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Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of selecting and engaging in biological sciences laboratory rotations from the perspective of doctoral students. Design/methodology/approach Within the socialization framework, this study uses a qualitative approach whereby 42 biological sciences students enrolled at highly selective US universities were interviewed in the first and second year of doctoral training about laboratory rotation experiences. Findings The study revealed how doctoral students used formal and informal information networks, explored research topics, struggled with funding concerns and learned about the social aspect of the laboratories in which they rotated. Originality/value While rotations are considered a signature pedagogy in the laboratory sciences, students’ experiences within them are understudied. This study offers new knowledge about what doctoral students experience while rotating that can be used to inform and improve rotation processes for both students and universities.

High attrition rates have been a defining characteristic of doctoral education for decades, representing a loss of time, talent, and effort for departing students and their faculty. This qualitative study uses a biomedical science doctoral student sample to collect “real time” data on attrition within the first 2 years of doctoral training. Eighteen students, who represented 16 distinct universities, were interviewed as they engaged in the withdrawal process. Using the conceptual frames of socialization and social cognitive career theory, we explored experiences that preceded these students’ doctoral program withdrawals. Furthermore, we examined how expressed roles of students’ self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and professional goals contributed to the withdrawal process. Findings indicate that faculty advising (both positive and negative), laboratory rotation experiences, self-efficacy components, and changing professional goals all play a role in the early doctoral program attrition process.

Aim/Purpose: This study explores PhD students’ transition into graduate school, which can be a challenging experience for many. Background: Using photographs and in-depth interviews, this study provides nuanced insight into influences on first-year PhD students’ lived experiences, with a specific focus on these students’ perceptions of doctoral student well-being. Methodology: Twenty-nine first-year biomedical science PhD students from 15 research institutions were asked to take photographs (Participant Produced Images) to illuminate significant influences on their research skill acquisition. The participant-produced photographs were discussed within in-depth phone interviews allowing for a deeper understanding of their lived experiences. Contribution: While students were asked to identify factors influencing their research skill acquisition, unexpectedly, what emerged from these data was students’ clear focus on their concern for their physical and mental well-being. The researchers posit that students’ ability to create a “work-life balance” is the foundation of doctoral student success, especially in the early years of doctoral training. Findings: Findings suggest that it is essential to create a PhD culture in which students feel valued, supported, and nourished, both physically and mentally, for them to develop into successful researchers, teachers, and mentors. Recommendations for Practitioners: Findings suggest that doctoral programs must support a more collaborative work environment for students and help novice students create a work life balance, perhaps by encouraging them to pursue stimulating or fun activities outside their school environment. It is imperative for doctoral students to be confident during their doctoral studies, as a lack of confidence tends to breathe life into poor work habits that stymie well-being and happiness. Recommendation for Researchers: If doctoral programs support a culture that facilitates student well-being, those programs will likely produce happier researchers and teachers who see scholarship and learning as fun. This positive mindset is likely to cascade down within their learning environments and foster positive and productive scholarship and instruction. This mindset and paradigm shift will set a significant precedence for future doctoral learners. Impact on Society: This study encourages and advances timely and “actionable” dialogue around how to better support doctoral students’ sense of well-being, especially in science disciplines. Future Research: Given study results, exploring mental health and well-being issues with faculty can help elevate mental health awareness in academia.

Purpose Using the threshold concepts framework, this paper aims to explore how differences in the ability to meaningfully apply relevant literature to one’s research are reflected in descriptions of graduate training undertaken in an academic year. Design/methodology/approach This paper used a sequential-explanatory mixed method design. Phase I analysis used quantitative performance data to differentiate research skill threshold crossers from non-crossers. Phase II analysis used qualitative interview data to identify common and differentiating themes across and between the two groups. Findings Participants identified coursework, research activities and teaching assignments as primary research skill development sites. However, only the patterns of mentorship and engagement with literature within the context of supervised research activities consistently differentiated threshold crossers from non-crossers. All non-crossers reported having full autonomy in their research endeavors, whereas all crossers articulated reliance on supervising mentor guidance. Similarly, most non-crossers did not frame research as incremental contributions to existing literature, while most crossers did. Research limitations/implications The study sample size is small (n = 14), and the study is exploratory in nature. Practical implications The importance of exploring the factors that actually indicate and lead to research skill development is highlighted. Originality/value Few studies address graduate student research skill development, although this skill development is a core goal of many graduate programs. This study does so, using performance rather than self-report data.

Studies of skill development often describe a process of cumulative advantage, in which small differences in initial skill compound over time, leading to increasing skill gaps between those with an initial advantage and those without. We offer evidence of a similar phenomenon accounting for differential patterns of research skill development in graduate students over an academic year and explore differences in socialization that accompany diverging developmental trajectories. As predicted, quantitative analysis indicated large effect sizes for skill gains after controlling for initial performance levels. Qualitative analyses indicated that students with initial advantages were more likely to report greater demands of independence by their advisors and see more extensive value in research tasks comparable to those assigned their less skilled peers.

In the laboratory-based disciplines, selection of a principal investigator (PI) and research laboratory (lab) indelibly shapes doctoral students’ experiences and educational outcomes. Framed by the theoretical concept of person–environment fit from within a socialization model, we use an inductive, qualitative approach to explore how a sample of 42 early-stage doctoral students enrolled in biological sciences programs made decisions about fitting with a PI and within a lab. Results illuminated a complex array of factors that students considered in selecting a PI, including PI relationship, mentoring style, and professional stability. Further, with regard to students’ lab selection, peers and research projects played an important role. Students actively conceptualized trade-offs among various dimensions of fit. Our findings also revealed cases in which students did not secure a position in their first (or second) choice labs and had to consider their potential fit with suboptimal placements (in terms of their initial assessments). Thus, these students weighted different factors of fit against the reality of needing to secure financial support to continue in their doctoral programs. We conclude by presenting and framing implications for students, PIs, and doctoral programs, and recommend providing transparency and candor around the PI and lab selection processes.

Faculty mentorship is thought to be a linchpin of graduate education in STEM disciplines. This mixed-method study investigates agreement between student mentees’ and their faculty mentors’ perceptions of the students’ developing research knowledge and skills in STEM. We also compare both assessments against independent ratings of the students’ written research proposals. In most cases, students and their mentors identified divergent strengths and weaknesses. However, when mentor-mentee pairs did identify the same characteristics, mentors and mentees disagreed about the mentee’s abilities in 44% of cases in the Fall semester and 75% of cases in the Spring semester. When compared against performance-based assessments of mentees’ work, neither faculty mentors’ nor their mentees’ perceptions aligned with rubric scores at rates greater than chance in most categories.

Undergraduate research experiences have been adopted across higher education institutions. However, most studies examining benefits derived from undergraduate research rely on self-report of skill development. This study used an empirical assessment of research skills to investigate associations between undergraduate research experiences and research skill performance in graduate school. Research experience characteristics including duration, autonomy, collaboration, and motivation were also examined. Undergraduate research experience was linked to heightened graduate school performance in all research skills assessed. While autonomy and collaboration were highlighted in student interviews, duration was most strongly correlated to significant increases in research skill performance. Based on these findings, we advocate for the inclusion of research experiences into the undergraduate science curriculum coupled with the creation of centralized offices of undergraduate research and faculty incentives for involving undergraduates in their research.

For doctoral students aspiring to a faculty career, perceiving connections between the core faculty activities of teaching and conducting research is essential for professional success. Using the conceptual lens of professional socialization, we explored how doctoral students’ experiences concurrently serving as teachers and researchers influenced perceptions of the teaching—research relationship. We used semilongitudinal interview data from two early career doctoral students who began and ended an academic year with markedly changed perceptions of the teaching—research relationship. Findings pinpoint the importance of the faculty supervisor’s stance toward the teaching—research relationship and departmental practices related to teaching and research assignments.

Although writing groups have a long history in higher education, they have only recently been recognized as a support strategy for doctoral students, particularly those at the dissertation stage. From the perspective of student participants, we investigate motivations for participation in and perceived outcomes of voluntary semi-structured writing groups used to facilitate doctoral degree completion. Group participation resulted in the development of a vibrant intellectual community among students, recent doctoral recipients, and faculty. Commitment to degree completion and student and faculty scholarly productivity soared through the use of this simple but innovative pedagogical strategy.

Using faculty narratives, this study identifies factors affecting the occurrence of facultydoctoral student coauthorship. Norms of the discipline, resources, faculty goals for students, faculty goals for themselves, and institutional expectations emerged as dominant factors. Each factor is explored separately and as part of an interlocking holistic picture.

Although the use of learning technology has become increasingly prominent in schools, significant changes in teaching strategies have not kept pace. Lack of quality professional development and inadequate teacher preparation are often cited for this situation. This case study explores the use of the student teaching experience as an avenue for both preservice and inservice teachers’ professional development associated with educational technology. Two main questions are explored: First, to what extent can preservice teachers enact a technology-rich curriculum unit during their field experience; second, to what extent and under what conditions can the preservice teachers facilitate their cooperating mentor teachers’ acquisition of these same skills. Results indicate preservice teachers can stimulate the integration of technology-rich innovations in their mentor teachers.

Academic program closure is explored and student advising needs that emerged in 3 stages of program decline and discontinuation are identified. Data from interviews and advising communication of 20 graduate students enrolled in a master of education program targeted for discontinuation were qualitatively analyzed within a framework of an organizational death model. Findings indicate that program decline and discontinuation require academic advisors to understand and respond to a range of advising needs that vary with the phase of program closure: addressing students' emotional responses of grief, anger, and betrayal as well as managing student concerns over the loss of professional identity and lack of a professional network. Recommendations are offered for faculty advisors caught in the midst of program discontinuation. Relative emphasis: practice, research, theory

This study examined the experiences of 13 graduate students enrolled in a closed, lock-step master's degree of the education cohort program. Interview and observational data, collected over 10 months and across four courses, were qualitatively analyzed to explore students' understanding of the meaning of cohort membership and how that membership both shaped their educational experience and the development of peer and instructor relationships. Results indicate that both the meaning and influence of cohort membership were fluid and evolved as students progressed in their program, changing from an inconsequential to a significant meaning and from a modest to a deep influence.

Using survey and qualitative data, this study identified emergent themes that remain consistent across or differentiate among reports of women earning their doctoral degree relatively quickly ("early-finishers") and those taking considerably longer ("late-finishers"). Emergent themes included commitment to timely degree completion, faculty mentoring relationships, funding opportunities, family issues, relevant research experiences, and capacity to "work the system." The article also considers implications and recommendations for doctoral faculty and programs.

Although learning to write for publication is an important outcome of doctoral education, it has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Within a socialization and supervisor pedagogy framework, this study uses narratives of faculty who regularly write with their doctoral students for publication to expose challenges students commonly encounter in the writing process. Common challenges include international students' ‘writing problem’, misconstruing the nature of disciplinary writing and not realizing that ‘public’ is part of publication.

Many studies suggest that the combination and reorganization of extant knowledge structures may play an important role in creative thought. Little evidence is available, however, suggesting that performance on tasks where people are asked to combine and reorganize categories is related to creative thinking. Further, it is unclear how people go about combining and reorganizing diverse categories. In this study, 112 undergraduates were asked to work on a set of category combination problems. The relatedness of the categories was manipulated, and instructions were presented about how to go about combining these categories. Subsequently, people were asked to solve a series of novel, ill-defined problems. It was found that performance on the category combination task was related to the quality and originality of problem solutions. Further, when people were working with related categories, feature mapping instructions contributed to performance, while metaphor instructions contributed to performance when people...

The development of research skills and scientific reasoning underpins the mission of graduate education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet our understanding of this process is mainly drawn from self-report and faculty survey data. In this study, we empirically investigate the pattern of research skill development using STEM graduate students’ written research proposals. Analyses of proposal performance data suggest a potential developmental trajectory of research skills, in which the ability to effectively situate work in context using primary literature, and to generate testable hypotheses, emerge early in students’ careers, while other skills, such as data analysis and forming conclusions from data, appear to develop later. We discuss these findings in relation to threshold concepts theory, a framework which posits that intellectual growth occurs in transformative leaps rather than a gradual progression, especially as it applies to graduate student research skill development.

This study was concerned with the effects of information encoding on creative thought. More specifically, we tested whether differences in the kind of information people used in solving problems were related to performance on creative problem-solving tasks. The 137 undergraduate students participating in this study were asked to read through a set of cards providing different types of information, and the amount of time they spent reading through and reviewing each type of information was assessed. Time spent reading through and reviewing certain types of information was correlated with performance on a series of creative problem-solving tasks. It was found that people who spent more time on factual information, discounted irrelevant information, and attended to inconsistent information tended to produce higher quality and more original problem solutions. Further, time spent encoding certain types of information accounted for variance in performance that could not be attributed to abilities, suc...

Existing literature provides insight into the nature and extent of plagiarism amongst undergraduate students (e.g., Ellery, 2008; Parameswaran & Devi, 2006; Selwyn, 2008). Plagiarism amongst graduate students is relatively unstudied, however, and the existing data are largely based on self-reports. This study investigated the rates and potential causes of plagiarism amongst graduate students in master's and doctoral programmes in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and science or mathematics education by examining actual research proposals written by graduate students. Results indicate that plagiarism is a prevalent issue at each of the three university sites sampled and across all of the investigated disciplines. Fine grained analyses suggest that this plagiarism may be largely unintentional and due to a lack of disciplinary enculturation. Specifically, participants that plagiarised had approximately one less semester of research experience than graduate students who did not plagiarise. Furthermore, participants who lacked primary literature in their research proposals were significantly more likely to plagiarise and often used inappropriate citation styles. Follow-up correspondence with participants indicates that participants plagiarised, in part, because they lacked an awareness of the role of primary literature in the research process. This suggests that explicit training in the role and use of primary literature may provide an opportunity for programmes or mentors to accelerate the development of graduate students' research skills. This study also revealed that plagiarism was more common amongst English as a Second Language (ESL) participants. Potential causes of plagiarism and solutions to address plagiarism among the ESL population will be discussed. This paper is based on an earlier version presented at The Center for Academic Integrity 2009 Annual International Conference.

Newquist suggests that students' publications are important predictors of post-degree research effectiveness, due in part to the importance of collaboration in innovative research. We agree that publication record is important and helpful, but the collaborative aspects of writing render publications