting environment. These contexts represent dimensional ranges of how dispositions and environments supported or inhibited creativity, and reveal that the optimal context for creativity differed depending on the adolescent, task, domain, and environment.\ud
This study makes four main contributions, which have methodological and theoretical implications for researchers, as well as practical implications for adolescents, parents, teachers, policy and curriculum developers, and other interested stakeholders who aim to foster the creativity of adolescents. First, this study contributes methodologically through its constructivist-interpretivist grounded theory methodology combining the grounded theory approaches of Corbin and Strauss (2008) and Charmaz (2006). Innovative data collection was also demonstrated through integration of data from online and face-to-face interactions with adolescents, within the grounded theory design. These methodological contributions have broad applicability to researchers examining complex constructs and processes, and with populations who integrate multimedia as a natural form of communication. Second, applicable to creativity in diverse domains, the Grounded Theory of Adolescent Creativity supports a hybrid view of creativity as both domain-general and domain-specific. A third major contribution was identification of a new form of creativity, educational creativity (ed-c), which categorises creativity for learning or achievement within the constraints of formal educational contexts. These theoretical contributions inform further research about creativity in different domains or multidisciplinary areas, and with populations engaged in formal education. However, the key contribution of this research is that it presents an original Theory and Model of Adolescent Creativity to explain the complex, multifaceted phenomenon of adolescents’ creative experiences
Practice PhD Toolkit
No full textThis article provides an account of the practice PhD in art and the nature of the debates surrounding its development and status. Primarily, the article is aimed at prospective and current PhD candidates (as well as supervisors), offering a critical approach to shaping and championing practice research. In helping to define the practice PhD, the article distinguishes between projects and practice and provides a reference to key debates. A catalogue of articles from Journal of Visual Art Practice is included in an appendix as part of wider encouragement for candidates to be critically informed about practice research and to help develop a literature review. The article ends with 8 practical steps for pursuing the practice PhD
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