Doctoral student perceptions of supervisory and research community support: their relationships with doctoral conditions and experiences

ABSTRACT

Social support is important for the successful completion of doctoral studies. The aim of this study was to explore how individual differences in supervisory and research community support are related to doctoral experiences (abandonment intentions, perceived engagement, interest, satisfaction, burnout and stress) and doctoral conditions (phase and work modality). In total, 1313 students from 56 Spanish universities completed a doctoral experience survey. A k-means cluster analysis was used to group the students by the level of social support they received from supervisors and the research community. Two social support profiles, reduced and adequate support were identified. The results indicate that doctoral students with a reduced support profile were less engaged, interested and satisfied with their doctoral studies and more likely to experience burnout and stress and to report drop out intentions than those with an adequate support profile. Furthermore, most students with a reduced support profile were in the first phase of their doctorate and reported mainly working individually. The results reinforce the need, in doctoral programmes, to improve supervisory and research community support, especially for those students beginning their doctoral studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral education
• social support
• student engagement
• academic development
• burnout

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The phases of doctoral education were distinguished by considering the students’ expectancy to candidacy because we wanted to focus on students’ representation of the end of their doctoral journey more than the years enrolled in their doctoral education programme.

2. A full version of the Doctoral Experience Survey is available for free download on the project’s website www.researcher-identity.com.

3. The following various ethics and research committees approved the study: the Ethics Committee of the authors’ university (CER-URL-2013/005) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ref.: CSO2013-41,108- R).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Erasmus+ [Ref: 2017-1-ES01-KA203-038303] and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion [Ref: PID2019-109358RB-I00].