Using social exchange theory to examine minoritized STEM postdocs’ experiences with faculty mentoring relationships

Purpose Mentoring postdocs is a shared responsibility and dynamic process that requires a mutual commitment between the faculty mentor and postdoc. The purpose of this study is to understand how minoritized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdocs view and engage in mentoring exchanges with their faculty mentors. In the context of this study, minoritized postdocs include women, people of color, and individuals with international status; faculty mentors include postdocs’ Principal Investigators (PIs). Design/methodology/approach Three researchers and 31 data sources (i.e., interview transcripts) were used to construct the case. Researchers first deductively and independently coded the data sources using Molm’s (2006) social exchange framework to identify examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Researchers then used thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) to identify emergent themes among coded examples of direct, generalized, and productive mentoring exchanges. Findings Data analyses revealed three emergent themes: (1.1) postdocs valued regular meetings and communication with mentors to clarify responsibilities and role expectations, (1.2) postdocs found more value in their interactions with junior faculty PIs who were flexible and open to innovative ideas, and (1.3) postdocs appreciated conversations about short- and long-term career goals and advice with mentors. Originality/value Findings offer implications for faculty and postdocs’ approaches to mentoring relationships, and for approaches to cultivating supportive scholarly communities in STEM higher education. Recommendations include flexibility in research assignments, increased awareness of non-academic careers, and opportunities for informal interactions and intra/interdepartmental community building.

Program evaluation practices and the training of PhD students in STEM

Purpose Program evaluation stands as an evidence-based process that would allow institutions to document and improve the quality of graduate programs and determine how to respond to growing calls for aligning training models to economic realities. This paper aims to present the current state of evaluation in research-based doctoral programs in STEM fields. Design/methodology/approach To highlight the recent evaluative processes, the authors restricted the initial literature search to papers published in English between 2008 and 2019. As the authors were motivated by the shift at NIH, this review focuses on STEM programs, though papers on broader evaluation efforts were included as long as STEM-specific results could be identified. In total, 137 papers were included in the final review. Findings Only nine papers presented an evaluation of a full program. Instead, papers focused on evaluating individual components of a graduate program, testing small interventions or examining existing national data sets. The review did not find any documents that focused on the continual monitoring of training quality. Originality/value This review can serve as a resource, encourage transparency and provide motivation for faculty and administrators to gather and use assessment data to improve training models. By understanding how existing evaluations are conducted and implemented, administrators can apply evidence-based methodologies to ensure the highest quality training to best prepare students.

Beyond survey measures: exploring international male graduate students’ sense of belonging in electrical engineering

Purpose Although a student’s sense of belonging is a key factor of persistence in higher education, research on international students’ belonging tends to rely on domain-agnostic survey measures and promote interpretations that focus mainly on social integration and adjustment. This paper aims to examine how male international graduate students in engineering understand and describe their sense of belonging and how they perceive its development at their institution. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 12 male electrical engineering doctoral students at a selective research university in the USA. This interpretive approach allowed students to articulate their subjective understanding of belonging within a specific disciplinary context. Findings Contrary to the broad notion that the social domain is the primary locus of students’ sense of belonging, participants emphasized the academic domain when referring to their struggles with, and attempts to develop, a sense of belonging. Results suggest that the meritocratic culture of engineering education may influence students to prioritize the academic domain when conceptualizing and developing their belonging. Moreover, the strong academic motivation endemic to international students pursuing graduate education at a top American research university intensified this mechanism. Originality/value This study argues that universities seeking to enhance international graduate students’ sense of belonging can be more intentional in providing opportunities for students to establish positive academic identities. Furthermore, addressing students’ non-academic identity and marginalization as relevant and essential topics in engineering will expand their understanding of what means to belong.

“I didn’t want to be a troublemaker” – doctoral students’ experiences of change in supervisory arrangements

Purpose During the lengthy process of PhD studies, supervisory changes commonly occur for several different reasons, but their most frequent trigger is a poor supervisory relationship. Even though a change in supervisors is a formal bureaucratic process and not least the students’ rights, in practice it can be experienced as challenging. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how doctoral students experience a change in supervisory arrangements. Design/methodology/approach This study highlights the voices of 19 doctoral students who experienced at least one supervisory change during their doctoral studies. Findings The findings were structured chronologically, revealing the students’ experiences prior, during and after the changes. In total, 12 main themes were identified. Most of the interviewed students experienced the long decision-making processes as stressful, difficult and exhausting, sometimes causing a lack of mental well-being. However, once the change was complete, they felt renewed, energized and capable of continuing with their studies. It was common to go through more than one change in supervisory arrangements. Further, the students described both the advantages of making a change yet also the long-lasting consequences of this change that could affect them long after they had completed their PhD programs. Originality/value The study fulfills an identified need to investigate the understudied perspective of doctoral students in the context of change in supervisory arrangements. A change in the academic culture is needed to make any changes in supervisory arrangements more acceptable thus making PhD studies more sustainable.

Methodological becoming: Doctoral students’ perceptions of their methodological journeys

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate and illustrate the potential relationships between doctoral students’ life histories and educational experiences and their methodological understanding and assumptions. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research design consisted of life-history interviews with nine doctoral researchers in the UK in disciplines relating to the social sciences. Findings The study indicated that the students’ methodological assumptions may be understood as a socially constructed product of their life histories and academic experiences. Experiences of postgraduate research training were presented as having the potential to unlock the methodological consciousness required to re-frame these experiences, improve understanding and resolve methodological conflict. Originality/value This paper provides an insight into the complex nature of the development of methodological understanding and a provocation for considering methodological becoming through the lens of socialisation. This may have utility for both doctoral students and educators.

Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study. Design/methodology/approach The authors participated in a collaborative self-study over a 30-month period. The authors collected 35 personal shared journal entries and 12 recorded and transcribed discussions. The authors conducted a constant comparative analysis of the data, and individually and collaboratively coded the data for initial and focused codes to construct themes. Findings The critical friendship provided a safe space to explore the doctoral experiences and novice-expert mindsets, which the authors were not fully able to do with programmatic support alone. The authors identified nine specific strategies that positively impacted the novice-expert mindsets during the following role transitions: professional to student, student to graduate and graduate to professional. Originality/value While researchers have identified strategies and models for doctoral student support targeting specific milestones, this study identified strategies to support doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets during role transitions. These strategies may benefit other graduate students, as well as faculty and program directors, as they work to support student completion.

Promoting psychological well-being in doctoral students: a qualitative study adopting a positive psychology perspective

Purpose Concerns about psychological well-being (PWB) in doctoral students have grown in recent years. The purpose of this study was to explore qualitatively doctoral students’ perceptions of factors that promoted their PWB during the doctoral journey. Design/methodology/approach Nine recent doctoral graduates at an English university participated in the study. Participants recalled their experience and PWB during the doctoral journey via a life grid and semi-structured interview. The life grids were visually inspected to identify high points in PWB whilst the interview data were analysed thematically. Findings The analysis produced the following seven themes representing factors that participants described during periods of better PWB: accomplishments; intrinsic rewards; self-efficacy; comprehension and understanding; supervisor support; wider support network; and self-care and lifestyle. Originality/value By adopting a positive psychology approach and exploring qualitatively factors that promoted PWB in doctoral students, this study offers an alternative perspective to research on doctoral student well-being, which has largely adopted a pathological focus. As such, the study demonstrates the utility of approaching research on doctoral students’ PWB from a positive psychology perspective. Findings are discussed in relation to the extant literature, and future directions for research are outlined.

Postdoctoral research training and the attainment of faculty careers in social science and STEM fields in the United States

Purpose While postdoctoral research (postdoc) training is a common step toward academic careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the role of postdoc training in social sciences is less clear. An increasing number of social science PhDs are pursuing postdocs. This paper aims to identify factors associated with participation in postdoc training and examines the relationship between postdoc training and subsequent career outcomes, including attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and early career salaries. Design/methodology/approach Using data from the National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients, this study applies propensity score matching, regression and decomposition analyses to identify the role of postdoc training on the employment outcomes of PhDs in the social science and STEM fields. Findings Results from the regression analyses indicate that participation in postdoc training is associated with greater PhD research experience, higher departmental research ranking and departmental job placement norms. When the postdocs and non-postdocs groups are balanced on observable characteristics, postdoc training is associated with a higher likelihood of attaining tenure-track faculty positions 7 to 9 years after PhD completion. The salaries of social science tenure-track faculty with postdoc experience eventually surpass the salaries of non-postdoc PhDs, primarily via placement at institutions that offer relatively higher salaries. This pattern, however, does not apply to STEM PhDs. Originality/value This study leverages comprehensive, nationally representative data to investigate the role of postdoc training in the career outcomes of social sciences PhDs, in comparison to STEM PhDs. Research findings suggest that for social sciences PhDs interested in academic careers, postdoc training can contribute to the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and toward earning relatively higher salaries over time. Research findings provide prospective and current PhDs with information helpful in career planning and decision-making. Academic institutions, administrators, faculty and stakeholders can apply these research findings toward developing programs and interventions to provide doctoral students with career guidance and greater career transparency.

Doctoral writing: learning to write and give feedback across cultures

Purpose This study aims to broaches several endemic challenges for academics who support doctoral writing: writers are emotionally protective of their own writing; writing a thesis in English as a second language is a challenging, complex task; and advising across cultures is delicate. Giving constructive feedback kindly, but with the rigour needed to raise writing quality can seem daunting. Addressing those issues, the authors offer a novel way of working with writing feedback across cultures. Design/methodology/approach The case study research team of two candidates and one supervisor stumbled onto an effective way of working across cultural and institutional difference. What began as advisory feedback on doctoral writing became an effective collaborative analysis of prose meaning-making. The authors reflected separately and collectively on how this happened, analysed reflections and this narrative inquiry approach led to theories of use to writing feedback practice. Findings The authors cross between theory and praxis, showing that advisors and supervisors can create Bhabha’s post-colonial third space (a promising social space that sits between cultures, beyond hierarchies, where new ways of thinking can be collaboratively generated) as a working environment for international doctoral writing feedback. Within this zone, Brechtian alienation, a theory from theatre practice, is applied to prompt emotional detachment that enables focus on writing clearly in academic English. Research limitations/implications Arguably the writing feedback session the authors described remains bound by the generic expectations of a western education system. The study is exegetical, humanities reading of practice, rather than a social science gathering of empirical data. Yet the humanities approach suits the point that a change of language, attitude and theory can give positive leverage with doctoral writing feedback. Practical implications The authors provide a novel practical method of supporting international doctoral candidates’ writing with feedback across cultures. It entails attracting the writers’ interest in theory and persuading them, via theory, to look objectively and freshly at their own writing. Also backed by theory, a theoretical cross-cultural space allows for discussion about differences and similarities. Detachment from proprietorial emotions and cross-cultural openness enables productive work amongst the mechanics of clear academic English text. Originality/value Underpinned by sociocultural and metacognitive approaches to learning, reflection from student and supervisor perspectives (the data), and oriented by theory, the authors propose another strategy for supporting doctoral writing across cultures. The authors demonstrate a third space approach for writing feedback across cultures, showing how to operationalise theory.