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Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions

Kristen Howell Gregory (Elementary and Middle Grades Education, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA)
Amanda Kate Burbage (Medical and Health Professions Education, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia, USA)

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education

ISSN: 2398-4686

Article publication date: 9 September 2021

Issue publication date: 23 March 2022

248

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of critical friendship on a first- and last-year doctoral student’s novice and expert mindsets during role transitions. Doctoral students are challenged to navigate role transitions during their academic programs. Experiences in research expectations, academy acculturation and work-life balance, may impact doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets and contribute to the costly problem of attrition. Universities offer generic doctoral support, but few support sources address the long-term self-directed nature of self-study.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors participated in a collaborative self-study over a 30-month period. The authors collected 35 personal shared journal entries and 12 recorded and transcribed discussions. The authors conducted a constant comparative analysis of the data, and individually and collaboratively coded the data for initial and focused codes to construct themes.

Findings

The critical friendship provided a safe space to explore the doctoral experiences and novice-expert mindsets, which the authors were not fully able to do with programmatic support alone. The authors identified nine specific strategies that positively impacted the novice-expert mindsets during the following role transitions: professional to student, student to graduate and graduate to professional.

Originality/value

While researchers have identified strategies and models for doctoral student support targeting specific milestones, this study identified strategies to support doctoral students’ novice-expert mindsets during role transitions. These strategies may benefit other graduate students, as well as faculty and program directors, as they work to support student completion.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

We are appreciative of our graduate students, Juny Coyoy, Gordon Goodwin and Rachel Shields, who completed transcriptions, proofreading and editing.

Declaration of interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Citation

Gregory, K.H. and Burbage, A.K. (2022), "Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions", Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/SGPE-01-2021-0002

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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