All you need is self-determination: Investigation of PHD students' motivation profiles and their impact on the doctoral completion process

Abstract

Aim/Purpose The present study aimed at (1) identifying the naturally occurring patterns of motivation among doctoral students and (2) assessing their impact on the doc-toral completion process. Background Grounded in the self-determination theory, the paper investigated needs satis-faction and the doctoral completion process. Methodology Two complementary methods were used. First, k-mean clustering was used to classify 461 doctoral students according to their feelings of competence, auton-omy and relatedness. Second, the completion process of these five profiles was investigated through multi-group path analyses. Contribution This paper provided a motivational perspective on doctoral completion process that highlighted significant individual differences.