The impact of supervisor and research community support on PhD candidates’ research engagement

Figures & data

Table 1. Participants.

Age (years)	25–29	30–34	35–39	40–44	45–49	50 or older
Participants	23%	31%	17%	11%	6%	11%
Population	20%	28%	21%	13%	7%	4%
Gender	Female	Male	Other
Participants	67%	31%	2%
Population	60%	40%	n/a
Nationality	Domestic (Finnish)	International
Participants	80%	20%
Population	78%	22%
Research group status	Alone	At least partially in a group
Participants	70%	30%
Thesis form	Article-based	Monograph	Does not know
Participants	77%	21%	2%
Phase of studying	First third	Second third	Final third
Participants	13%	29%	58%

Table 2. Descriptive statistics.

	1.	2.	3.
1. Engagement
2. Supervisor support	.39**
3. Research community support	.32**	.64**
N	762	763	763
Cronbach’s α	.950	.945	.907
Mean	4.84	5.39	4.78
SD	1.35	1.34	1.38

Table 3. LPA models with 1–5 classes.

	LogL(df)	AIC	BIC	aBIC	Entropy	Latent class probabilities	VLMR	aLRT	BLRT	Class counts (posterior/most likely)
1	−2634.8	5277.5	5296.1	5283.4	-		-	-	-
2	−2351.9	4721.8	4763.6	4735.0	0.712	.935, .906	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	334, 429/
										312,451
3	−2266.2	4560.5	4625.4	4580.9	0.717	.901, .868, .855	0.0185	0.0203	0.0000	228, 161, 373/
										210,166,387
4	−2232.5	4502.9	4591.0	4530.7	0.762	.905, .902, .817, .868	0.0017	0.0019	0.0000	310, 31, 289, 132/
										294, 31, 303,135
5	−2218.9	4485.8	4597.1	4520.9	0.802	.926, .915, .835, .875, .696	0.0028	0.0033	0.0200	300, 31, 273, 135, 24/
										279,30,285,138,31

Figure 1. Latent profiles of PhD candidates’ research community and supervisor support.

Table 4. Supervisor and research community support profiles and research engagement.

	Research engagement
High research community support and supervisor support	M = 5.6/7
Moderate research community and supervisor support	M = 4.9/7
Low research community and supervisor support	M = 4.1/7

Table

The scale	Items included	Mean	(SD)	α
Supervisor support				.945
	I often receive constructive criticism.	4.78	1.710
	I can negotiate about central choices regarding my dissertation with my supervisors.	5.59	1.623
	I receive encouragement and personal attention from my supervisors.	5.39	1.719
	I feel that my supervisors are interested in my opinions.	5.60	1.629
	My supervisors encourage me to explore alternative viewpoints in my research.	5.01	1.742
	I can openly discuss any problems related to my doctoral education with my supervisors.	5.17	1.734
	I can tell my supervisor if a personal matter affects my work with the dissertation.	5.33	1.714
	I feel that my supervisors appreciate my work.	5.47	1.556
	My supervisors treat the doctoral candidates in a fair way.	5.53	1.598
	My supervisors express critical comments on my research in a friendly manner.	6.02	1.371
Research community support				.907
	I feel that the other members of my research community appreciate my work.	4.89	1.594
	I feel accepted by my research community.	5.08	1.669
	There is a good sense of collegiality among the researchers I interact with.	5.12	1.580
	I am treated equally in my research community	5.19	1.698
	My research community addresses problems in a constructive way.	4.47	1.675
	My expertise is put to use in the research community.	4.40	1.850
	I feel like an outsider in my own research community.*	4.25	1.973
Research engagement				.95
	When I conduct my doctoral research, I feel that I am bursting with energy.	4.37	1.535
	I find the doctoral research that I do full of meaning.	5.38	1.433
	Time flies when I’m doing my doctoral research.	4.79	1.689
	When doing my doctoral research, I feel vigorous.	4.44	1.557
	I am enthusiastic about my doctoral research.	5.37	1.545
	When I am doing my doctoral research, I forget everything else around me.	4.33	1.745
	I feel happy when I start working on my doctoral research.	4.71	1.693
	My doctoral research inspires me.	5.39	1.519
	I am immersed in my doctoral research.	4.70	1.650