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A psychologically safe environment is characterized by people who feel safe to voice ideas and concerns, willingly seek feedback, have positive intentions to one another, engage in constructive confrontation, and feel safe to take risks and experiment. Outside of academia, psychological safety has been shown to impact creativity, work performance, and work engagement. In academic research environments, faculty have a major leadership role in cultivating a psychologically safe environment amongst their academic research teams. Effective graduate student mentoring, which includes both career and psychosocial support, is critical to the development and retention of talented engineers in the US workforce. There is a need to better understand how engineering departments can cultivate more inclusive, psychologically safe environments in which graduate students feel safe to engage in interpersonal risk-taking, especially in research settings. Guided by the Conservation of Resources theory, this project aims to address the following research question: What are the relationships between faculty advisor mentoring, doctoral student psychological safety, and the subsequent positive and negative outcomes for doctoral students? This work in progress paper presents the first quantitative phase of an explanatory mixed methods research design within the overarching project. The quantitative phase will address the following research aims: 1) Identify relationships between mentorship, psychological safety, and engineering doctoral student mental health, 2) Identify mentoring competencies that are predictive of research group psychological safety, and 3) Identify how different demographics experience mentoring and psychological safety in their research groups. Researchers developed a survey consisting of five pre-existing scales, four open-ended questions, and demographics questions. The scales include dyadic and team psychological safety, mentoring competency, mental health and well-being, and job stress. The survey was reviewed by graduate students outside of the participant pool at multiple institutions as well as an external advisory board panel and revised to improve clarity and ensure the selection of appropriate subscales. The survey will be administered via Qualtrics. Graduate students who have been enrolled in their doctoral program for at least one year and currently have a doctoral research advisor will be recruited to participate in the survey at four public, research-intensive institutions. The planned target sample size is 200-300 graduate students. This paper will present the design of the survey and preliminary survey results. As the first part of a larger mixed-methods study, the survey responses provide insight into graduate level engineering education and how doctoral students can be better supported.
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Board 197: An Exploration of How Faculty Advising Influences Doctoral Student Psychological Safety and the Impact on Work-Related Outcomes
Faculty advisors perform a vital role in doctoral students’ experiences in their programs, but they often lack training in how to provide essential psychosocial support to their doctoral advisees. This can result in negative graduate experiences, especially for underrepresented groups. While research into psychological safety in the corporate world has highlighted its importance, the importance of psychological safety is less understood in academia, particularly in the context of graduate engineering education. This study seeks to understand how engineering faculty advisors influence the psychological safety of doctoral students they advise and the impact of psychological safety on the student’s graduate experience. We use a mixed methods design and in-depth qualitative study to address the research aims. The mixed methods design uses a survey followed by exploratory interviews. Additional narrative interviews will be conducted to gather rich data on student experiences with psychological safety and how they evolve over time.
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- PAR ID:
- 10580393
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland, Oregon
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Purpose: While ample literature describes students’ experiences during graduate school, fewer studies examine how doctoral students transition into full-time employment post degree completion. The purpose of this study is to examine how faculty advisors, as well as other individuals, shape students’ experiences during a critical period in their graduate education – the job search. Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on interviews with 47 PhD students in biological sciences in the US. This is a descriptive qualitative study, based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Findings: Results reveal distinct roles that faculty advisors play in the job search process, including supportive, unsupportive and sponsorship. Supportive advisors offer opportunities for skill development and specific guidance during the job search process. Sponsorship advisors go beyond providing general support to leverage their personal networks to assist in the transition into full-time employment. Unsupportive advisors are on the other end of the spectrum and do not provide any assistance. In addition, the majority of doctoral students rely on individuals beyond their advisors during the job search, and they do so regardless of what type of support they receive from their advisors. Originality/value: Presented findings highlight the complex constellation of social connections that graduate students draw on for entry into the career and make a compelling case for extending socialization research to dedicate more attention to students’ transition into full-time employment after degree completion.more » « less
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Prior literature has documented the importance of faculty advisors in the doctoral student socialization process, with a few studies describing negative advising relationships characterized by disengagement, disinterest, unsupportive behavior, and interpersonal conflict. We extend this research by exploring how negative advising relationships emerge and develop over time. Examining longitudinal interviews over four years with 15 doctoral students in biological sciences in the USA who experienced negative relationships with their advisors, we illuminate how negative advising relationships unfold over the course of graduate studies. We find two primary patterns in challenging relationships: some students show a gradual decline in relationship health over time, while others point to a single event altering their relationship trajectory. We also identify specific factors that shape each of these negative relationship types. By revealing the different social processes that underlie the emergence of negative advising relationships, our findings provide a valuable contribution to understanding the complex social landscape of doctoral education. The findings further the dialogue on how faculty advisors can craft successful pathways through graduate education, thereby supporting the academic and professional success of doctoral students.more » « less
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Abstract BackgroundGiven high attrition rates and lack of interest in faculty careers, it is crucial to understand how doctoral engineering students conceptualize academia and academic careers. Purpose/HypothesisThis study aims to characterize the development of academic disenchantment among engineering students who have considered departure from their doctoral programs. Schema theory was used to explore how students develop and evolve in their conceptualizations of academia through their lived experiences. Design/MethodData were collected from 42 graduate students from research‐intensive universities across the United States who participated in qualitative, semi‐structured interviews investigating expectations for graduate school, experiences, attrition and persistence considerations, and career trajectories. The transcripts were thematically analyzed through open and axial coding to understand how students constructed their schemas of the academy. FindingsExperiences and quotations of four participants are presented to describe the results of the transcripts. Participants' misaligned expectations of their graduate program's values and practices, coupled with a lack of agency and support, led them to see their graduate programs as antagonistic to their short‐ and long‐term career success. Even for students who may likely persist through to PhD degree completion, the development of disenchantment dissuades students—even those who once desired a faculty career—from interest in the academy. ConclusionsBy understanding how disenchantment arose in our participants' experiences, we better understand how to equip students with resources that will help them navigate graduate programs. This research advances the literature by identifying underutilized opportunities to prepare students to cope with the challenges of engineering doctoral education.more » « less
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The purpose of this qualitative research study is to examine the doctoral experiences of successful Black women enrolled in U.S. engineering and computing programs. Specifically, this manuscript analyzes Black women’s perceived expectations regarding what they believed their doctoral programs would be like prior to their enrollment in graduate school versus their actual experiences as doctoral students (n = 37). Find- ings conclude that Black women expected their coursework would either be academically rigorous or not very difficult at all, and that their faculty advisors would provide them with tailored academic and social support. In addition, some of the Black women also expected that they would not have to deal with racism and sexism under the assumption that their respective departments were inclusive and equitable. Black women’s actual experiences consisted of unsupportive faculty, surprising levels of racism and sexism, and an obligation to code-switch. This article also discusses the implications of the findings, and strategies for helping Black women succeed in engineering and computing doctoral programs are also discussed.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46762
