Psychological health of doctoral candidates, study-related challenges and perceived performance
By K. Barry, Megan Woods, E. Warnecke, Christine Stirling, Angela J. Martin. 2018
181 citations recorded by the source corpus.
ABSTRACT Psychological distress is prevalent in doctoral degree training and affects students' completion time. It is crucial to monitor the amount of distress experienced and understand the causes for it to inform the type of support most needed. This mixed method study explored challenges related to candidature, self-reported progress and measures of perceived and actual psychological distress with a convenience sample of 81 doctoral candidates in an Australian university. Using validated survey instruments, participants reported higher levels of depression, anxiety and stress than age-matched general population normative data. Additionally, those who self-reported being behind or exceeding their study schedule had significantly higher scores for depression, anxiety and stress than those who reported they were meeting schedule. Conversely, stage of candidature did not affect any of these attribute scores. The responses to open-ended questions about challenges associated with doctoral study were coded and explored with an existing typology. The most frequent challenge reported in doctoral study is related to the development of generic skills, followed by management of self, including motivation. Given that not all challenges could be included in the existing typology, we recommend expansion to the typology.
Subfields: Clinical Psychology, General Health Professions
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f57ce3717fe81c3f8da99582416d6cd3b95e0ae
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Clinical Psychology
In General Health Professions
Citations in the corpus
- Contribution of the doctoral education environment to PhD candidates’ mental health problems: a scoping review (2018, background): “Appel and Dahlgren (2003) described candidates’ confused perceptions that ‘invisible walls’ can unexpectedly arise upon changing supervisors, as a result of previously unresolved conflicts within a department.”
- A systematic review of graduate student peer mentorship in academia (2019, background): “In a recent survey of doctoral experiences, students reported that ‘stress made them feel less competent . . . by undermining their confidence [and] diminished their capacity for problemsolving’ (Barry et al., 2018, p. 477).”
- Factors that influence PhD candidates’ success: the importance of PhD project characteristics (2019, background): “Barry et al. (2018) found that ill mental health among PhD students was related to being behind schedule.”