A Rollercoaster Ride of Emotions: Investigating Learning Challenges in a Doctoral Learning Journey

Abstract

Although there has been a substantial increase in the number of research students enrolled in public higher learning institutions in Malaysia, the high attrition rate amongst doctoral students is quite alarming. Various research efforts have been carried out to investigate this phenomenon; however, most of the studies were focused solely on supervision. Even less is known about the challenges that research students in Malaysia face during their doctoral learning journey and how they cope with these challenges. This study examined the learning challenges that research students experienced during their doctoral learning journey and how they managed to overcome the challenges. This qualitative study involved an extensive collection of timeand context-sensitive data and emphasized on giving participants a personal voice. Snowball sampling was used and a total of eight participants were involved in this study. Four stages of data collection generated rich data from lengthy interviews and provided opportunities for re-interviewing the same participants all over again. Three types of interviews were utilised, and necessary steps were taken to ensure trustworthiness was established in this research. Based on the research findings, three broad categories of learning challenges were identified namely supervision, academic and psychological. Academic challenges were most profound in their learning in which knowledge creation and conceptualization being the most challenging skills whilst psychological issues were the least challenging. This study introduced a fresh perspective to the literature on research students, which has been dominated by investigation into the supervision process. Introduction There has been a substantial increase in the number of research students enrolled in public higher learning institutions in Malaysia. The number of enrolments increased from 17,718 in 2010 to 31,014 in 2014 (Ministry of Higher Education, 2011, 2016). This accounted to about 40% increase in enrolment over a span of 5 years. The drastic increase is aligned to the National Higher Education Strategic Plan 2020 in which the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) has targeted a total of 60 000 PhD candidates by the year 2020. Although an increase in the number of PhD enrolment seems to support the nation’s aspiration to elevate human capital, one important issue still needs to be International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 9 , No. 13, Special Issue: Revolutionizing Education: Challenges, Innovation, Collaboration., 2019, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2019 HRMARS 264 addressed in order to achieve such target; that is the high attrition rate amongst research students. In the article “3 out of 10 doctoral students drop out” (2011), the New Straits Times reported that slightly more than 30% of research students in Malaysia dropped out due to various personal and academic reasons. The newspaper report further stated that the two most common reasons given were work commitments and family problems. Most often research students start their PhD thinking of the end product, i.e. the thesis. However, in many cases the high hope that starts their PhD journey soon fades off into the mysterious background of a volatile journey that can be very frustrating to many. Batchelor and Di Napoli (2006) describe this volatile journey as a voyage of vulnerability where research students are thrown into the unknown sea of knowledge and constantly battle with conflicts as they seek new knowledge in the process of learning, unlearning and re-learning. This becomes a repetitive process of trial and error and often results in research students experiencing difficulties or “stuckness” (p.14). When a PhD candidate embarks on a doctoral journey, he or she will naturally start with a question that calls for a research into the phenomenon. However, education can be disruptive in nature. The student may end up being in the ‘wasted first year’, trying to find one that is acceptably a contribution to the field of knowledge and addresses the gap in research (Zuram, 2005). As a matter of fact, there have been many online discussions amongst research students seeking advice on the breaking point and many have lamented on the question of when to throw in the ‘PhD towel’. It is common to hear research students refer to situations like ‘PhD depressions’, ‘stuck in second gear’, ‘postgrad blues’, ‘stuck in an infinite loop’, etc. Previous literature had consistently shown that research students’ incompetence in performing independent research was a major contribution to high attrition rates amongst research students from the field of social sciences (Lovitts & Nelson, 2000). This augurs well with the concept of “doctorateness” in which Park (2007) used to discriminate between a PhD degree and other degrees. “Doctorateness” is described as the ability of a student to exhibit episteme and think like a researcher (Trafford & Leshem, 2009) and an independent scholar (McKenna, 2006). Hence, it is important that research students incorporate the right way of thinking and practicing in order to achieve some level of doctorateness in order to succeed (Entwisle, 2004). This paper is part of a larger study that investigated the learning process of research students in Education Faculties from several public higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Specifically, this paper discussed challenges that research students experienced during their doctoral learning journey. Based on their lived experiences on the phenomena, a descriptive understanding of the types of challenges were identified and analyzed to provide a rich description of the challenges and narrate how these students managed to overcome their challenges. Previous studies on doctoral learning journey often described research students’ experiences in a form of ‘metaphorical journey’ (Perera, 2005; Vilkinas, 2005). Research students’ used metaphors such as ‘voyages’, ‘threshold crossings’, ‘the blind adrenalin rush’, ‘rollercoaster rides’ to describe their challenges throughout the learning journey with anecdotes replicating their many trials and tribulations during the phases of the journey. Based on the findings, issues that were commonly discussed as challenges involved three broad categories; namely, supervisory problems, academic problems, as well as psychological problems. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 9 , No. 13, Special Issue: Revolutionizing Education: Challenges, Innovation, Collaboration., 2019, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2019 HRMARS 265 Supervision appeared to be the dominant theme in most literature on doctoral learning challenges. It is reported to be a critical factor in ensuring research students’ successful completion (Lovitts, 2001) and doctoral education quality (Morgan & Ryan, 2003). As such, lack of effective supervision contributed to low completion rates and lack of enthusiasm for research (Haksever & Manisali, 2000). Lack of commitment, emotional support and research interests by the supervisor were idenfied as prime challenges amongst research students. Meanwhile, academic problems emerged when research students with non-research background embarked on postgraduate research studies. This caused major changes in various areas such as styles of work, intellectual, technical and organizational skills. Findings from various research reported academic problems such as difficult to identify a research problem and decide on a research topic as well as methodological difficulties (Lovitts, 2001). Intrapersonal and interpersonal problems were part of psychological factors that could impede research students’ successful completion of their studies. Findings from previous research also reported challenges such as feelings of isolation, boredom, frustration, and potential loss of enthusiasm as well as procrastination and perfectionism that impeded students’ motivation throughout their learning journey. Method In order to investigate what learning challenges that research students faced during their doctoral learning journeys, a multiple-case study research was employed as it involved more than one single case and the cases were further examined to understand the similarities and differences between the cases. This ‘comprehensive research strategy’ (Yin, 2016, p.14) allowed a detailed account of the lived experiences of the research students throughout their doctoral learning journeys. The study was conducted at several public learning institutions in Malaysia where four research participants were from research universities, two were from comprehensive universities and the remaining two from focused universities. Utilizing snowball sampling, the first three key participants who had met the criteria were established for participation in this study. During the interview sessions with the three participants, each of them was asked to refer another participant that they would find suitable to participate in this study. Even without full knowledge of the population, snowball sampling had provided access to more quality participants, as relevant leads were only identified at each sampling step. Three main stages of data collection by means of three types of interviewing were utilized in this study. Stage one involved storytelling where semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants on an individual basis. The average length of the storytelling sessions was 55 minutes, with a range from 35 minutes to 90 minutes. Meanwhile in stage two, stimulated recall interview allowed further clarification, elaboration and comments on the topics raised in the storytelling stage. The third stage of data collection involved semi-structured interviews that were conducted within six months after the second stage of data collection. A set of semi-structured interview guidelines was composed to provide a framework or checklist for developing individual semi-str