Employing Agency in Academic Settings: Doctoral Students Shaping Their Own Experiences

Abstract

The majority of research on doctoral students’ success is aimed at the identification of personal and/or situational factors that contribute to PhD candidates’ attrition and persistence, respectively. By doing so, the literature has adopted a rather passive perspective towards PhD candidates and their development. The active role of candidates being agentic constructors of their academic career has been widely neglected. This study therefore focuses on how PhD students can take an active approach towards their academic development. A qualitative interview study with ten German faculty members was conducted to answer the following research questions: (1) How do supervisors conceptualise academic success of PhD students? (2) How does professional agency affect academic success of young researchers? (3) What individual and/or contextual factors affect the exercise of professional agency? Based on these interviews, evidence is reported on how doctoral candidates can indeed affect their academic development and eventually their success by exercising professional agency. Among others, the study participants mentioned proactive networking, negotiation of external demands and deliberate information and feedback seeking as important manifestations of professional agency in academic contexts.