Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine doctoral students’ developmental trajectories in well-being and disciplinary identity during the first three years of doctoral study.

Design/methodology/approach

This study relies on data from a longitudinal study of PhD students enrolled at a large, research-intensive university in the USA. A group-based trajectory modeling approach is used to examine varying trajectories of well-being and disciplinary identity.

Findings

The authors find that students’ physical health, mental health and disciplinary identity generally decline during the first few years of doctoral study. Despite this common downward trend, the results suggest that six different developmental trajectories exist. Students’ backgrounds and levels of stress, psychological needs satisfaction, anticipatory socialization experiences and prior academic success predict group membership.

Originality/value

Although there is emergent evidence of a mental health crisis in graduate education scant evidence exists about the way in which well-being changes over time as students progress through their doctoral studies. There is also little evidence of how these changes might be related to academic processes such as the development of disciplinary identity. This study reported varying baseline degrees of well-being and disciplinary identity and offers that stress and unmet psychological needs might be partially responsible for varying trajectories.

中文翻译：

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转折点：博士前几年的幸福感和学科认同

目的

本研究的目的是检查博士生在博士学习的前三年在幸福感和学科认同方面的发展轨迹。

设计/方法/方法

这项研究依赖于对在美国一所大型研究型大学招收的博士生进行的纵向研究的数据。基于群体的轨迹建模方法用于检查幸福感和学科认同的不同轨迹。

发现

作者发现，在博士学习的头几年，学生的身体健康、心理健康和学科认同感普遍下降。尽管有这种普遍的下降趋势，但结果表明存在六种不同的发展轨迹。学生的背景和压力水平、心理需求满意度、预期的社会化经历和先前的学业成功预测团体成员身份。

原创性/价值

尽管有新的证据表明研究生教育中存在心理健康危机，但关于随着学生在博士研究中的进步，幸福感随时间变化的方式却鲜有证据。也几乎没有证据表明这些变化如何与学科认同的发展等学术过程相关。这项研究报告了不同的幸福感和学科认同的基线程度，并提出压力和未满足的心理需求可能是造成不同轨迹的部分原因。