There has been sustained interest in how to support doctoral students through the often-gruelling journey they undertake from enrolment to graduation. Although doctoral numbers and successful completions have been steadily increasing globally as well as in Australia, the quality of student progression and outcomes has been widely interrogated and criticised in the literature that is reported in this paper. The authors’ interest as experienced research higher degree supervisors and research leaders in the creative arts and humanities prompted a research project that aimed to better understand the challenges and breakthroughs involved in completing a doctorate from the perspective of candidates themselves.,This was implemented through an action learning collaboration with 18 students from three Australian universities facilitated by four research supervisors.,The main findings presented in this paper include the necessity for maintaining, brokering and supporting a range of relationships; understanding expectations of research study and embracing the need for agility in managing these; and finally, using techniques to improve personal agency and ownership of the transformative journey of research higher degree candidature. The importance of establishing an understanding of the multidimensional human experience of doing a doctorate and providing appropriate support through enhanced forms of research training emerged as a core finding from this research project.,The relatively small number of research participants in this study and the discipline-specific focus prohibits generalizability of findings; however, the collaborative, action learning method adopted represents an approach that is both productive and transferable to other contexts and disciplines.,Further research might investigate the relevance of the findings from this research to doctoral students in other disciplines and/or institutions or apply the collaborative action learning approach to doctoral training presented here to a range of contexts and cohorts.,Improving doctoral training options to support the multidimensional needs of candidates can better assure the mental and emotional well-being of doctoral students (essential to their continuing intellectual development and sense of agency) through developing sustainable relationships and realistic expectations. This in turn has the potential to address the consistently high attrition rates in doctoral programmes.,This research contributes new insights from doctoral students on the challenges and breakthroughs experienced by them as they pursue original research through formal study and present a novel, collaborative and empowering approach to doctoral training that can be applied in diverse setting.

中文翻译：

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学生对博士学习的反思：挑战与突破

人们一直对如何在博士生从入学到毕业的艰苦历程中提供支持方面一直保持着兴趣。尽管在全球以及澳大利亚，博士人数和成功完成率均在稳步增长，但在本文报道的文献中，学生的进步和结业质量受到了广泛的质疑和批评。作者的兴趣是富有创造力的艺术和人文科学方面经验丰富的研究高级主管和研究领导者，这促使了一个研究项目，旨在从候选人本人的角度更好地理解完成博士学位的挑战和突破。这是通过与来自四所研究主管的澳大利亚三所大学的18名学生进行的行动学习合作来实现的。本文的主要发现包括维持，促进和支持各种关系的必要性；了解研究的期望并接受在管理这些挑战时需要敏捷性；最后，使用技术来改善个人代理人和所有权的转化过程，以提高研究的候选资格。该研究项目的核心发现是，必须建立对多维的人类博士学位研究经验的理解并通过增强形式的研究培训提供适当支持的重要性。这项研究中相对较少的研究参与者和特定学科的重点阻止了研究结果的普遍性；但是，采用的协作式行动学习方法代表了一种既可生产又可转移到其他环境和学科的方法。进一步的研究可能会调查该研究结果与其他学科和/或机构的博士生的相关性，或将其应用于协作式行动学习方法用于博士培训，这里针对各种背景和人群提出了这些建议，通过建立可持续的关系和切合实际的期望，改善博士培训选择以支持候选人的多维需求可以更好地确保博士生的心理和情感健康（这对于他们不断的智力发展和代理意识至关重要）。反过来，这有可能解决博士课程中持续高流失率的问题。这项研究为博士生提供了新的见解，了解他们在通过正式学习进行原始研究并提出新颖，合作和授权的过程中所面临的挑战和突破。可以在各种环境中应用的博士培训方法。