Analysing what it means being neither immigrant nor tourist in a foreign country, this thesis looks at the experiences of international PhD students and their supervisors in the Swedish university town Uppsala. The Faculty of Science and Technology of Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) are the universities studied. Based on anthropological methods, this thesis focuses on the individual actors as they attempt to match the objective of doing a PhD while at the same time being in a different country. Using practice theory, the study highlights that the experiences of international PhD students and the people working with them vary greatly from PhD student to PhD student. Yet, almost all undergo a certain form of self-formation and adjustment process to match the requirements of not only their host country, but also the international field of science they attempt to enter. Being connected to other people in similar situations can help them adapt to this new environment, and many international PhD students join communities of practice. I argue that most develop an internationally recognised habitus, which helps them being recognised by the international community. The habitus can further, under certain circumstances, become partially conscious.

abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore the lived experiences of African American women in pursuit of doctoral degrees in the southwest, their challenges and motivations, and plans for the their next chapter. Drawing from critical race theory and a sociocultural framework, this qualitative study uses Dan McAdams' Life Story Interview (McAdams, 2005) to explore the journeys of these high achieving minority women and how achievement is conceptualized in their stories. Particular emphasis is placed on their critical events, challenges, and alternative futures. Seven separate themes (parental support and advocacy in early education, improved experiences among other African American students, perseverance through struggles/experiences led to purpose, poor department support, family support, impact of spirituality, and relocation and desire to give back) emerged that address three main research questions. Implications for findings and suggestions for future research are offered. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Psychology 2013

This research explores two polarised occupations; entrepreneurs and PhD research students. It exposes similarities and differences between them which specifically defuse the species premise that all entrepreneurs are different and often portrayed as superior to the rest of society and that they, entrepreneurs, are diametrically opposed to PhD research students in the objectives of their work and ultimate intentions for that work. An explorative, interpretive approach is taken which helps illuminate how people understand, interpret and employ their self identity to qualify the practices of both entrepreneurship and PhDship. This methodology enabled exploration of perceptions of self and role in a small sample of people of different age, gender, class, ethnicity and economic standing of two externally polarised occupational groups. This approach permits a compare and contrast of both similarity and differences between these two roles. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six entrepreneurs and six current PhD students from two North West of England research-led universities in a multitude of disciplines and industrial sectors. Numerous existing studies have compared entrepreneurs to managers, to leaders and more recently to business students. Other studies have aimed to ascertain why some people become an entrepreneur as oppose to a salaried employee. To date, no previous research that I am aware of considers doctoral researchers in the same way, that is, as individuals making a contribution to society that is of social, economic and intellectual benefit by furthering knowledge and innovation. The findings from this research show that there are overwhelming similarities between these two occupations in both their practical processes and their sense of self. In fact, there are more differences within the two occupations than between them. It is suggested that identification of individual purpose may prove a valuable determinate of whether people select either of these occupations for socioeconomic reasons or for socioemotional ones. The contribution this research and its findings make is in the recognition of the different purposes individuals express as their primary reason for engaging in either PhD research work or venture formation. This recognition helps expand our understanding beyond the existing opportunity-necessity or push-pull hypothesis to demonstrate a more sophisticated intention based form of inquiry. Individuals in both occupations are subsequently sub categorised as conformists, alterpreneurs, changemakers or vocationalists. Conformists aim to meet perceived social expectations of them; Alterpreneurs are those who buy-a-job; Changemakers intend to improve or fix a self identified problem; Vocationalists intend to develop their skill and expertise in their chosen field.

Nous posons deux questions : quels sont les facteurs qui influencent l’engagement de chercheurs dans la vulgarisation ? quels effets, pour lui-même, un chercheur peut-il tirer de la vulgarisation ? Après un historique synthétique brossant différents paradigmes de la communication publique des sciences, nous explorons 20 enquêtes réalisées entre 1967 et 2014. Celles-ci interrogent les chercheurs. Nous les critiquons une à une et dégageons certaines tendances. La vulgarisation a globalement « bonne presse » et l’engagement des chercheurs semble faible mais robuste. Les études de type « enquête d’opinion » tendent à laisser déclarer le diagnostic et les préconisations aux chercheurs eux-mêmes, d’autres utilisent des modèles théoriques, moins déclaratifs, et des divergences apparaissent autour l’influence du « regard des autres » notamment. La question des effets n’est pas analysée. Pour explorer plus avant nos deux questions, nous utilisons deux démarches. D’une part adapter un modèle théorique, la théorie du comportement planifié, au corpus des doctorants de l’université de Bourgogne ; d’autre part, profiter de mon expérience de responsable de l’Experimentarium, programme de vulgarisation qui, depuis 17 ans, engage des doctorants. L’enquête utilisant la théorie du comportement planifié détermine des facteurs d’engagement principaux : le comportement passé, l’attitude envers la vulgarisation, l’avis des collègues. Au-delà de tendances générales, des analyses multifactorielles permettent de mieux cerner, au cas par cas, les facteurs qui influencent l’engagement de chacun. Chaque doctorant a une histoire. L’observation de l’Experimentarium appuie l’influence de l’attitude, du plaisir à vulgariser, ainsi que l’importance de la socialisation conséquente de certaines actions de vulgarisation. Ces critères sont à la fois facteurs d’engagement et effets pour le chercheur. L’importance de « prendre soin » des doctorants vulgarisateurs est soutenue. Elle conduit à une dynamique réconfort - remotivation pour la recherche. L’action réjouissante menée avec des pairs (à qui on peut parler), l’encouragement du public, l’acquisition d’aptitudes pour mieux s’exprimer et cerner son sujet contribuent à « faire exister » le vécu du chercheur et à le dynamiser dans son travail scientifique. Plus généralement, certaines actions de vulgarisation gonflent la pratique scientifique de sens. In fine, nous proposons un schéma définissant trois postures communicationnelles, basées sur des « pelures d’identité » : le soi, le chercheur, le présentateur. Ce schéma explique des effets potentiels en fonction de situations de vulgarisation. Les dynamiques de communication sont causes et conséquences d’ajustements sur ces postures et de la porosité de ces pelures d’identité. Cette schématisation conduit à aborder le concept de réflexivité, constitutif de situations de vulgarisation et qui peut provoquer certains effets sur le chercheur. Ces réflexions invitent à penser la vulgarisation, non comme une tâche ou un devoir à remplir, mais comme une situation qui – si elle est préparée, observée, ajustée et donc réflexive – peut être source d’émancipation pour le public, mais également pour le chercheur. / We examine two questions: what factors influence the engagement of researchers in public engagement activities ? what effects, for himself, can a researcher derive from popularization (or public communication of sciences and technologies : PCST)? After a synthetic history brushing different paradigms of the PCST, we investigate 20 studies carried out between 1967 and 2014. These interrogate the researchers. We criticize them one by one and clear some trends. PCST has generally "good press" and the commitment of researchers seems weak but robust. Opinion-type studies tend to allow the diagnosis and recommendations to be declared to the researchers themselves, others use less declarative theoretical models, and divergences appear around the influence of the "gaze of others" especially. The question of effects is not analyzed. To explore our two questions further, we use two approaches. On the one hand adapting a theoretical model, the theory of planned behavior, to the corpus of PhD students of the University of Burgundy; on the other hand, to take advantage of my experience as head of the Experimentarium, an extension program which, for 17 years, has been hiring doctoral students. The survey using the theory of planned behavior determines the main factors of engagement: past behavior, attitude towards extension, the opinion of colleagues. Beyond general trends, multifactorial analyzes make it possible to better identify, on a case by case basis, the factors that influence the commitment of each one.Each doctoral student has its own history. The observation of the Experimentarium supports the influence of attitude, pleasure to popularize, as well as the importance of the consequent socialization of actions of popularisation. These criteria are both factors of commitment and effects for the researcher. ...These reflections invite thinking about popularisation, not as a task or a duty to be fulfilled, but as a situation which - if prepared, observed, adjusted and therefore reflexive - can be a source of emancipation for the public but also for the searcher.

Dagens rörliga arbetsmarknad karaktäriseras av strukturell förändring och teknisk utveckling som ställer krav på organisationer att arbeta aktivt för att behålla sin arbetskraft. Undersökningar visar att anställda som anser att deras arbete meningsfullt samt är nöjda med introduktionsprocessen tenderar att stanna längre på sin arbetsplats, jämfört med anställda som är missnöjda. Syftet med denna studie är att bidra med kunskap om anställdas meningsskapande, vilket vi undersökt genom att studera hur doktorander vid Uppsala universitet tillskriver introduktionsprocessen mening. För att fånga individernas uppfattningar av meningsskapande till introduktionsprocessen har vi använt oss av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna har genomförts med sex stycken doktorander vilka alla gått samma introduktionsutbildning. För att bidra med kunskap om hur anställda skapar mening till introduktionsprocesser har vi använt oss av Karl Weicks (1995) teori om meningsskapande i organisationer. Genom kodning och tematisering av intervjutranskripten har studiens centrala frågeställningar Hur beskriver doktorander sina upplevelser av introduktionsprocessen? och Hur upplever doktorander att de har påverkats av introduktionsprocessen? besvarats. Resultatet visar att anställda beskriver introduktionsprocessen som en ordningsskapande och kontinuerlig process samt att tidigare erfarenhet och förväntningar påverkar meningsskapandet. Individer skapar mening till introduktionsprocessen genom kommunikation samt genom att motsätta sig och anpassa sig till de budskap som förmedlas från organisationen. Resultatet påvisar även att den mening som de anställda tillskriver introduktionen samspelar med identitetskonstruktion och agerande. / In light of a changeable labor market characterized by structural transformation and technical development, organizations today need to work actively on maintaining their labor force. Studies show that employees who consider their work meaningful and are happy with their introduction tend to stay employed longer at the organization, then employees that are dissatisfied. The purpose of this study is to contribute with knowledge of employees’ sensemaking. This purpose has been achieved by study of how PhD students at Uppsala university make sense of their introduction process. In order to capture the individuals’ sensemaking of the introduction process, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six PhD students, all of whom have participated in the same introduction process. To gain further insight into how sensemaking is expressed, in regard to introduction processes, we have used Karl Weick's (1995) theory of sensemaking in organizations. Through coding and thematization of interview transcripts the research questions How do PhD students describe their experience of the introduction process? and How do PhD students experience that they have been affected by the introduction process? are answered. The results demonstrate that employees experience the introduction as a continuous and sequencing process and that their background and expectations affect their experience. Individuals make sense of the introduction process through communication as well as by opposing and adapting to the messages conveyed from the organization. The results also show that sensemaking interacts with identity construction and action.

No description available.

This research aims to understand the different practices and strategies early career researchers and PhD students from the social sciences have in Social Networking Sites (SNSs) for science communication in one particular country: Brazil. Following this purpose, the central research question is which are the motives and rationale of the researchers for using social networking sites for science communication. Two sub-questions arise from this general research question: How do practices and strategies relate to the academic system of this country? And How do the traditional science communication practices translate into the use of Social Networking Sites (SNS)? This research is empirically oriented building up on case studies in Brazil. This study makes use of the adaptation that Van Dijck (2013) made of the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and the review of affordances of social media platforms (Bucher & Helmond, 2016) to apply it to the study of social media as the theoretical approach. The methodological approach of this research is qualitative, using both interviews and netnography as research methods. The primary motivations for using different Social Networking Sites are all related to connectivity: communication with peers, to the public and research subjects, updating themselves about their research issue, dissemination of research, availability of papers, self-branding and participation in interest groups are the most mentioned. These motivations translate into cross-posting practices and integrated communication strategies -combining online and offline elements- on the different Social Networking Sites. These motivations translate into perceived affordances all related to social affordances, therefore, social capital processes: availability, scalability, visibility and multimediality. The academic system of the country has remained unchanged as it privileges traditional scholarly academic formats; therefore, early career researchers and PhD students from the social sciences only use the different Social Networking Sites (SNS) as a side aid but not as a primary means of communication. Social media is underused as a means of public science communication, even though these platforms offer a lot of advantages for pursuing such issue. Traditional science communication practices translate into the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs). The most important issue that came out in this report was the fact that social affordances provided by Social Networking (SNSs) are still required to be endorsed by real life meeting to start further collaboration and the fact that English is the preferred language for such issues.

This master’s thesis aims to explore the practice of becoming a researcher and the learning process embedded in this activity by looking at the communicative practices of PhD students, within the context of academic publishing. It is likely that the way in which these soon-to-be researchers reason about the task of communication is related to their way of approaching their field of research as well as the lived world, which makes it relevant to explore further. The study was performed based two sets of data, first open-ended semi-structured interviews with eleven PhD students at Stockholm University, where they talk about their current situation, their motivations and goals and about how they plan to publish their dissertation. Secondly, an analysis of data about publications focusing on work by PhD students at Stockholm University between 2013–2016, and information about how the intended audience, i.e. the readers, have interacted with the published material. These two sets of data were analysed with the use of theories about personal epistemology, sociocultural learning and the rationality of actions. The study shows that the majority of the PhD students at Stockholm University publishes their research findings as scholarly articles in English. The conclusion is also that the publishing process can be understood as a pedagogical tool, as it provides a vehicle for the PhD students to immerse themselves in their community of practice. These findings suggest that it could be useful to further emphasise the publishing activity as a learning process that may lead to a deeper understanding of the role of the researcher in society. / Den här masteruppsatsen avser att utforska hur doktorander lär sig sitt framtida yrke, och hur de socialiseras till att bli forskare via de kommunikativa praktiker som de ägnar sig åt, dvs. akademisk publicering. Dessa kommunikativa praktiker torde vara kopplade till hur en forskare relaterar till sitt forskningsfält, men också sin omvärld, och företeelsen är därför intressant att ytterligare belysa. Studien är genomförd i två delar. Den första delen består av intervjumaterial från samtal med 11 doktorander vid Stockholms universitet. Den andra delen består av en analys av statistik om elektroniska publikationer av doktorander vid Stockholms universitet under perioden 2013–2016. Publikationerna sätts sedan i relation till data om hur läsekretsen har interagerat med publikationerna via olika media och citeringar. De två dataseten analyseras med hjälp av teorier om personlig epistemologi, sociokulturellt lärande och handlingsrationalitet. Slutsatserna är att de flesta doktorander vid Stockholms universitet väljer att publicera sig i vetenskapliga tidskrifter på engelska, och att dessa kommunikativa praktiker kan förstås som ett pedagogiskt verktyg när det gäller lärande om och förståelse för doktorandernas kontext eller gemenskap. Resultatet av studien indikerar att det kan vara meningsfullt att fokusera på publicering, eller liknande kommunikativa praktiker, som en användbar lärandeprocess när det gäller att förstå mer om forskarens roll i samhället.

No description available.

El objetivo de esta tesis es predecir el rendimiento de los estudiantes de doctorado en la Universidad de Girona según características personales (background), actitudinales y de redes sociales de los estudiantes. La población estudiada son estudiantes de tercer y cuarto curso de doctorado y sus directores de tesis doctoral. Para obtener los datos se ha diseño un cuestionario web especificando sus ventajas y teniendo en cuenta algunos problemas tradicionales de no cobertura o no respuesta. El cuestionario web se hizo debido a la complejidad que comportan de las preguntas de red social. El cuestionario electrónico permite, mediante una serie de instrucciones, reducir el tiempo para responder y hacerlo menos cargado. Este cuestionario web, además es auto administrado, lo cual nos permite, según la literatura, unas respuestas mas honestas que cuestionario con encuestador.Se analiza la calidad de las preguntas de red social en cuestionario web para datos egocéntricos. Para eso se calcula la fiabilidad y la validez de este tipo de preguntas, por primera vez a través del modelo Multirasgo Multimétodo (Multitrait Multimethod). Al ser datos egocéntricos, se pueden considerar jerárquicos, y por primera vez se una un modelo Multirasgo Multimétodo Multinivel (multilevel Multitrait Multimethod). Las la fiabilidad y validez se pueden obtener a nivel individual (within group component) o a nivel de grupo (between group component) y se usan para llevar a cabo un meta-análisis con otras universidades europeas para analizar ciertas características de diseño del cuestionario. Estas características analizan si para preguntas de red social hechas en cuestionarios web son más fiables y validas hechas "by questions" o "by alters", si son presentes todas las etiquetas de frecuencia para los ítems o solo la del inicio y final, o si es mejor que el diseño del cuestionario esté en con color o blanco y negro.También se analiza la calidad de la red social en conjunto, en este caso específico son los grupos de investigación de la universidad. Se tratan los problemas de los datos ausentes en las redes completas. Se propone una nueva alternativa a la solución típica de la red egocéntrica o los respondientes proxies. Esta nueva alternativa la hemos nombrado "Nosduocentered Network" (red Nosduocentrada), se basa en dos actores centrales en una red. Estimando modelos de regresión, esta "Nosduocentered network" tiene mas poder predictivo para el rendimiento de los estudiantes de doctorado que la red egocéntrica.Además se corrigen las correlaciones de las variables actitudinales por atenuación debido al pequeño tamaño muestral. Finalmente, se hacen regresiones de los tres tipos de variables (background, actitudinales y de red social) y luego se combinan para analizar cual para predice mejor el rendimiento (según publicaciones académicas) de los estudiantes de doctorado. Los resultados nos llevan a predecir el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes de doctorado depende de variables personales (background) i actitudinales. Asimismo, se comparan los resultados obtenidos con otros estudios publicados. / The aim of this Doctoral Thesis is to predict the PhD students' academic performance in the University of Girona from characteristics of their research group understood as a social network and from background and attitudinal characteristics of the PhD student.The data collection was done through web survey, regarding the traditional problems related to coverage and response errors. Web survey was made in order to reduce the complexity of social network questions.The quality of social network questions for questionnaires with egocentered data is analyzed. For this, reliability and validity of this kind of questions are computed, for first time using a Multilevel Multitrait-Multimethod approach. Data are egocentered and thus hierarchy can be used. Reliability and validity can be obtained in an individual level (within group component) or group level (between group component), which are used for carrying out a meta analysis with other European universities. We study if social network questions asked in web questionnaires are more reliable and valid done "by questions" or "by alters", if the frequency labels are present or not and if the best questionnaire design is plane or graphical.Social network as a whole is also studied, in this case are the research groups in the University of Girona. There is a proposal for the missing data problem in complete networks, different from the egocentered network. This new network structure is called "Nosduocentered Network", which is based in two central actors in a network. Regression model estimations explain that this network has more predictive power in order to predict the academic performance for PhD students.Finally, regression models with background, attitudinal and social network variables are done. Then, we combine the regressions in order to specify the best combination which predicts the PhD student's performance (according to academic publications) best. According to the results, the academic performance depends on background and attitudinal variables. Also, a comparison of results from other published studies is done.