Shift, Multiplicity, and Prominence of Students’ Role Identities: Academic Identity Development in Doctoral Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Adult Learners in Higher Education (Table 2)

Abstract

My study aimed to trace the expectations and experiences of doctoral students to explore their academic identity development. I recorded video conferencing narratives of six Education doctoral students in a university in Pakistan. Thematic analysis revealed that students developed their academic identity through multiple role identities which shift through key institutional doctoral milestone stages. Students developed their prominent role identity as learners during coursework which was a knowledge acquisition stage. Their learner role evolved, and the emerging researcher role became more prominent in Stage 2 which was knowledge application stage. The role identities of learner and emerging researcher continued but decreased in prominence, and their prominent identity shifted towards as emerging academic in the knowledge production and sharing stage.

Authors

• Atif Khalil, University of Waikato

• Bronwen Cowie, University of Waikato

• Mubashara Akhtar, Lahore College for Women University