Iranian PhD students’ experiences of their learning environment and scholarly condition: a grounded theory study

ABSTRACT

An academic learning environment has a significant role in shaping students’ learning experience, scholarly identity construction, and socialization into academic culture. The aim of the present study was to understand the experiences of PhD students from their learning environment and the challenges and problems they may face. This case study was conducted within the framework of a qualitative approach by using grounded theory. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with thirty-one PhD student and nine faculty members from one of the public and comprehensive universities in Iran. The study provides insights into doctoral education by shedding light on the challenges and struggles that students experience in their journey and learning environment. The results indicated that in spite of the practical necessities of life and the serious challenges in the learning environment, for PhD students, having a student identity and being a student still valuable. Thus they tried to deal with this situation with different strategies. Each of these strategies had different implications for their future trajectories and the other hand for the future of the higher system. Implications for policy, practice, and further research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Learning environment
• scholarly community
• doctoral student
• doctoral experience
• PhD journey
• grounded theory

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend special thanks to the students and faculties who participated in this study for sharing their experiences with us. We also greatly appreciate Glenn Warwick and Dr. Nourollah Zarrinabadi for his constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Reza Hemmati http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2603-6741