The Evolution of Research on Doctoral Student Success at UM

November 2017 | University of Michigan Higher Education Applied Research (HEAR) seminar
John A. Gonzalez, Merle Feldbaum, Allyson Flaster

This presentation was part of the HEAR speaker series, sponsored by U-M’s Office of Enrollment Management. HEAR’s aim was to connect higher education researchers and practitioners whose work focuses on access, persistence, and diversity in higher education. Our presentation discussed the evolution of research on doctoral student success at the University of Michigan. It outlined three case studies of institutional research approaches: descriptive metrics (using institutional data with limited context), post-hoc analysis (examining relationships between outcomes and indicators using survey data like the Ph.D. Experience Study 2009-2012), and the Rackham Research Agenda. The presentation highlights the limitations of earlier approaches, including narrow targeting, binary success metrics, cross-sectional data, and too-narrow analytic windows. We introduced the new longitudinal Michigan Doctoral Experience Study (MDES), which began in September 2017, as an example of how to improve on previous approaches. MDES takes a more comprehensive approach by measuring pre-socialization experiences, social group identification, baseline disciplinary identity, and motivation.