This study contributes to the growing body of research on doctoral student experiences, and is different from previous research in its specific focus on the intricacies of the day-to-day lived experiences of the doctorate from the point of view of students. During the doctorate, students develop academic identities through their transition and transformation from student to independent academic and professional. This process is facilitated by interactions and relationships with others as well as performing discursive roles in different daily discourses, be it directly related to academic activities or not. Through longitudinal tracking of day-to-day experiences and qualitative data analysis, the experiences of doctoral students in two North American Faculties of Education are explored. Two years of collected data are analyzed using two differing identity foci, one focused on the relational aspects of identity, and the other on the influences of daily tasks as networked discourses. Findings highlight the differing impact of relationships and various discursive contexts across the two sites of data collection. Similarities and differences between the two institutions and across these two orientations to identity are explored.

AIMS

Moving through the doctorate in the North American context involves negotiating relationships with others (e.g., supervisory relationship, relationship with committee members) and performing different roles within various daily discursive contexts (e.g., writing grant proposals, doing coursework, sharing challenges with family/friends). The current work seeks to gain deeper insight into how doctoral student experience these by drawing on two different social-psychological orientations to identity. Since any identity contains a set of multiple meanings, there exist multiple dimensions to any one identity to which one can respond. Through the lens of role identity theory (McCall, 2003; Stets, 2006) identity is defined as relational and embedded in interpersonal relationships, with identity being a property of interactions with others. At the same time, drawing on discourse identity theories (Gee, 2000/1), we see the daily life of doctoral students as composed of multiple networked discourses, each of which requires a student to be a certain “kind of person.” These two perspectives on identity have different emphases – one on interaction and the other on context – yet share a common ground of seeing doctoral students’ academic identities as dynamic, developing, and contingent. Through these two perspectives, we argue that understanding doctoral student experiences means understanding their interactions and relationships with others and the contexts where these interactions and relationships take place.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Longitudinal tracking of experiences via electronic questionnaires were carried out over a two year period with 36 doctoral students in two different Canadian faculties of education (one a research intensive university, the other a comprehensive university). The same longitudinal tracking form was used in both sites although administered differently. The log of experiences solicited information on progress, how time was spent, activities engaged in, human resources drawn upon, events that made them feel like an academic, difficulties or challenges and how these may have been resolved. At one site, experience of a single week in a given month were solicited from 19 participants, with the form distributed once every month (7 months in year 1; 8 months in year 2), with a range of 4-15 logs per person and 180 logs in total. At the second site, the experiences of the entire month were solicited from 17 participants over approximately the same academic semester time span (9 months in year 1; 8 months in year 2), resulting in a range of 3-15 logs per person and 122 logs in total. The log responses were analyzed using iterative thematic analysis and MaxQDA qualitative data analysis software. Each author analysed the data from one of the identity orientations described, and then cross-verified the codes of the other. This ensured coder reliability and helped to distinguish differences in the different identity dimensions being explored.

FINDINGS

Preliminary findings reveal the influences of both tasks and relationships in shaping both student identities and separate emerging academic identities of doctoral students. The networked discursive contexts contribute to how students experience and view the kind of academic person they were becoming. In terms of relationships, the most immediate interactions with the supervisor often had larger impact on the doctoral student identity, confirming their role as students and not-yet-academics, while interactions with peers and other professors were more influential and more supportive of the emerging academic identities of these individuals. The various daily discourses, especially the difficulties students were experiencing, seem to indicate that some identities are more often experienced by students than by academics, and signals important aspects of the challenges and tensions that motivate changes to identity emergence.

EDUCATIONAL/THEORETICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The different identity perspectives used to analyze this data reveal the complex nature of identities and the importance of clear definitions and distinctions in using broad terms such as identity for framing research questions. The focus on daily events over time also revealed the identity changes doctoral students negotiate with themselves and others throughout the doctorate. The specific patterns and themes found in the data demonstrate how students grapple with shifting from their position as students to a more independent position as an academic and scholar, and brings to light the tensions doctoral students face that are often invisible to faculty. Implications of these results for doctoral student education, supervisor development, and program structures are explored.

REFERENCES

Gee, J. P. (2000/1). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125.

McCall, G. J. (2003). The me and the not-me: Positive and negative poles of identity. In P.J. Burke, T. J. Owens, R. T. Serpe, and P.A. Thoits (Eds.) Advances in Identity Theory and Research. New York: Kluwer Academic Press.

Stets, J. E. (2006). Identity theory. In P. J. Burke (Ed.) Contemporary Social Psychological Theories. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.