The research presented in this thesis explores how expatriate researchers who completed a PhD abroad evaluate and articulate their experience of academic mobility with regard to their early postdoctoral career and personal development. Having adopted a mixed-methods approach, this study draws on an original dataset including 20 semi-structured interviews and 281 replies to an online survey. By conducting thematic analysis of the interview data in NVivo and descriptive analysis of the survey data in SPSS, the research presented in this thesis provides replies to the following three questions. First, what do expatriate researchers expect from their doctoral experience of academic mobility? Second, does academic mobility during a doctorate result in career-related outcomes, according to the perceptions of expatriate researchers? Finally, what is the individual value of a doctorate abroad for expatriate researchers? This study argues that expatriate researchers in social sciences embark on a doctoral study abroad without necessarily expecting any immediate career-related returns but are influenced by contextual factors, such as the opportunity structure and insecure employment conditions in the labour market for PhD graduates. In addition, the present research has not found any strong evidence showing that academic mobility directly brings immediate career-related returns. In summary, this research provides evidence of widespread agreement among expatriate researchers that the value of a doctoral degree from abroad is in gaining a meaningful personal experience resulting in personal development and skills acquisition, rather than directly resulting in career advancement. This finding contributes to the knowledge of the value of a doctoral study abroad on the individual level, suggested as an under-researched area by the scholarly literature in the field (Raddon and Sung, 2006; Nerad and Cerny, 2000; Casey, 2009).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:737730 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Siemers, Olga |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/99632/ |
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