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Aim/Purpose: Research on students in higher education contexts to date has focused primarily on the experiences undergraduates, largely overlooking topics relevant to doctoral students’ mental, physiological, motivational, and social experiences. Existing research on doctoral students has consistently found mental and physical health concerns and high attrition rates among these students, but a comprehensive understanding of these students’ experiences is still lacking. Background: The present review paper aims to offer deep insight into the issues affecting doctoral students by reviewing and critically analyzing recent literature on the doctoral experience. An extensive review of recent literature uncovered factors that can be readily categorized as external and internal to the doctoral student; external factors include supervision, personal/social lives, the department and socialization, and financial support opportunities, while internal factors motivation, writing skills, self-regulatory strategies, and academic identity. Methodology: 163 empirical articles on the topic of doctoral education are reviewed and analyzed in the present paper. Contribution: The present paper represents a comprehensive review of the factors found to influence the experiences (e.g., success, satisfaction, well-being) of doctoral students in their programs. It represents a unique contribution to the field of doctoral education as it attempt to bring together all the factors found to date to shape the lived experiences of doctoral students, as well as evidence-based ways to facilitate students’ success and well-being through these factors. More specifically, the present paper aims to inform students, faculty, and practitioners (e.g., student support staff) of the optimal practices and structures uncovered to date, as most beneficial to doctoral students in terms of both academic success and well-being. Impact on Society: Decreases to doctoral students’ well-being as they progress in their programs, financial struggles, and the notable difficulty in maintaining a social life/family responsibilities have been widely discussed in popular culture. The present paper aims to highlight these, and other, issues affecting the doctoral experience in an attempt to contribute to the conversation with comprehensive empirical evidence. By facilitating discussions on the issues that play a role in the attribution and dissatisfaction of existing doctoral students, and perhaps deter potential doctoral students from ever entering doctoral education system, we hope to contribute to a student-cantered focus in which departments are concerned with the academic success of doctoral students, but also equally concerned with maximizing students’ well-being in the process of attaining a doctoral degree. This, we hope, will enhance the societal perception of doctoral education as a challenging, yet worthwhile and rewarding process. Future Research: Future research in which the confluence of the factors discussed in this review, particularly with respect to the cross-cutting impact of socialization variables, is recommended to provide a sufficiently in-depth examination of the salient predictors of doctoral student development and persistence. Future research efforts that steer away from single-factor foci to explore interactive or redundant relationships between factors are thus recommended, as are analyses of the potential effects that changes to one aspect of the doctoral experience (e.g., motivational interventions) can have on other factors. Finally, studies employing various alternative methodologies and analytical methods (e.g., observational, questionnaire, experimental, experience sampling) are similarly expected to yield valuable knowledge as to the nature and extent of the afore-mentioned and novel contributing factors, as well as the utility of student intervention programs aimed at improving both the personal and professional lives of doctoral students internationally

The research presented in this paper examined the relationships between academic procrastination and learning-specific emotions, and how these variables predict one another over time among undergraduate (n = 354) and graduate students (n = 816). Beyond findings showing expected valences of relations between procrastination and positive emotions (enjoyment, hope, and pride) and negative emotions (anger, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, boredom, and guilt), autoregressive cross-lagged panel analyses showed various directional relations between procrastination and emotions over time. More precisely, specific emotions were found to influence procrastination (e.g., undergraduates: anxiety; graduate students: hope), procrastination was found to influence specific emotions (e.g., undergraduates: guilt; graduate students: boredom), and bidirectional relations between procrastination and learning-related emotions were also observed (e.g., graduate students: enjoyment, anxiety, and guilt). Implications for future research on academic procrastination and remedial procrastination interventions for students are discussed.

Two studies were conducted to examine gender differences in trait (habitual) versus state (momentary) mathematics anxiety in a sample of students (Study 1: N = 584; Study 2: N = 111). For trait math anxiety, the findings of both studies replicated previous research showing that female students report higher levels of anxiety than do male students. However, no gender differences were observed for state anxiety, as assessed using experience-sampling methods while students took a math test (Study 1) and attended math classes (Study 2). The discrepant findings for trait versus state math anxiety were partly accounted for by students' beliefs about their competence in mathematics, with female students reporting lower perceived competence than male students despite having the same average grades in math. Implications for educational practices and the assessment of anxiety are discussed.

To address the present research gap on relations between motivational beliefs, self-regulation failure, and psychological health in post-secondary faculty, the present study used associative latent growth modeling to longitudinally examine relationships between self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout (emotional exhaustion) in faculty internationally. Findings from 3,071 faculty participants (70% female, 69 countries) over three time points (5-6 month lags) showed greater self-efficacy at baseline to correspond with lower procrastination and burnout, and procrastination to be positively related to burnout (intercepts). Growth analyses additionally revealed stronger relations between increases in self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout over time (slopes). Supplemental cross-lagged analyses provided causal evidence of burnout as an antecedent of self-efficacy and procrastination, underscoring intervention and policy efforts to address overwork and exhaustion in post-secondary faculty.

The present longitudinal study examined the reliability of self-reported academic grades across three phases in four subject domains for a sample of 916 high-school students. Self-reported grades were found to be highly positively correlated with actual grades in all academic subjects and across grades 9 to 11 underscoring the reliability of self-reported grades as an achievement indicator. Reliability of self-reported grades was found to differ across subject areas (e.g., mathematics self-reports more reliable than language studies), with a slight yet consistent tendency to over-report achievement levels also observed across grade levels and academic subjects. Overall, the absolute value of over- and underreporting was low and these patterns were not found to differ between mathematics and verbal subjects. In sum, study findings demonstrate the consistent predictive utility of students' self-reported achievement across grade levels and subject areas with the observed tendency to over-report academic grades and slight differences between domains nonetheless warranting consideration in future education research.

In contrast to teachers’ positive emotions, such as enjoyment and enthusiasm, teachers’ negative emotions and the regulation of negative emotions have received limited empirical attention. As the most commonly experienced negative emotion in teachers, anger has to date demonstrated mixed effects on teacher development. On the one hand, habitual experiences of anger (i.e., trait anger) exhaust teachers’ cognitive resources and impair pedagogical effectiveness, leading to poor student engagement. On the other hand, strategically expressing, faking, or hiding anger in daily, dynamic interactions with students can help teachers achieve instructional goals, foster student concentration, and facilitate student engagement. The current study adopted an intensive daily diary design to investigate the double-edged effects of teachers’ anger. Multilevel structural equation modeling of data from 4,140 daily diary entries provided by 655 practicing Canadian teachers confirmed our hypotheses. Trait anger in teachers was found to impair teacher-perceived student engagement. Daily genuine expression of anger corresponded with greater teacher-perceived student engagement; daily faking anger impaired perceived student engagement, and daily hiding anger showed mixed results. Moreover, teachers tended to hide anger over time, and were reluctant to express anger, genuine or otherwise, in front of their students. Finally, genuine expression and hiding of anger had only a temporary positive association with teacher-perceived student engagement, with student rapport being optimal for promoting sustained observed student engagement.

The present paper reviews empirical literature on stress and social support relative to first-year post-secondary students, published between 1996 and 2020. Empirical studies included in the literature search focused on stress, coping, and social support specifically among first-year undergraduate students while studying in countries adopting North American higher education models comparable to the United States and Canada. This review examines contextual and psychological antecedents and correlates of stress, as well as associated demographic and achievement variables. Furthermore, this review extends to studies on social support categorized by source (peers, family, faculty, institution, and multiple sources of support). A synthesis and critique of the literature explores the themes in the empirical research presented, as well as considerations for future research.

Aim/Purpose: Research on doctoral students’ well-being suggests that an interplay of social and psychological factors, such as integration into the scholarly community and perceptions of self-worth, shape students’ experiences. The present research examined the role of these factors in the well-being of doctoral students. Background: Imposter syndrome has long been discussed both formally and informally as a prevalent experience of doctoral students. Existing research provides empirical support for the role of perceived belongingness to one’s scholarly community in maladaptive self-perceptions (i.e., imposter syndrome), as well as the role of imposter syndrome in doctoral students’ well-being. However, no studies to date have directly explored the extent to which imposter syndrome mediates the relationship between perceived belongingness and well-being in a single model. Methodology: The present research sought to evaluate perceived belongingness as a predictor of imposter syndrome and how imposter syndrome, in turn, predicts well-being (i.e., depression, stress, and illness symptoms) in doctoral students. Depression, stress, and illness symptoms were identified in the literature as the most prevalent well-being concerns reported by doctoral students and therefore were evaluated as the outcome variables in the present research. In line with previous research, we expected perceived belongingness to negatively predict imposter syndrome, and imposter syndrome, in turn, to positively predict depression, stress, and illness symptoms. Two studies evaluated the proposed model. Data for both studies was collected simultaneously (i.e., one large sample) with 25% of the sample randomly selected for Study 1 (cross-sectional) and the remainder included in Study 2 (longitudinal). In Study 1, we tested this hypothesis with a cross-sectional design and explored whether imposter syndrome was a significant mediator between perceived belongingness and well-being. In Study 2, we aimed to replicate and extend the results of Study 1 with a prospective design to further assess the directionality of the relationship from perceived belongingness to imposter syndrome and, in turn, the role of imposter syndrome in changes in depression, stress, and illness symptoms over a five-month period. Contribution: The present results represent evidence of the process by which doctoral students develop imposter syndrome and some of the consequences of imposter syndrome on doctoral well-being. Additionally, the present study includes a large-scale sample of international doctoral students across the disciplines, thus revealing the prevalence of imposter syndrome in the doctoral experience. Findings: Overall, the results of the present research provided support for our hypotheses. In Study 1, perceived belongingness was found to be a negative predictor of imposter syndrome that, in turn, predicted higher levels of depression, stress, and illness symptoms. Additionally, imposter syndrome was found to significantly mediate the relationship between perceived scholarly belongingness and the three outcome variables assessing psychological well-being. Study 2 further revealed perceived scholarly belongingness to negatively predict imposter syndrome five months later, with imposter syndrome, in turn, predicting increases in depression, stress, and illness symptoms in our doctoral student sample. Recommendations for Practitioners: Several recommendations are made for practitioner based on the present findings: First, by acknowledging the critical role of perceived social belongingness in students’ well-being, faculty and administrators can establish structures to better integrate students into their scholarly communities, and departments can foster a supportive social atmosphere for their doctoral students that emphasizes the quality of interactions and consultation with faculty. Second, information sessions for first-year doctoral students could highlight the prevalence and remedies of feeling like an impostor to normalize these otherwise deleterious feelings of inadequacy. Finally, professional development seminars that are typically taught in graduate programs could incorporate an explicit discussion of well-being topics and the prevalence of imposter syndrome, alongside other pragmatic topics (e.g., publishing protocols), to ensure that students perceive their departmental climate as supportive and, in turn, feel less like an imposter and better psychologically adjusted. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should continue exploring the various antecedents and consequences of imposter syndrome, specifically focusing on at-risk students, as well as the role of imposter syndrome in doctoral-level dropout. Impact on Society: Imposter syndrome is a harmful experience that can lead to a variety of life-altering outcomes, such as developing or intensifying a mental illness. Doctoral students, as society’s future researchers and high-skilled professionals, have a great impact on society as a whole, and efforts should be extended into maintaining doctoral students’ well-being in order for them to perform at an optimal level. The present research sheds light on one aspect of the doctoral experience that is detrimental to the well-being of doctoral students, thus informing doctoral students, advisors, and departments of one area where more resources can be allocated in order to facilitate the health, both physical and psychological, of their students. Future Research: Future research should explore additional outcomes to fully understand the impact of perceived belongingness and imposter syndrome on doctoral students. Some such outcomes may include academic performance (e.g., presentation/publication rates), motivation (e.g., perseverance vs. intention to quit), and more general psychological adjustment measures (e.g., satisfaction with life). Such research, in combination with the present findings, can help the understanding of the full impact of imposter syndrome on the academic and personal experiences of doctoral students and can contribute to psychologically healthier and more academically productive experiences for doctoral students as they navigate the myriad challenges of doctoral education.

As technology becomes increasingly integrated with education, research on the relationships between students' computing-related emotions and motivation following technological difficulties is critical to improving learning experiences. Following from Weiner's (2010) attribution theory of achievement motivation, the present research examined relationships between causal attributions and emotions concerning academic computing difficulties in two studies. Study samples consisted of North American university students enrolled in both traditional and online universities (total N = 559) who responded to either hypothetical scenarios or experimental manipulations involving technological challenges experienced in academic settings. Findings from Study 1 showed stable and external attributions to be emotionally maladaptive (more helplessness, boredom, guilt), particularly in response to unexpected computing problems. Additionally, Study 2 found stable attributions for unexpected problems to predict more anxiety for traditional students, with both external and personally controllable attributions for minor problems proving emotionally beneficial for students in online degree programs (more hope, less anxiety). Overall, hypothesized negative effects of stable attributions were observed across both studies, with mixed results for personally controllable attributions and unanticipated emotional benefits of external attributions for academic computing problems warranting further study.

Following from previous research on intensity bias and the accessibility model of emotional self-report, the present study examined the role of emotional exhaustion in explaining the discrepancy in teachers' reports of their trait (habitual) versus state (momentary, \"real\") emotions. Trait reports (habitual emotions, exhaustion) were assessed via trait questionnaires, and state reports (momentary emotions) were assessed in real time via the experience sampling method by using personal digital assistants (N = 69 high school teachers; 1,089 measures within teachers). In line with our assumptions, multi-level analyses showed that, as compared to the state assessment, teachers reported higher levels of habitual teaching-related emotions of anger, anxiety, shame, boredom, enjoyment, and pride. Additionally, the state-trait discrepancy in self-reports of negative emotions was accounted for by teachers' emotional exhaustion, with high exhaustion levels corresponding with a greater state-trait discrepancy. Exhaustion levels did not moderate the state-trait discrepancy in positive emotions indicating that perceived emotional exhaustion may reflect identity-related cognitions specific to the negative belief system. Implications for research and educational practice are discussed.