Differences in the proportion of part-time, mature, international and self-funded students between disciplines also contribute to differing outcomes. Where a department has a submission rate that is lower… departments are required to review the data and report on their action plans. In particular, departments have reviewed and enhanced their recruitment practices and processes to support students through annual progress reviews and training. Not all students are satisfied that sufficient progress is being made to support PhD students during their programmes.
It makes me concerned that the department really does not value its postgraduate researchers, especially after very little support has been provided during virtual working since the start of the pandemic. I started literature studies, getting into what the greater group was doing, talking to the experimental researchers for the joint project. I had taught a few classes and taken part in PhD schools.
We had some get-togethers with research partners attached to other universities. The lack of travel allowance is what set me thinking. At this point I had been in the PhD position for four months part-time and three months full-time.
I felt very betrayed and was extremely upset. That incident, which of course causes a sort of repulsion, allowed me to step back and take stock. What are the things I care about here? For me the answers were:. So I started looking for a new job. Before the pandemic, one in five research students were expected to disengage from their PhD.
Disengagement includes taking extended leave, suspending their studies or dropping out entirely. COVID has made those statistics far worse. Many factors influence whether a student completes their doctorate.
They include supervision support intellectual and pastoral , peer support colleagues, friends and family , financial stability and good mental health. In our recently published book The Doctoral Experience Student Stories from the Creative Arts and Humanities — which we edited with contributions from PhD students — students outlined their experiences of doing a doctorate and shared some useful strategies for how to keep going, and ultimately succeed, in the doctoral journey.
Completing a doctorate involves much more than generating knowledge in a specific discipline. It is a profoundly transformational process evolving over a period of at least four years — and often longer. This entails personal questioning , development in many areas of life, and often a quite significant personal and intellectual reorientation. The PhD brings with it high expectations, which in turn creates high emotional stakes that can both inspire and derail students.
This is coupled with coming to see and think about the world very differently — which for some can be a daunting prospect, as all previously held assumptions are thrown into disarray. Have you ever considered dropping out of your Ph. Do you think there is a right moment to quit the doctorate? Let me know in the comments section below! Common problems and challenges in doing the PhD, from mental health e.
Mental health and wellbeing tips and advice : common mental health symptoms in the PhD , tips to avoid dropping out of the doctorate , the importance of sleep , holidays or advice from positive psychology to keep yourself motivated during the PhD.
PhD productivity tips and advice : from the classic Pomodoro technique , to avoiding to-do list overwhelm , dealing with multiple projects and priorities , staying productive and motivated , how I manage my daily tasks or how I do my weekly reviews.
Supervision tips and advice , about giving feedback on student papers , or supporting a sense of progress in your doctoral students. See, for example, Bair, C. Doctoral student attrition and persistence: A meta-synthesis of research. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research pp. Wollast, R. International Journal of Higher Education , 7 4 , — Maher, M. Please be aware that most of this evidence is from correlational studies, so it is hard to know if these factors are the causes of the dropout, or more probably symptoms of a different underlying cause or causes.
Rigler Jr, K. Presented at the University of Central Florida. Gardner, S.
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