Doctoral student experience in Education: Activities and difficulties influencing identity development
International Journal for Researcher Development
ISSN: 2048-8696
Article publication date: 1 April 2009
Abstract
This paper explores variation in the events or activities Education doctoral students describe as contributing to their feeling of being an academic or belonging to an academic community as well as difficulties they experience. The results (drawing principally on students in a Canadian research‐intensive university though with some in a UK university) demonstrate a rich variation in multiple formative activities that are experienced as contributing to a developing identity as an academic, with many lying outside formal and semi‐formal aspects of the doctorate. Yet, at the same time students report tensions in the very sorts of activities they often find significant and positive in the development of their identity. We see this analysis as offering much‐needed insights into the formative role of cumulative day‐to‐day activities in the development of academic identity.
Keywords
Citation
McAlpine, L., Jazvac‐Martek, M. and Hopwood, N. (2009), "Doctoral student experience in Education: Activities and difficulties influencing identity development", International Journal for Researcher Development, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 97-109. https://doi.org/10.1108/1759751X201100007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited