Completing a Ph.D. – Does it have to be a Lonely Existence?

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21100/compass.v16i1.1373

Keywords:

Pedagogy, Higher Education, Ph.D., well-being

Abstract

The co-authors of this paper are current Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) students with the University of Wolverhampton. We embarked on writing this opinion piece to share our experience of the first year of our Ph.D. and suggest how higher education institutions (HEIs) can enhance the academic development of doctoral researchers and minimise the detrimental experiences which studies have shown to affect this group of students.

Author Biographies

Bethan Jones, University of Wolverhampton

Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing

Stephanie Brady, University of Wolverhampton

Faculty of Education, Health and Wellbeing

References

HESA (2022) ‘Higher Education Student Statistics UK, 2020/21 - Student Numbers and Characteristics.’ Available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/25-01-2022/sb262-higher-education-student-statistics/numbers (Accessed: 12 July 2022).

Hazell, C.M., Niven, J.E., Chapman, L., Roberts, P.E., Cartwright-Hatton, S., Valeix, S. and Berry, C. (2021) ‘Nationwide Assessment of the Mental Health of UK Doctoral Researchers.’ Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-9. Available at: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/101679/3/U-DOC%20Survey%20Paper%201%20R2%2010.9.21.pdfurl (Accessed: 01 September 2022).

Janta, H., Lugosi, P. and Brown, L. (2014) ‘Coping with Loneliness: A Netnograpahic Study of Doctoral Students.’ Journal of Further and Higher Education, 38(4), 553-571. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0309877X.2012.726972 (Accessed: 01 September 2022).

Mantai, L. (2019) ‘A Source of Sanity: The Role of Social Support for Doctoral Candidates’ Belonging and Becoming.’ International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14, 367-382. Available at: http://ijds.org/Volume14/IJDSv14p367-382Mantai5276.pdf (Accessed: 13 August 2022).

McPherson, C., Punch, S. and Graham, E. (2017) ‘Transitions from Undergraduate to Taught Postgraduate Study: Emotion, Integration and Belonging.’ Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 5(2), 1-21. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317353145_Transitions_from_Undergraduate_to_Taught_Postgraduate_Study_Emotion_Integration_and_Belonging (Accessed: 02 September 2022).

Rizzolo, S., DeForest, A.R., DeCine, D.A., Strear, M. and Landram, S. (2016) ‘Graduate Student Perceptions and Experiences of Professional Development Activities.’ Journal of Career Development, 43(3), 195-210. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0894845315587967 (Accessed: 7 August 2022).

Woolston, C. (2021) ‘Depression and Anxiety “the norm†for UK PhD Students.’ Nature. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03761-3 (Accessed: 12 September 2022).

World Health Organisation (2021) ‘Health promotion glossary of terms 2021.’ Available at: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240038349 (Accessed: 02 January 2023).

Downloads

Published

03/08/2023

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Opinion Pieces

License

Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a more equitable global exchange of knowledge.

 

Works are released under the default licence of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) licence, which provides unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. If authors require a divergent licence, please contact [happy to have 'the Scholarly Communications Manager' (ks8035h@gre.ac.uk) listed here if that is easier.]

 

Authors of articles published in Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching remain the copyright holders to their published work and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to terms of the Creative Commons license agreement applied to the work by Compass: Journal of Learning & Teaching.

 

Self-archiving policy: authors are permitted, and encouraged, to deposit any version of their article - submitted, accepted, and published versions - in subject and institutional repositories at any time. 

 

If you have any queries about the choice of license, or which to discuss other options, please contact the Scholarly Communications Manager at scholarlycommunications@greenwich.ac.uk.