Independence in Graduate School: How to develop and enhance yours

Exploiting Rapid
Change in Technology
Enhanced Learning
… for Post Graduate Education
Enhancing the Opportunities in Graduate Experience:
Independence

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in
your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as
young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not
always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you
want more.
Maya Angelou

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the
conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To
survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others,
but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in
a wheel, we have to act alone.
Deborah Tannen

Agenda
1. How bad is it?
2. What independence do you want?
3. When/how it has to be earned?
4. What to take away from this conversation?

Qualitative Data From socialization survey…
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/socialization4graduatestudents
1. I am happy for the independence but would benefit from at least some
outreach from my advisor. Feedback is very slow and this is
disheartening. When my discouragement causes me to become
disengaged, I would really like my advisor to simply email me and check
in. That has never happened - and I've been working on my dissertation
for about 3-4 years (I don't like to count it!) I know that the responsibility
falls to me, but for someone to show a little bit of investment or care
would go a long way to motivate me!
2. Having a committee that has different view of how they want to see
things written and being stuck in a loop as each member wants things
written from their perspective
3. Drop out didn't come until dissertation phase
4. The process is flawed because at the end of the day we are student in a
mega learning curve. In addition to having clear goals, advisor said one
thing to me and then changed it when the group weighed in.

Mallinckrodt, B., & Leong, F. (1992). International graduate students, stress, and social
support. Journal of College Student Development, 33(January 1992).
International Student?
40K international students in US by 1990 / 186 nationalities / 25% of PhDs
1. Different scales of when it is right and proper to approach advisors.
2. Different standards as to the role of teacher and student, therefore the
expectation to be independent and able to defend ones ideas and work
may cause extreme discomfort.

Context Re-examined
Has impact on amount of support that will be given
Exercise 1: Enquire as to your advisors’ experience as a student or in
academia – how much independence was/is required or expected?

What independence do you want?

Weidman, J., Twale, D., & Stein, E. L. (2001). Socialization of graduate and professional students
in higher education: A perilous passage? San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass.
Role Development & Identity
The development of role identity, a pre-requisite to being
able to act independently - Involvement is required in
the role and in preparation for it. In other words
successful graduate students are not passive in their
engagement. yet this development is interwoven with
support issues: pg 80 - "the degree of autonomy given by
the faculty and the amount of independence exhibited
by the graduate student are critical to the faculty-student
relationship"

Importance in Engagement
Contribution 11% linked with engagement
growing in confidence and independence -
being on your own as a competent
researcher - these experiences added to
engagement -autonomy (13%) linked with
source of engagement for doctoral work.
Vekkaila, J., PyhältÖ, K., & Lonka, K. (2013). Experiences of disengagement -
A study of doctoral students in the behavioral sciences. International Journal of
Doctoral Studies, 8, 61–81.

Van Maanen, J., & Schein, E. H. (1978). Toward a Theory of Organizational Socialization:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
What is independence?
In Health care… and other places
Two measures:
Attributes for cognitive independence
• Critical thinking
• Ability to sort literature and find new options
• Flexibility in connections within and between the conceptual and the
empirical – (Van Maanen & Schein, 1978)
Criteria for the ability to move on your own
• Evidence of independent action
• Ability to recoup action after a set back
• Goes hand in hand with perception of your contributions
• part timers more naturally independent as they didn't have the option to
become dependent
• Same with online students – demanding of profs (Preston, 2014).

When you know you have it:
Personal Voice
The best and truest form of independence
“difficulties with claiming their voice in their
doctoral seminars, with professors, and in their
writing” Linked to ethnic and racial divide in HE,
Gonzales (2006)
Encouragement of personal voice and neutral self
evaluation allow for a greater sense of indepence
on the one hand and support when you need it on
the other. Gordon, N. (2014). Flexible Pedagogies:
technology-enhanced learning

Role Identity Shifts with Independence
An easy to use
hierarchy to help you
flourish…
Independence
Defensible
Voice
Mentored Support
Student Role: What am I
supposed to do?

Variety & Courage
• Variety has been said to be the spice of life and it may
well prove to be the spice of engagement as well.
• Anecdotal evidence regarding cohorts and
communities demonstrate a bell curve where some
will never engage and some will engage and stay
engaged for years, leading some researchers to
classify engagement into those students who are
most like a project manager, a wanderer or a
hobbyist (Lahenius & Martinsuo, 2011).
Only a fool does the same thing to get a different result

Independence Requires Action/Risk
Most, however fall somewhere in the middle for
both level of engagement and likelihood of
moving on. Moreover people may report feeling
of engagement when they merely lurk at the
edge of conversations, which explains why so
many people join social networks groups in
tools such as LinkedIn but few post (Butterwick,
Cockell, McArthur-Blair, Maciver, & Rodrigues,
2012).
Do not expect the process to be easy

Real Risks…
Plagiarism
Incorrect citations/references
In other words …
Have independent thoughts and state them with
firm clarity and then back them up by citing
those whose ideas are included
Provocative but Steady with Clear Roots -

Exercise 2…
• Say it
The next time you want to do something…
• Do it
Or if that is your norm – to say and do what you are propelled
to do – the…
• Don’t do it
Remember the type of independent action you want to
develop is considered movement propelled by what you think
WILL BENEFIT THE ENTIRE SITUATION THE MOST
The next time you want to say something

What’s Up at DoctoralNet?
1. Please take our survey about doctoral experience:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/socialization4graduatestudents
2. A full range of webinars in 2017 + groups for writing and one for lingering. Critical
writing/analysis and getting published coming up in Feb & March
3. Webinar on Feb 15th on coaching for anyone who ever wondered whether they
needed or wanted one or what it was all about.
4. Hundreds of #doctoralstudents have already gone through the 30 day writing
challenge - is this the month YOU should consider just 15-30 minutes a
day? http://www.doctoralnet.com/resources/phd-coaching-doctoral-coaching/30-
day-writing-challenge/48-jinbound-landing-pages/30-doctoral-writing-
challenge.html
5. Also a NEW 30 day challenge on improving your work life balance:
http://www.doctoralnet.com/resources/30-day-challenge-4-work-life-balance.html

Independence in Graduate School: How to develop and enhance yours

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Independence in Graduate School: How to develop and enhance yours