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Doctoral students experience high rates of mental health distress and dropout; however, the mental health and wellness of engineering doctoral students is understudied. Studies of student persistence, wellness, and success often aggregate fields together, such as by studying all engineering students. Thus, little work has considered the experiences of biomedical engineering (BME) doctoral students, despite differences between doctoral BME research, course content, and career expectations compared with other engineering disciplines. In this qualitative interview case study, we explore stressors present in the BME graduate experience that are unique from engineering students in other disciplines. Methods We analyzed a longitudinal interview study of doctoral engineering students across four timepoints within a single academic year, consisting of a subsample (n=6) of doctoral students in a BME discipline, among a larger sample of engineering doctoral students (N=55). BME students in the sample experienced some themes generated from a larger thematic analysis differently compared with other engineering disciplines. These differences are presented and discussed, grounded in a model of workplace stress. Results BME participants working in labs with biological samples expressed a lack of control over the timing and availability of materials for their research projects. BME participants also had more industry-focused career plans and described more commonly coming to BME graduate studies from other fields (e.g., another engineering major) and struggling with the scope and content of their introductory coursework. A common throughline for the stressors was the impact of the interdisciplinary nature of BME programs, to a greater extent compared with other engineering student experiences in our sample. Conclusions We motivate changes for researchers, instructors, and policymakers which specifically target BME students and emphasize the importance of considering studies at various unit levels (university department level vs college level vs full institution) when considering interventions targeting student stress and wellness. 

It is well-known that a significant population of doctoral students drop out of their graduate programs and face or develop significant mental health distress. Stress plays a role in exacerbating mental health distress in both engineering PhD programs and more broadly for university students in general. While rates of dropout for engineering students may not differ strongly from other disciplines, engineering students have been suggested to be less likely to seek help from university services for well-being concerns. In the first year of our three‐year NSF RFE project, we interviewed doctoral engineering students to identify major stressors present in the doctoral engineering experience at the present study’s focal institution. In the second year of our project, we had developed the Stressors for Doctoral Students Questionnaire - Engineering (SDSQ-E), a novel survey which measures the frequency and severity of these top sources of stress for doctoral engineering students. The SDSQ-E was designed using the results of first year interviews and a review of the literature on stress for doctoral engineering students. In year three, we completed analysis of the year 3 data and conducted further testing of the SDSQ-E. We also developed a discipline-general form of the survey, called the SDSQ-G. In October-December 2023, we administered these surveys to engineering PhD students as a subset of a large sample of graduate students at two institutions. Further, we tested the potential for the SDSQ-E to predict factors such as anxiety, depression, or intention to persist in doctoral programs. We broadly summarize these survey distributions including tests of the SDSQ-E for validity, fairness, and reliability. 

This theory paper focuses on a research methodology, using an autoethnographic approach to reflect on the use of cognitive interviewing (CI) as a method of increasing the quality and validity of questionnaires in pre-validation design and development stages. We first provide a brief review of cognitive interviewing, sometimes called “cognitive think-aloud interviewing” or “think-aloud interviewing,” before presenting a summary of two studies conducted by the authors that used CI. Differences between these two studies are discussed as comparative cases and advice is given to scholars considering the use of CI in their own research. While this paper is not an explicit guide to conducting CI, we do intend to provide advice and wisdom for researchers who are unfamiliar with CI as a method, grounded in our experience with the method. This paper is written with a particular focus on the use of CI in engineering education research (EER) but may be more broadly applicable to other social sciences domains. 

Drawing from the results of this study and a review of the literature on graduate student stressors, we developed in Year 2 the Stressors for Doctoral Students Questionnaire for Engineering (SDSQ-E) and administered it twice, in fall 2022 and in spring 2023. The SDSQ-E measures the severity and frequency of stressors including advisor-related stressors, class-taking stressors, research or laboratory stressors, campus life and financial stressors, and identity-related or microaggression-related stressors. We present a description of our project and updates on its progress in its second year, including survey results from our 2022-2023 data collection. 

To help straddle the breadth of research on doctoral student stress, our team sought to explore the landscape of doctoral student stressors by interviewing an intentionally stratified sample of doctoral students four times during the course of an academic year. We present an overview of our research process and the top 10 most reported stressors from analysis of our interview data. Further, we report on the most frequent coping strategies used by students in our sample, contributing additional coping strategies used by engineering doctoral students. Understanding the most common factors which contribute to the stresses experienced by doctoral students and these students' effective coping strategies can support students, advisors, and departments to develop proactive interventions and strategies that support well-being and retention. 

Reports on results from the first year of the RFE project, in which PhD engineering students were interviewed about stressors.