Spanish and UK post-PhD researchers: writing perceptions, well-being and productivity

ABSTRACT

Post-PhD researchers working at universities are contributors to a country’s productivity and competitiveness mostly through writing, which becomes a means to establish their scholarly identity as they contribute to knowledge. However, little is known about researchers’ writing perceptions, and their interrelations with engagement in research, productivity and the influence of workplace climate, which, if negative, can result in burnout and abandonment intentions. In this paper, we explore these issues for the first time. Using a cross-sectional design, 282 postdoctoral researchers answered a cross-cultural questionnaire focusing on engagement, scientific writing, researcher community and burnout, and socio-demographic variables. Data analysis included exploratory factor analysis, T-test, ANOVA or Mann–Whitney U (SPSS, v.22). Results showed that adaptive perceptions of writing were related to higher levels of engagement, lower levels of burnout and productivity; maladaptive perceptions of writing were related to burnout experiences. The consideration of research writing as a developmental process that can take many years beyond the PhD is discussed. Critical to understanding such development is the extent to which a shift in perception of writing to knowledge creation may be a precursor to more adaptive functional behaviours. Educational insights related to constraints in writing, publication processes and related research conditions are also considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-PhD researchers
• productivity
• research writing
• well-being
• writing perceptions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Montserrat Castelló http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1757-9795

Notes

1. The EU Charter for Researchers, http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/index.cfm/rights/europeanCharter, aims amongst other things to support the career development of researchers, included increased EU mobility.

2. We are mindful of the pejorative nature of the word, maladaptive, despite it being a relatively well-known and studied psychological construct. Our interest in it is to understand how to help researchers recognize less functional strategies and shift their perceptions in order to lead to more functional behaviours.

3. We understand supervision or management to include offering knowledge, helping in goal setting, enhancing motivation, and monitoring activities and results. It may not include career mentoring which is why we kept the latter separate.

4. The instrument was also translated into Finnish as part of the same process for later use.

5. We learned through this process how difficult it is to get access to researchers and to have a clear idea of their presence at universities.

6. The project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universitat Ramon Llull, Barcelona (CER-URL-2013_005) and by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2013-41108-R).

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of the project Researcher identity development (http://www.fins-ridss.com/) and was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [grant number CSO2013-41108-R].