The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways engineering doctoral students draw on prior experiences to inform their doctoral research. This study includes the experiences of “returners” – those who have worked as practitioners for five or more years before entering a PhD program – who have distinct experiences from “direct-pathway students,” which may inform how they engage in doctoral research. This study also explores the traits that distinguish varying levels of sophistication in the ways PhD students think about the research process and how prior experience may contribute.,This study draws on interview data from 52 returning and direct-pathway engineering doctoral students. A thematic analysis of this interview data highlights the primary ways participants’ prior professional, academic and life experiences inform their doctoral research. In addition, the authors conducted an iterative analysis process to sort participants’ responses about their management of a hypothetical research scenario into emergent categories of research thinking sophistication to understand what characterizes varying levels of sophistication in research thinking and explore how experience may contribute.,Participants identified past experiences as shaping their research, related to how they identify a research problem, considering what needs to and can be done to address the problem, identifying an appropriate research approach, managing unexpected challenges, responding to critical feedback, determining their comfort taking risks and using intuition to lead a project.,Outcomes of this research can inform how graduate education supports students throughout their degree by identifying key experiences that may contribute to students’ research approaches.

中文翻译：

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研究先前经验如何为工程博士学位课程中的回国和直接途径学生提供研究方法

本文的目的是探索工程学博士生借鉴以前的经验来指导他们的博士研究的方式。这项研究包括“回归者”（即在进入博士学位课程之前从事从业五年或以上的实践者）的经历，这些经历与“直接途径学生”的经历截然不同，这可能会告诉他们如何从事博士研究。这项研究还探索了区分不同水平的特征的方式，这些差异在于博士生对研究过程的看法以及先前的经验可能会如何做出贡献。本研究利用了来自52名返回和直接路径工程博士学位的学生的访谈数据。对该访谈数据进行主题分析，突出显示了参与者先前的专业，学术和生活经验为他们的博士研究提供信息的主要方式。