Doctoral Student Development in Time of Crisis: Implications of COVID-19 on Well-Being and Academic Development

November 2021 | Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference
Heeyun Kim, Nabih Haddad, Paula Clasing-Manquian, John A. Gonzalez

We examined how the COVID-19 pandemic affected doctoral students’ development across four key dimensions: autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs satisfaction; self-assessed levels of disciplinary knowledge; sense of disciplinary identity; and stress levels. Using longitudinal data from the Michigan Doctoral Experience Study (N=3,604), we compared cohorts that entered doctoral study before the pandemic onset (pre-pandemic) and after the pandemic onset (post-pandemic). Our findings suggest significant increases in stress levels following the pandemic onset, with women, underrepresented minority, and low-socioeconomic status students experiencing the greatest increase. Interestingly, pre-pandemic cohorts’ sense of disciplinary identity dropped during the pandemic, while post-pandemic cohorts’ sense of disciplinary identity did not. We also found the greatest developmental differences in pre- and post-pandemic cohorts occurred among low-SES students. These findings highlight the pandemic’s differential impacts on doctoral student development and well-being across demographic groups.