Doctoral education and early career researcher preparedness for diverse research output production

ABSTRACT

It is no longer sufficient for higher education providers to solely focus on fostering academic research communication skills in their doctoral candidates, as a broader skillset is needed to communicate research effectively to diverse audiences. Such knowledge mobilisation facilitates research impact beyond academia and is linked to funding opportunities and career advancement. This paper draws upon qualitative interview data from 30 early career researchers (ECRs) based in both Australia and Japan, exploring how their experiences during doctoral candidature prepared them to produce research outputs for both academic and non-academic audiences. It also sought to capture their perceived overall knowledge and skills in producing these academic research outputs for diverse audiences. Findings suggest that preparedness for producing research outputs for the academic community during doctoral candidature are shaped by supervision, self-direction and experience. Far less support for producing research outputs for non-academic users may be provided during doctoral candidature. ECRs’ perception of capability for academic research output production stems from benchmarking against personal prior performance, and colleagues in the field. Capability for non-academic research output production may be much lower than for academic research output production, with ECRs’ professional experiences beyond academia supporting development of these skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral Education
• early career researcher
• scholarly publishing
• knowledge mobilisation
• research translation
• research communication

Acknowledgments

The authors also wish to acknowledge the generous contribution of time and perspectives shared by the ECRs who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Edith Cowan University under an Early Career Researcher Grant [2019].

Notes on contributors

Margaret K. Merga

Margaret K. Merga currently works as a Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Margaret conducts research in Higher Education with a focus on doctoral education and building the capacity of early career academics. She also conducts literacy research that spans the early years to adulthood. She is the author of recent books Reading Engagement for Tweens and Teens (2018) and Librarians in Schools as Literacy Educators (2019), and co-author of Conducting Quantitative Research in Education (2020).

Shannon Mason

Shannon Mason is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at Nagasaki University. Her teaching career includes more than 10 years as a teacher in Australia (English, Japanese, Computer Studies), and 6 years as a university lecturer in Japan (English, Education, Applied Linguistics). Her research interests include: Academic publishing for doctoral candidates and early career researchers, new approaches to doctoral education, teacher attrition and retention, language education pedagogy and policy, and media representations of educational issues.