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Answer & Explanation:General Requirements:Use the following information to ensure successful completion of the assignment:Review: Weidman, J. C., & Stein, E. L. (2003). Socialization of doctoral students to academic norms. Research in Higher Education, 44(6), 641-656. Available at http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=11092904&site=ehost-live&scope=siteReview: Baker, V., & Lattuca, L. R. (2010). Developmental networks and learning: toward an interdisciplinary perspective on identity development during doctoral study. Studies in Higher Education, 35(7), 807-827. http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=54329722&site=ehost-live&scope=siteReview: Visser, L., Visser, Y. L., & Schlosser, C. (2003). Critical thinking distance education and traditional education. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 4(4), 401-407. http://library.gcu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12620957&site=ehost-live&scope=siteThis assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion. use APA style for their writing assignments. The APA Style Guide is located in the Student Success Center.You are required to submit this assignment to Turnitin. Refer to the directions in the Student Success Center.Directions:write a paper (750-1,000 words) that compares all three of the articles. Do that by including the following:A statement of common elements and themes addressed in each of the three articles.A statement of the conclusions that can be drawn when the articles are taken together as a single entity. What is the overall message of the group of articles?contentserver.pdfarticle_2.pdfarticle_3.pdf
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Research in Higher Education, Vol. 44, No. 6, December 2003 ( 2003)
SOCIALIZATION OF DOCTORAL STUDENTS
TO ACADEMIC NORMS
John C. Weidman*,** and Elizabeth L. Stein*
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Using the framework for graduate and professional student socialization developed
by Weidman, Twale, and Stein (2001), this study addresses socialization of doctoral
students to the academic norms of research and scholarship. Data are presented
about the perceptions doctoral students in a social science discipline (sociology) and
in educational foundations at a major research university have of the scholarly and
collegial climates of their departments. Data on students’ social relationships with
faculty and peers as well as their reported participation in scholarly activities are also
reported. A multivariate analysis provides support for the framework, affirming the
importance of social interaction among both students and faculty as well as collegiality among faculty for creating a supportive climate for doctoral study that also has
the potential to provide a strong foundation for subsequent academic and/or research
careers by stimulating students’ research and scholarly productivity.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
KEY WORDS: graduate students; doctoral students; socialization; faculty impact; departmental climate; academic norms; scholarly research.
INTRODUCTION
During the last 5 decades, there has been a continuing interest in the socialization of individuals to beginning levels of practice in a professional role (Baird,
1990; Becker, Geer, Hughes, and Strauss, 1961; Bragg, 1976; Bucher and Stelling, 1977; Lortie, 1959, 1975; Merton, Reader, and Kendall, 1957; Smart and
Hagedorn, 1994). More recently, an update and conceptual expansion of Bragg’s
work by Weidman, Twale, and Stein (2001) as well as a literature review by
Antony (2002) represent the continuing interest in this subject.
Since a central purpose of postbaccalaureate education is to prepare individuals for learned roles in society, knowing the relationship between the educational
experience and expected outcomes is of great importance to academic institutions. The present study continues in this tradition of research on professional
*University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
**Address correspondence to: John C. Weidman, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh, 5S01 Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. E-mail:
weidman@pitt.edu
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0361-0365/03/1200-0641/0 2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
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WEIDMAN AND STEIN
socialization by exploring preparation for the scholar role, that is, the preeminent role assumed by individuals who have earned the doctor of philosophy
degree. It looks at socialization to the scholar role rather than at commitment to
a scholarly discipline (Ondrack, 1975) and uses survey research methods to
explore the relationship between perceived characteristics of the faculty and
peer climate in doctoral students’ academic departments and their scholarly orientations. A definition for the scholar role is presented to establish its theoretical
relationship with the postbaccalaureate educational experience, suggesting ways
in which the academic department socializes graduate students to both the student and the scholarly roles as well as characteristics of the academic department that have an impact on doctoral students.
The various dimensions of the scholarly role and of scholarly practice have
been discussed by a number of sociologists (Bowen and Schuster, 1986; Finkelstein, 1984; Light, 1974;Weidman et al., 2001). Light has defined a scholarly
profession as “an occupation with the attributes of a profession whose core of
activity is the advancement of knowledge” (p. 11). For an individual to be included in the ranks of the scholarly professions implies the possession of a
“license to practice” (a Ph.D. or its equivalent), membership in appropriate professional organizations, and the actual practice of the profession, that is, the
advancement of knowledge (Light, 1974, p. 14).
The precise nature of scholarly practice has received a moderate amount of
attention in the literature. However, the majority of the literature focuses on the
behavior of one segment of the scholar role, that of the faculty in higher education, and debates the relative importance of teaching and research in the academic role (Bowen and Schuster, 1986; Finkelstein, 1984). Light claims that the
university faculty role and scholar role do not necessarily coincide. His analysis
encourages us to go beyond a definition of the scholar role limited to the higher
education faculty in order to reflect on the activities and practice of the scholar
role as a whole. An example of a broader conception is provided by the following definition: “Scholarly work, which is composed of varied professional activities, is that form of work which involves the application and use of knowledge
and skill acquired through and certified by doctoral research training” (Braxton
and Toombs, 1982, p. 267).
A central purpose of postbaccalaureate education, particularly at the doctoral
level, is the socialization of individuals into the cognitive and affective dimensions of social roles related to the practice of learned occupations. Through
socialization, novices “acquire the values and attitudes, the interests, skills, and
knowledge, in short the culture, current in the groups of which they are, or
seek to become a member (Merton et al., 1957, p. 287). A primary outcome of
socialization is that the individual accepts, internalizes, and acts as though the
prevailing norms of the role to which he or she is aspiring “has validity for him”
(Clausen, 1968, p. 8). Because professional roles are of particular importance to
SOCIALIZATION OF DOCTORAL STUDENTS TO ACADEMICS
643
society, an understanding of the ways in which individuals are prepared for
them is especially important.
The present research draws on the framework for graduate and professional
student socialization developed by Weidman et al. (2001), which is based on
Weidman’s (1989) framework for undergraduate socialization in an effort to
subject several of its elements to an empirical test (Weidman et al., 2001). This
framework represents the passage of individuals through the stages of professional socialization. It reflects the prospective graduate students’ characteristics,
including personal (ethnicity, gender, social and economic status) and educational background as well as predispositions (values and expectations) related
to the motivation to pursue a career in the educational leadership profession. It
also represents the outcomes of successful professional socialization (knowledge, skills, values such as commitment to and identification with the educational leadership profession).
At the core of this framework is the institutional environment of the university
community or other higher education institution in which professional preparation occurs. It includes both academic and peer culture as well as three mechanisms of socialization: interaction with others, integration into or sense of fit
with the expectations of faculty and peers, and learning of knowledge and skills
necessary for effective professional practice. The core socialization experience
resides in the graduate program under the academic control of faculty within
the institutional culture.
The framework also recognizes that, because universities are not encapsulated
environments, graduate students experience communities with simultaneous,
concomitant influences. These include professional, higher education institutional, and personal communities in which graduate students participate during
the course of earning a doctoral degree. The process of socialization is not
regarded as linear but as seamless, fluid, dynamic, interactive, evolving, and
permeable (Weidman et al.). The experience by graduate students of personal
and professional communities in an interactive environment encourages mutual
exchange in higher education and job environments as well as with family members and friends in other settings.
The preparation of doctoral students for the scholar role is a type of adult
occupational socialization (Miller and Wager, 1971; Mortimer and Simmons,
1978). Generally, socialization in this sense is “the process by which persons
acquire the knowledge, skills and dispositions that make them more or less able
members of society” (Brim and Wheeler, 1966, p. 3). In postbaccalaureate
study, the cognitive dimensions of a role are transmitted through didactic instruction (Thornton and Nardi, 1975) and assigned textual material; the normative context and interpersonal relations among an academic department’s members socialize individuals to relevant occupational norms (Brim and Wheeler,
1966).
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WEIDMAN AND STEIN
The cognitive and affective dimensions of the professional role differ in the
extent to which they are reflected in the organizational structure of an academic
department. The cognitive dimensions (knowledge and skills) of a role are
clearly evident in the goals of the academic department. The affective and integrative aspects of the socialization process are less formally expressed (Merton,
et al., 1957; Rosen and Bates, 1967). The formal elements of socialization tend
to be “written, listed, stated directly and explicitly” (Thornton and Nardi, 1975,
p. 876) and are associated with course requirements, the grading system and
minimum grade requirements, preliminary and comprehensive examinations,
and the eventual certification of knowledge (competence) by the granting of an
academic or professional degree. It is clear that the cognitive dimensions of the
professional role are closely related to the requirements of the student role. A
student is required to demonstrate cognitive competence by earning acceptable
grades and passing examinations, while the novice professional needs extensive
knowledge as a basis for professional practice and authority (Friedson, 1986).
The relationship between knowledge and professional practice is usually implied rather than stated, however, and there are few organizational policies relative to their transmission. The socialization of a novice to effective role dimensions and the integration of knowledge with professional practice has less to do
with the formal structure or explicit goals of a department than with the general
climate established by informal contact between faculty and students (Becker et
al., 1961, p. 81ff; Merton et al., 1957, p. 41; Pease, 1967; Sherlock and Morris,
1967).
Several factors have been associated with students’ perceptions of the organizational climate of a department and thus with the socialization of doctoral
students to the affective dimensions of the scholar role. First, Merton (1957)
identified the importance of a distinctive environment (p. 164), an environment
in which professional norms are clear and about which participants agree. Second, socialization requires opportunities for both formal and informal interactions between faculty and students (Merton et al., 1957, p. 287; Pease, 1967;
Weidman, 1979). Third, socialization to professional norms is enhanced by a
noncompetitive, supportive environment in which the faculty are committed to
the students’ success (Antony, 2002; Katz and Hartnett, 1976, p. 59ff).
A fourth factor, closely associated with the third, is the extent of conflict
between the student role and novice professional role. When an individual perceives tension between achieving as a student (i.e., receiving good grades) and
beginning to do scholarly work, he or she is more likely to fulfill academic
requirements, both because those requirements have been made clear in the
policies of the department and because achieving academic success is necessary
before one can be certified for beginning professional practice (Olesen and
Whittaker, 1968).
Because socialization is a developmental process, and because anticipation of
SOCIALIZATION OF DOCTORAL STUDENTS TO ACADEMICS
645
the future role is part of the process (Thornton and Nardi, 1975), graduate students can be expected to participate to some extent in scholarly activities. For
example, Bucher and Stelling (1977) found that commitment to the norms of
the anticipated professional role resulted in participation in the role behavior
while still in school. Similarly, Cresswell (1985) found that one of the best
predictors of participation in scholarly activities among faculty was demonstrated scholarly productivity while still in graduate school.
This research examines the relationships among an academic department’s
informal structures and the socialization of doctoral students to the scholar role
as reflected in their level of participation in scholarly activities. The literature
suggests that a doctoral student’s perceptions of departmental support for scholarship and of the faculty’s orientation toward scholarship will have an impact
on his or her participation in those activities. It further suggests that departmental climate influences students through their interactions with faculty and that
normative expectations that are clearly held by the faculty and about which
there is consensus are most readily transmitted.
It is expected that the perception among graduate students that faculty are
engaged in and encourage scholarly activities will result in participation in such
activities by doctoral students. Further, it is expected that doctoral students will
perceive a department as supportive when there is a collegial environment characterized by frequent student–faculty interaction, mutual respect among faculty
and between faculty and students, and the encouragement of student scholarly
aspirations.
STUDY DESIGN
Data were gathered by means of a mailed questionnaire. All data analysis
was done with the PC version of SSPS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Data reduction was accomplished by scaling sets of related items identified as being related to one another both conceptually and through exploratory
factor analysis. Relationships among variables were assessed by correlation and
multiple regression.
Sample
The questionnaire was sent to all 83 active Ph.D. students enrolled in two
departments in a major public research university that is a member of the Association of American Universities: 40 in the Department of Sociology and 43 in
the Educational Foundations Program housed within the School of Education’s
Department of Educational Policy and Administration. These two departments
were chosen to enable a comparison between students enrolled in a professional
school department whose doctoral students in Educational Foundations were
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WEIDMAN AND STEIN
required to take courses in the humanities and social sciences (including sociology) as part of their “supporting field” requirement and a related disciplinary
department in the arts and sciences. Students in the Department of Educational
Policy and Administration specializing in the sociology of education are encouraged to take a master’s degree in the Department of Sociology.
Completed questionnaires were received from 26 sociology Ph.D. students (a
65% return rate) and 24 educational foundations Ph.D. students (a 56% return
rate). The distribution of respondents by gender (70% male) and nationality
(58% foreign) was representative of the Ph.D. student population in each department, but both figures are considerably larger than the national averages. There
are so many foreign students in the Educational Foundations Program because
it includes a distinguished concentration in comparative and international education.
Of the respondents, 66.7% already had earned advanced degrees (primarily
the master’s), and 35% were currently at the dissertation stage of study. All had
completed at least one academic year of graduate study in their current department. A third of the respondents from each department aspired to careers as
professors. Just over 25% of the sociology doctoral students indicated they
wished to become researchers. About 15% of the educational foundations students wanted to be consultants, a common aspiration among those specializing
in comparative and international education.
The median length of time since enrollment for sociology students was three
academic years, compared with two academic years for students in education.
The reason for this difference is that most sociology Ph.D. students tended to
come to graduate school directly from their undergraduate institutions, whereas
educational foundations Ph.D. students tended to have earned a master’s degree
and had some employment experience prior to their enrollment in the doctoral
program. This pattern was reflected in the median age of the Ph.D. students
enrolled in each department: 34 years in sociology and 39 years in educational
foundations. Doctoral degrees had been received by 19% of the respondents
during the academic year in which the survey was conducted and 50% more
were planning to graduate within two academic years.
Questionnaire
The survey questionnaire consisted of items designed to assess departmental
characteristics that have been identified as being important elements in the socialization of graduate students. Some items were adapted from the 1969 National Survey of Faculty and Student Opinion sponsored jointly by the American
Council on Education (ACE) and the Carnegie Commission (Trow, 1975), an
index of scholarly activities developed by Braxton and Toombs (1982), and a
questionnaire used for graduate program reviews at the research university
SOCIALIZATION OF DOCTORAL STUDENTS TO ACADEMICS
647
where the present study was conducted. In addition, several items were developed specifically for the questionnaire.
Variables
Six composite variables were identified for the research: participation in
scholarly activities, student–faculty interactions, student–peer interactions, supportive faculty environment, department collegiality, and student scholarly encouragement. In addition, there were two dummy variables: citizenship (foreign
country other than the United States) and major department (educational foundations). There were no significant differences by gender in the variables under
investigation so it was not included in the analysis.
Participation in Scholarly Activities
This scale included 11 items for which respondents were asked to “Check
any of the following activities in which you are/were involved while enrolled
as a student in your department.” Scale scores were simply the sum of checks
to the 11-item set and ranged from 1 to 10 (mean = 4.14, s.d. = 2.84). Table 1
shows the items included in this scale along with the rate of reported participation in each one of the activities.
TABLE 1. Variable: Participation in Scholarly Activities
Item
Been asked by a fellow student to critique his/her work
Held membership in a professional organization
Asked a fellow student to critique your work
Attended convention of a professional organization
Performed research of your own which was not required by your
program or studies
Called or written to a scholar at another institution to exchange views
on scholarly work
Written, alone or with others, a grant proposal
Authored, alone or with others, an unpublished manuscript (not part of
a course)
Authored, alone or with others, a paper submitted for publication
Presented a paper at a conference or convention
Authored, alone or with others, a paper accepted for publication
Alpha = .77.
Rate of
Participation
(%)
54.5
52.7
52.7
50.9
40.0
40.0
29.1
27.3
23.6
16.4
14.5
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WEIDMAN AND STEIN
The items in this scale were selected from a list of faculty scholarly and
research activities identified by …
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