Past Doctoral Students’ Perspectives on Their Careers

ABSTRACT

In this article, we examined Past Kinesiology Doctoral Students’ (DS) perspectives on issues related to their career experiences. Using the Kinesiology Doctoral Student (KDS) survey, 56 past DS provided information on nine different aspects related to their current careers. Specifically, the items consisted of (a) type of position, (b) employment pattern, (c) type of institution, (d) change in interest regarding becoming a professor, (e) change in interest related to teaching, (f) change in interest related to conducting research, (g) enjoyment, and (h) work load. The first three items were handled descriptively revealing the following: (a) 80.8% of past participants were faculty with an academic appointment, (b) 95.6% were employed full-time, and (c) 41.3% were employed at comprehensive universities. The remaining six items were viewed through two lenses: gender and sub-disciplines (social and behavioral sciences [SBS] research and health/hard sciences [HS] research). The following statistical significant findings were found: (a) males' interest in their career “stayed the same” or “increased,” whereas females' “stayed the same” (p < .03), (b) HS participants' interest in conducting research “increased” compared to SBS participants whose interest “stayed the same” (p < .05), and (c) SBS participants rated their enjoyment of working on a college campus significantly higher than HS participants (p < .004).

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• graduate study
• graduate students
• doctoral study
• perceptions
• career