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This paper aims to investigate doctoral students’ perceptions of and satisfaction with their doctor of education program, specifically related to dissertation writing preparation. The results offer a complex picture that has implications for the design of doctoral education programs that aim to help students prepare for culminating academic writing products such as dissertations.

Qualitative data, by means of an anonymous online survey with open-ended questions, were used to ascertain 115 doctoral students’ writing experiences in a doctoral program at one university in the USA.

The findings of this study suggest the importance of intrapersonal factors, specifically the ability to engage in self-directed learning; interpersonal factors, such as peer and faculty support; and institutional factors, namely, faculty’s writing-based pedagogical practices, in supporting doctoral students’ academic writing.

This study suggests in addition to selecting and nurturing students’ ability to engage in self-directed learning, there are a number of specific strategies and practices doctoral faculty can engage in and use to prepare students for successful dissertation writing.

This study provides the perspective of former and existing doctoral students to illuminate the needs they perceive as they engage in dissertation writing. The study provides practical strategies based on common themes in student responses.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions of graduate students about the need for a multicultural education course at doctoral level in a mid-sized higher education public institution in Southwest Florida.

A qualitative case study method was applied with multiple sources of data collected, including semi-structured interviews, observations and students’ written papers, online discussions and assignments that aimed to prepare educators to teach culturally diverse students and challenge their own perceptions about culture, race and other multicultural education-related topics.

The findings indicate that, even though the multicultural education course promoted an eye-opening transformational experience for students through their interactions and learning from each other, the students still need further training in multicultural education because of their limited culturally responsive teaching skills.

Limitations of the study are that both the researchers were deeply involved with the material and the class, as the class professor and one of the students, which might have affected the authors’ perception about the students’ journey in learning about multicultural education. The researchers’ dual-role (as researchers and course professor and graduate assistant) might have influenced the participants’ responses, as they knew they were part of a research project. Thus, the participants’ spontaneity in sharing their opinions and beliefs about multicultural education may have been hampered, perhaps responding what the researchers expected rather than with their authentic perspectives on the topics.

The implications of this study to teachers, educators and practitioners are that it invites the readers to reflect on their academic preparedness to work with culturally diverse students. For policymakers, the study indicates the need for creating standards that aim to examine in-service graduate student teachers about their self-efficacy, readiness and dispositions to work with culturally diverse students.

Because of the limited publications on doctoral students learning multicultural education, the authors’ study offers an important insight into the transformational experience of doctoral students learning multicultural education and the implications for improving graduate courses in multicultural education.

The aim of this paper is to explore doctoral students' engaging and disengaging experiences among a group of students whose doctoral processes had been prolonged for more than seven years.

The participants were 16 doctoral students in the behavioural sciences. The data were collected with interviews employing a visualisation of their doctoral journeys, and were content analysed qualitatively.

The results suggested that the students described their engagement in doctoral work in terms of dedication, vigour and occasionally absorption. In turn, disengagement was described in terms of insufficiency, cynicism and sometimes exhaustion. Interestingly, the source of engagement was typically a sense of belonging in the scholarly community, whereas the students often reported a lack of autonomy and a lack of belonging as sources for disengagement.

Further longitudinal studies are needed to explore the development of engagement in doctoral work among students from different contexts.

In terms of developing more engaging learning environments, the findings imply that by enhancing students' sense of belonging to their scholarly community and their experiences of autonomy within it their engagement in doctoral work, and further, development as researchers can be fostered.

This study extends the understanding of what may engage or disengage students from their doctoral studies and the essential relationship between the sense of autonomy and that of belonging in doctoral student engagement, in particular in the context of prolonged doctoral studies in the behavioural sciences.

Many doctoral students apply theoretical frameworks to writing assignments as part of their academic coursework and, later, in the practice of analyzing and reporting research. However, students often struggle to effectively apply theoretical frameworks to their writing processes. Thus, as one way of contributing to the writing pedagogies of doctoral-level instructors, the purpose of this study is to explore doctoral students’ learning experiences with analyzing and reporting organizational data using theoretical frameworks.

This study examines the perspectives of 29 doctoral students through analytical papers and reflections, letters and interviews.

Five themes within the context of current literature on writing were identified. These included students experiencing discomfort, even fear, about writing; students needing to write and receive honest feedback to learn how to write; the need for an instructional process that moves from conceptual to detailed instructions; understanding that writing has conceptual and skills implications that cannot be achieved in a single class; and the analytical writing process contributes to an understanding of the complexity of holding a doctoral degree.

The findings demonstrate the importance of helping doctoral students gain confidence and improve writing with theoretical frameworks, which can be accomplished with structured formats, through repetition and from instructor feedback.

This study offers unique insights into the challenges that doctoral students face when writing through theoretical frameworks and how instructors can interact with and potentially improve students’ writing skills and abilities.

This paper aims to understand if a project work methodology proposed to students, based on an inquiry perspective and dealing with different dimensions of sustainable development, contributed to creating an interdisciplinary solution for a problem on sustainability challenged by food production and consumption, and also to understand if this methodological approach is perceived as important to their learning as professionals and citizens. Data were collected by direct observation, a questionnaire applied to the students and students’ individual reflections.

This paper aims to present the research results of the impact of a pedagogical approach on students, implemented as a part of the Doctoral Programme in Sustainability Science, which was designed following an innovative model at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. The main drivers include building a new body of interdisciplinary knowledge leading to the application of science to address real problems towards transdisciplinary education.

The results suggest great potential for an inquiry perspective in trying to solve a real problem. Students’ proposals were realistic, viable and complementary enough to collectively contribute in response to the global problem. The use of approaches acquired from different areas of knowledge was clear, and the project methodology was well understood. Students considered the experience very rewarding in terms of learning and contributing positively to their personal and professional development.

This Doctoral programme is anchored in a progressive continuum encompassing holistic debates with a multidisciplinary team of professors in environments that promote interdisciplinary attitudes and new knowledge, and also project work aimed at guiding students to transdisciplinary learning, which constitutes an innovative form of dealing with the complex challenges created by the science of sustainability.

In some fields, research group experiences gained in laboratories are more influential than the classroom in shaping graduate students’ research abilities, understandings of post-graduate careers and professional identities. However, little is known about what and how students learn from their research group experiences. This paper aims to explore the learning experiences of engineering graduate students in one chemical engineering research group to determine what students learned and to identify the practices and activities that facilitated their learning.

Ethnography was used to observe the experiences of one research group in chemical engineering. Fieldwork included 13 months of observations, 31 formal interviews (16 first-round and 15 second-round interviews) and informal interviews. Fieldnotes and transcriptions were analyzed using grounded theory techniques.

Research group members developed four dominant competencies: presenting research, receiving and responding to feedback, solving problems and troubleshooting problems. Students’ learning was facilitated by the practices and activities of the research group (e.g. weekly full group and subgroup meetings) and mediated through the interactions of others (i.e. peers, faculty supervisor and lab manager).

This study adds to the engineering education literature and contributes to the larger discourse on identifying promising practices and activities that improve student learning in graduate education.

This study aims to investigate social sciences PhD scholars’ research experiences through a qualitative lens. Researchers explored the doctoral students’ research conceptions, supervision-related expectations, reasons to join PhD, key learning areas and advantages of PhD in this study. Education sector is rigorously seeking PhD faculty and simultaneously offering a number of research degree programs and scholarships to boom the research culture. The amount of time, energy, finance and dedication involved in it urges researchers to investigate this phenomenon holistically.

Qualitative research approach, phenomenology (semi-structured interviews) is used to conduct this research, and interpretative phenomenological analysis technique is used to analyze the collected data.

Findings have been reported comprehensively through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Respondents had a number of expectations from supervisors and viewed this journey as challenging and at the same time beneficial for their professional and personal life.

This study is unique in nature, as it depicts research conceptions of doctoral students, benefits of PhD, challenges in pursuing PhD and supervision expectations from a developing country perspective. This study’s outcomes have impressions for policymakers, researchers and supervisors. The findings have insights for educators to produce more constructive researchers and scholars.

This paper is about action learning and the pedagogy of professional doctorates. The purpose of this paper is to explore the pedagogical problems of the relatively new professional doctorates and consider whether action learning offers potential solutions.

This conceptual paper seeks to answer the question: how good is the fit between the learning processes of action learning and the learning goals of professional doctorates?

The main conclusions of the paper are that action learning can support the learning of students enroled on professional doctorates by helping them realise the following three key learning outcomes, namely, the capacity to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, that is relevant to professional practice; their own personal and professional capabilities as practitioners; and their capacity to bring about change that directly enhances professional practice, i.e. they can make a direct contribution to professional practice, e.g. through some successful project that they undertake.

While this paper is not based on research, the main implication is that action learning can offer a valuable pedagogic approach in supporting the learning of professional doctoral candidates towards their goal of making an original contribution to the advancement of professional practice.

A second implication is the need for many of those university academics responsible for leading and managing professional doctorates to become more familiar with the theory and practice of action learning. A third implication is the appreciation of the need to weigh up cost against the benefits of using action learning as a pedagogic process on professional doctorates.

This conceptual paper is original as it explores the fit of action learning with pedagogic issues of professional doctorates.

Standard doctoral preparation includes formal training in a specific academic discipline. In some instances, this training includes experience serving on departmental and university-wide committees. Structured leadership education, however, is most often a peripheral concern of the graduate school experience. For a significant number of doctoral students, formal leadership education is simply not considered to be of primary importance to the careers to which they aspire within higher education. Recognizing a need for increased leadership preparation in higher education, this chapter aims to highlight one systematic model for leadership education at the doctoral student level, the Rutgers University PreDoctoral Leadership Development Institute (PLDI).

Within the USA, current trends in higher education show more women than men achieving graduate degrees. Among the potential reasons for this disparity is that fathers are reporting challenges in balancing their additional responsibilities while increasing their housework and childcare investment. Many fathers are turning to online graduate education to more effectively balance home and school responsibilities. However, limited portrayals of fathers' experiences in online education exist.

In this duoethnography of two online doctoral student fathers, the authors add to the limited literature on both fathers and online students in navigating home, school and work responsibilities. The authors use Goode’s role strain theory to examine the challenges to achieving a balance between each sphere of responsibility and explore strategies for managing these tensions.

The authors discuss the need for ongoing flexibility and change, the process of navigating feelings of guilt and self-doubt and the ability to engage in daily role bargains. They argue that online education is generally not a panacea for easing role conflict and find that integration is an effective strategy to aid online students' persistence in their programs.

The authors conclude with policy and practice recommendations for future online doctoral student fathers and doctoral program designers.

Little research has been conducted from the online doctoral student father lens. This research fills in this gap and lends a voice to fathers who are navigating the doctoral journey.