Doctoral students’ well-being: a literature review

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Doctoral student well-being is an important matter that shapes the well-being of academics throughout their careers. Given that well-being has been found to be closely related to employee productivity and efficiency, strategies associated with maintaining well-being during PhD studies might be crucial for higher education, its outcomes and—just as importantly—for a balanced life of PhD students.

Method: Based on 17 studies, this literature review critically assesses the literature on doctoral student well-being.

Results: Theoretical models, concepts of well-being, and methods applied are discussed, as are the results of the articles. The reviewed studies are then discussed based on a SWOT analysis addressing the strengths and weaknesses of the reviewed research as well as the identified opportunities and threats, which can be used as a basis for future research. Based on the review findings and the SWOT analysis, a multidimensional view of the well-being of doctoral students is proposed.

Conclusions: The study proposes a more student-centred approach to meeting doctoral students’ needs, and the enhancement of doctoral student well-being in order, as a long-term goal, to improve academics’ well-being and productivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral student
• PhD student
• well-being
• review
• SWOT

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Giuseppe Grossi, Kristianstad University, for comments that improved the manuscript. This research was financially supported by the research environment Governance, Regulation, Internationalization and Performance (GRIP), Kristianstad University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The question “I (often) have to force myself to work on my thesis” was reported to belong to different constructs such as a lack of interest scale, anxiety scale and cynicism scale depending on which of the three articles it was used in.

2. Doctor of Education (EdD) is a doctoral degree that has a research focus on education.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manuela Schmidt

Manuela Schmidt, Lic, is a PhD student in health science at Lunds University with special interest in psychiatric nursing and  well-being of occupational groups.

Erika Hansson

Erika Hansson is a senior lecturer in psychology  at Kristianstad University with special interest in developmental psychology as well as disordered eating behaviors among adolsecents.