Browsing by Subject "doctoral education"

This bachelor’s thesis focused on exploring doctoral students’ conceptions of doctoral education and dissertation process particularly in respect of personal meaning making. The aim of the study was to understand the doctoral journey as a personal matter and ponder researcher development in terms of not only how or what but also and especially in terms of why. At the moment there are more doctors graduating from Finnish universities than ever before and doctoral education is at least partly desirable due to the recognition and qualification entailed. However, the future prospects both in academia and employment market are uncertain and as the demands and confusion constantly present in the doctoral process is acknowledged, there must be a deeper purpose for pursuing doctorate. Hence, the aim of this study was to understand why are the doctoral students taking post-graduate studies, what does the doctoral education mean to them personally, what are they hoping to achieve and how they go about developing over time? This study relied on qualitative methods and the data was collected using semi-structured interview. The sample consisted of five interviews; two of the interviewees were doctoral students of social work and three of educational sciences majoring in general and adult education. My aim was to describe the doctoral education as a personal journey of a doctoral student and determine the meaning making inherent to the process by means of narrative approach and actantial analysis. Based on the interviews, five illustrative stories were constructed and then analysed with the help of actantial model. The results suggested that doctoral students do not only make value judgements about doctoral education as a process, product or both, but instead the meanings given for the doctorate are even more deeper and very personal. The study reveals that in order to protect the well-being of doctoral students and the production of high-quality research it is essential to pay attention both in terms of supervision and in general to doctoral students’ reasons behind their aspiration for doctoral studies and nurture students’ personal meaning-making inherent to the dissertation process.