Doctoral students’ experiences leading to completion or attrition: a matter of sense, progress and distress

Devos, Christelle; Boudrenghien, Gentiane; Linden, Nicolas Van der; Azzi, Assaad Elia; Frenay, Mariane; Galand, Benoît; Klein, Olivier

doi:10.1007/s10212-016-0290-0

Cited by 147 publications

(134 citation statements)

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“…Academic pressures, relationships with supervisors, work-school-life balance, financial constraints, and difficulty in fulfilling social roles were main challenges that largely impeded degree completion and the academic success of graduate stu-dents (Calicchia & Graham, 2006;Ours & Ridder, 2003). In terms of degree completion for PhD students, the incompatibility with supervisor and mismatch between the department and faculty were factors that strongly affected persistence of PhD students (Curtin, Stewart, & Ostrove, 2013;Devos, Boudrenghien, der Linden, Azzi, Frenay, Galand, & Klein, 2017;Earl-Novell, 2006;Golde, 2005;Juniper, Walsh, Richardson, & Morley, 2012;Maher, Ford, & Thompson, 2004). Other than that, financial constraints were mentioned as another major factor that influenced degree completion for PhD students.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Withdrawal: Undergraduate Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences of Chinese International Doctoral Students in Canada Who Withdrew: A Narrative Inquiry

Gao

2019

IJDS

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Aim/PurposeFor the purpose of better understanding the reasons of their withdrawal and experiences, this study seeks to elicit the voices of Chinese international students who have withdrawn from doctoral studies in Canada. Future ResearchFuture studies could probe more on other ethnicities and cultures. Also, numerous studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between doctoral students and their supervisors; however, the incompatibility between doctoral students and their supervisors and coping strategies in that situation is still an area that needs more investigation.

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Section: Conceptualizing Withdrawal: Undergraduate Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences of Chinese International Doctoral Students in Canada Who Withdrew: A Narrative Inquiry

Gao

2019

IJDS

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“…In countries where PhD students' mental health has been studied, there is a consensus that the PhD experience is difficult (Devos et al, 2016;Schmidt & Umans, 2014), characterized by constant peerpressure, frequent evaluations, poor status, heavy workload, high pressure to publish, deadlines, financial difficulties, and many different activities to deal with (e.g., research, teaching, conferences). Consequently, the dropout rates (% of PhD students not completing the PhD) have been found to be very high in many countries, typically between 30 to 60%, including those with a perceived highperforming research system (Hunter & Devine, 2016;Litalien, 2014;Stubb, Pyhältö, & Lonka, 2012).…”

Section: Phd Students' Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it has been an understudied topic in PhD student populations (Devos et al, 2016), and only one study to date has been published on French PhD students' mental health and well-being . This is problematic for at least two reasons: (1) studies have noted that this population is at risk of chronic stress, anxiety, burnout, and depression (Devos et al, 2016;Evans, Bira, Beltran-Gastelum, Weiss, & Vanderford, 2017;Haag et al, 2017;Levecque, Anseel, De Beuckelaer, Van der Heyden, & Gisle, 2017), (2) specific prevention or treatment programs are needed for this population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Survey and a Positive Psychology Intervention on French PhD Student Well-being

Marais

Shankland

Haag

et al. 2018

IJDS

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Aim/Purpose: The present work focuses on French PhD students’ well-being: an understudied working population thus far, which impedes the development of evidence-based policies on this issue in France.The focus of this work is the well-being of French PhD students, on which almost nothing has been published thus far, impeding any evidence-based policy on this issue to be carried out in France. Background: Research studies from several countries have shown that carrying out a PhD can be a difficult experience resulting in high attrition rates with significant financial and human costs. Methodology: The two studies presented in this article focus on biology PhD students from University Lyon 1, a very large French university (~40,000 students). A first study aimed at measuring the mental health and well-being of PhD students using generalist and PhD-specific tools. In a second study, we carried out and assessed a positive psychology intervention (PPI) aimed at improving PhD students’ well-being. Contribution: Our work is one of the first characterizations of French PhD students’ mental health and well-being. As with other recent studies conducted in Western coun-tries, we found a high level of mental distress among PhD students. Our work also underlines the importance of taking many dimensions of the PhD (not only supervisor behaviour) in order to understand PhD student well-being. Cultural specificities are highlighted and can help inform the design of interventions adapted to each situation. The PPI showed pre-to-post positive changes on PhD students’ well-being. Further research is needed on a larger sample size in order to detect more subtle effects. However, these results are promising in terms of interventions that help reduce PhD student distress. Findings: Study 1 involved 136 participants and showed that a large fraction of the PhD students experiences abnormal levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. We found that career training and prospects, research experience, and the impact of carrying out a thesis on health and private life have more impact on PhD students’ mental health than the supervisors’ behaviour. French PhD students’ well-being is specifically affected by career uncertainty, perceived lack of progress in the PhD, and perceived lack of competence compared to UK PhD students well-being, which suggests cultural differences about the PhD experi-ence in France compared to other countries. In study 2, the scores of the test and control groups (N = 10 and N = 13, respectively) showed a clear effect of the intervention on reducing anxiety. Impact on Society: The high levels of mental health issues and reduced well-being in French PhD students reported in this study underline the importance of developing interventions in this field. Improving the supervisor-student relationship is one possibility but is not the only one. Interventions aimed at learning how to cope with the research experience and with the uncertainty with career pathways, and a good balance between PhD work and personal life present other promising possibilities

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“…When present, it generates selfefficacy in students during challenging circumstances. Sponsorship represents a degree to which mentors work as gatekeepers by proactively working to advocate opportunities within the institution on students' behalf and recommending them to others as well as opening the doors to their own network of professional contacts [6]. As Mainhard et al (2006) point out not all the students have the same expectations and needs and not all mentors prefer/are able to provide the expected mentoring type.…”

Section: Mentoring Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of Mentoring Types by Doctoral Students and Mentors in Economy and Business Administration

Arzenšek¹

2016

JSS

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A preliminary study has been conducted in order to assess doctoral student-faculty mentorship relations in the fields of Economy and Business administration. The overarching aim was to explore expectations and critical issues in the experiences of mentoring types by doctoral students and mentors. A total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted in two Slovenian public universities. The results show to some extent opposing expectations of PhD students and mentors regarding instrumental mentoring and psychosocial mentoring in practices. Implications are discussed and implications for further studies are provided.

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Doctoral students’ experiences leading to completion or attrition: a matter of sense, progress and distress

Cited by 147 publications

References 54 publications

Experiences of Chinese International Doctoral Students in Canada Who Withdrew: A Narrative Inquiry

Experiences of Chinese International Doctoral Students in Canada Who Withdrew: A Narrative Inquiry

A Survey and a Positive Psychology Intervention on French PhD Student Well-being

Perceptions of Mentoring Types by Doctoral Students and Mentors in Economy and Business Administration

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