scholarly journals Experiences of Ph.D. Dropouts in Geography

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-304
Author(s):  
Esma Emmioglu Sarikaya ◽  
Ayşe Çağlar

This study examines the experiences of four Ph.D. drop-out students in Geography programs in Turkey. Phone interviews were used to collect data. Narrative inquiry was used as a research design. Snowball sampling was used to reach the participants of the study. The study participants were two men and two women who started their Ph.D. programs in different universities in Turkey. The main reason that the participants had started their Ph.D. degrees was for getting academic jobs. The participants reported that they had positive experiences such as learning new skills and expanding knowledge but also negative experiences during their Ph.D. programs. All participants dropped out of their Ph.D. programs while they were writing their dissertations. Participants reported several personal (e.g., lack of skills) and circumstantial (e.g., social responsibilities, commuting) factors as reasons for quitting their Ph.D. programs. For educators, administrators, and policymakers, we recommended that setting higher criteria for Ph.D. students should be considered to attract and accept the best candidates for doctoral programs. During the doctorate, students should be able to select their supervisors or change their supervisors. In addition, doctoral students should be offered opportunities to socialize, share information, and learn from each other and should be encouraged to cooperate.

Author(s):  
Ernesto Noronha ◽  
Premilla D'Cruz

Though outsourcing has created enormous employment potential in India’s information technology enabled services/business process outsourcing (ITES/BPO) sector, the implications for employees remain to be understood. The present paper describes employee experiences in telemarketing outbound call centers in Bangalore and Mumbai, India. Following van Manen’s (1998) hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through unstructured conversational interviews with 18 telemarketing agents identified vi a snowball sampling and were subject to holistic and sententious thematic analyses. Reconciling dichotomous experiences at work was the label used to capture participants’ core experiences and indicated that while participants’ simultaneous positive and negative experiences contributed to a sense of concomitant stress and well-being, they employed various strategies to maintain a balance between positive experiences/well-being and negative experiences/stress.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 229-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaela Starke

Eleven young adults with an intellectual disability were interviewed for this exploratory study aimed at charting their experiences of growing up in homes where at least one parent had the same or a similar disability. Two main themes emerged from the interviews. Firstly, a clear majority of the young adults had positive experiences of family life during their upbringing, as expressed especially through their memories of their grandparents. Secondly, the study participants all described experiences of being bullied and harassed outside the family context. The results obtained in this study highlight the importance of the parents, the family, and informal networks in the upbringing of these children. The study also considers the consequences that the study participants’ negative experiences of peer contacts and their sense of exclusion might have for their prospects in later life.


10.28945/3082 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azad Ali ◽  
Fred Kohun

The purpose of this paper is to create a study model or framework for dealing with social isolation in doctoral programs. Previous studies have focused on the issue of attrition among doctoral students and the factors that cause doctoral students to drop out prior to completing their degrees. Among the factors that affect students’ decisions to leave doctoral programs is the feeling of social isolation; however, the studies have focused on identifying the causes rather than establishing a framework for dealing with isolation feeling in doctoral programs. This paper intends to fill the gap and to establish a framework for dealing with isolation feelings in order to minimize doctoral attrition.


Author(s):  
Hongryun Woo ◽  
Malik S. Henfield ◽  
Janice A. Byrd ◽  
Taryn Richardson

Although many doctoral students in counselor education (CE) programs successfully complete their programs and obtain a doctoral degree, some students drop out for a variety of reasons (Protivnak & Foss, 2009). Given the negative consequences that accompany doctoral student attrition for non-completers and their university (Willis & Carmichael, 2011), scholars have begun to explore students’ experiences in CE doctoral programs (Hoskins & Goldberg, 2005; Protivnak & Foss, 2009). Despite the growing body of literature on students’ program experiences in CE doctoral programs, in general, little emphasis has been placed on how programs prepare students for success. In particular, to date, the literature related to how CE-sponsored programming orients students for doctoral training in CE is largely unknown. Such knowledge has the potential to shed light on student attrition and retention and further professional development issues in students. As such, this study aimed to fill this void by exploring aspects of CE doctoral student orientations and students’ perceptions of the degree to which these orientations met their needs.


2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knut Larsson ◽  
Josef Frischer

The education of researchers in Sweden is regulated by a nationwide reform implemented in 1969, which intended to limit doctoral programs to 4 years without diminishing quality. In an audit performed by the government in 1996, however, it was concluded that the reform had failed. Some 80% of the doctoral students admitted had dropped out, and only 1% finished their PhD degree within the stipulated 4 years. In an attempt to determine the causes of this situation, we singled out a social-science department at a major Swedish university and interviewed those doctoral students who had dropped out of the program. This department was found to be representative of the nationwide figures found in the audit. The students interviewed had all completed at least 50% of their PhD studies and had declared themselves as dropouts from this department. We conclude that the entire research education was characterized by a laissez-faire attitude where supervisors were nominated but abdicated. To correct this situation, we suggest that a learning alliance should be established between the supervisor and the student. At the core of the learning alliance is the notion of mutually forming a platform form which work can emerge in common collaboration. The learning alliance implies a contract for work, stating its goals, the tasks to reach these goals, and the interpersonal bonding needed to give force and endurance to the endeavor. Constant scrutiny of this contract and a mutual concern for the learning alliance alone can contribute to its strength.


2000 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 1003-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith B. Williams

This study examined the perceptions of social support reported by 70 African-American, 44 Hispanic, 20 Native-American, and 69 Asian-American doctoral students ( N = 203) concerning their experiences in graduate school. The Doctoral Student Survey was used to measure the levels and types of social support provided. One-way analysis of variance of mean scores indicated that a majority of doctoral students perceived the academic environment on campus and faculty advisers to be strong sources of social support, while perceiving the social environment on campus as unsupportive of their progress. The African-American and Native-American doctoral students perceived the social environment on campus to be less supportive than did the Hispanic and Asian-American doctoral students, and Native-American doctoral students perceived their departments to be less supportive than did the African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American doctoral students.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-502
Author(s):  
Elizabeth L. Borkowski ◽  
Wanda E. Leal

This study aims to examine how positive and negative reinforcers during an individual’s first few cigarettes (cigarette initiation experiences) are associated with adulthood smoking behavior. Respondents from the Add Health were asked about subjective feelings during their first few cigarettes. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression, we examine the differential effects of positive and negative cigarette initiation experiences on 30-day cigarette use in adulthood and lifetime nicotine dependence. The results indicate that all measures of positive cigarette initiation experiences are positively associated with both cigarette measures; however, the opposite is not true of negative cigarette initiation experiences. The results highlight the misconceptions of antidrug policies aimed at punishment of users, by indicating that positive experiences influence later cigarette use more than negative experiences. These findings suggest that drug policies and initiatives aimed at punishment may be misguided and could benefit from adopting operant conditioning concepts that emphasize reinforcements.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Ragil Tri Atmi

Cervical cancer is the second highest cause of death for women in Indonesia, despite a deadly illness, patients with cervical cancer are not desperate to survive. Instead, they are motivated to undertake positive actions, one of which is to do health informtion sharing or share information on environmental health tersekatnya. This study aims to look at how the patterns of behavior of sharing health information on cervical cancer patients, as well as the motive behind their actions the health information sharing. This study uses the method of qualitative research grounded approach. Location of the study conducted in Surabaya, while the search for informants researchers used snowball sampling. The results from this study is there are different behavior patterns of health information sharing among cervical cancer patients who have been diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer with cervical cancer at an early stage level.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca G. Mirick ◽  
Ashley Davis ◽  
Stephanie P. Wladkowski

The field of social work has increasingly focused on improving the quantity and rigor of its research. For many social work doctoral students, their first independent research experience begins with their dissertation, and yet, little is known about the factors that facilitate students’ success during this process. Sample recruitment is one step where significant and unexpected challenges can occur. As social justice is the central value of the profession, social work doctoral students may focus on research with vulnerable or marginalized populations; however, little research has been done that focuses on social work dissertations, samples used, and the process of recruitment. In this study, 215 doctoral-level social work graduates who completed their degree within the past ten years were surveyed about their dissertation research, with a focus on the sampling strategy and recruitment processes. Findings show that students have a wide diversity of experiences with the dissertation process. While 64.6% anticipant challenges around recruitment and sampling, only 54.9% encounter challenges. Less than half (44.7%) of study participants received guidance during this process and most (80.5%) felt the dissertation experience impacted subsequent research, both positively (40.5%) and negatively (9.8%). Based on these findings, doctoral programs are encouraged to increase supports available to dissertating students, particularly those recruiting study participants from vulnerable and marginalized populations. These supports include community connections, skills for obtaining gatekeeper buy-in, and both relational support and advice from dissertation committees and other colleagues. 


Author(s):  
Cecilia Tarnoki ◽  
Katheryne Puentes

Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2018), by John W. Creswell and Cheryl N. Poth was written for anyone who is considering themselves to be researchers or interested in learning more about qualitative research. As students in doctoral programs studying family therapy at Nova Southeastern University, we felt that parts of the text were explicitly tailored toward the social sciences; however, the chapters are useful for anyone interested in qualitative research from many angles and aspects.


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