Identity formations of doctoral students on the route to achieving their doctorate

Shosh Leshem
Kibbutzim College of Education, Israel, and
Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Research suggests that identity development is a crucial dimension of the doctoral student experience. This study explores what identity formations doctoral students exhibit in the doctoral journey and how these formations affect their experiences in the process of achieving a doctorate. The methodology employed was within the qualitative paradigm and adopted an inductive narrative approach to investigate the experiences of doctoral students. The article reinforces the claim that supervision is crucial to doctoral students' development of a professional scholarly identity. Its importance is inherent in better understanding the challenges and critical points of departure faced by doctoral students in the process of establishing themselves as academics. It brings to light the issue of supervisors' role in enhancing motivation and independence and also the role of academic communities in identity development of doctoral students.
[ PDF full text for this article ]

Author: Professor Shosh Leshem lectures at Kibbutzim College of Education, Israel and Middlebury College, Vermont. She is an Associate Researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her interests are doctoral education, the nature of doctorateness, supervision, teacher education and language acquisition. She is co-author of the book Stepping stones to achieving your doctorate. Email: shosh-l@zahav.net.il, leshemshosh@gmail.com Please cite as: Leshem, S. (2020). Identity formations of doctoral students on the route to achieving their doctorate. Issues in Educational Research, 30(1), 169-186. http://www.iier.org.au/iier30/leshem.pdf