What are the secrets of PhDstudents' motivation?

On 11 September 2018, Olivier Klein (ULB) and Benoît Galand (UCL) presented the final results of the study about the PhD students' motivation from the "Research on PhD" (ROPe) programme at UCL. This was illustrated by presentations by doctoral students, various testimonies (former doctoral student and association of assistance to doctoral students), followed by a round table.

There is no secret. In odrer to persevere in the thesis (as in all projects), you need to feel competent and see yourself progressing. Feelings of autonomy, affiliation and competence increase the doctoral student's commitment, which can be translated in sentences such as :

"My thesis interests me"
"I'm happy to go to work."
"I'm motivated."
"Time flew by while I was at work"
"I'm curious of what happens next."

These self-perceptions depend directly on the environment in which the doctoral student finds him/herself and more precisely, on the quality of the support offered by the supervisor. Is there a miracle recipe for motivation? We don't know, but the following ingredients are important:

3/5 of involvement: a sign of respect and esteem for the work, can be translated as "you've made enough progress in your work, so you can publish it".
2/5 of autonomy: working on his/her own is encouraged, can be said as "I'll correct as soon as you have a written version of the article".
1/5 structure: clear objectives, can be translated into "you have two months to write an article".

WHO ARE THE DOCTORAL CANDIDATES WHO DROP OUT?

More women (63.2%) than men (59.4%) drop out of the PhD programme. The figures are frightening in both cases, since almost one doctoral student out of two will not finish his or her thesis. In our cocktail, the main ingredient is involvement. Doctoral students need to be very involved in their project in order to get involved and feel recognized.

Structure is fundamental to persevere for both sexes. To increase the motivation of female doctoral students, it is important to encourage their autonomy and to trust them. This aspect is undoubtedly also true for men, but the study does not show this. According to Robin Wallast who conducted this research, men express their negative emotions less easily than women, which corroborates his findings.

There are five profiles of doctoral students: those who feel involved, autonomous and competent (self-determined), the inverse profile (hetero-determined) and the three remaining profiles that are weak in one of the three dimensions mentioned for the self-determined profile.

The profile most at risk is unquestionably the hetero-determined one, where doubts and desire to give up are the most marked. The second most at-risk group is the low competence one, perceived mainly by women (70.4%). The feeling of progress is weak, while exhaustion is very high. The third group is the low autonomy one, reflecting a lack of autonomy left by the promoter and therefore a difficulty in taking ownership of the subject, which reduces the involvement of the doctoral student.

SOLUTIONS

Solutions depend on the moment, the context and the person. So how can we help all of them? By paying attention to the signs of exhaustion (negative) and by reinforcing the feeling of progress (positive).

Here are the actions to be taken beforehand: prevention and well-being relays, giving information on the journey, information on risk and protection factors, knowing the resource persons. During the thesis, supervisors should identify PhDs in difficult situations and provide good listening and actions such as those we will develop hereunder.

Not everything depends on the promoter! It is necessary to be able to rely on the support committee (fyi which meets once a year at UNamur), to institute a mentoring system and to train the promoters in staff support and team management (see the lunch for promoters on motivation organised at UNamur as part of the Euraxess day on 21 June 2018).

Other solutions exist, such as places of exchange, discussions, sharing groups ... Do we still need to convince you of the usefulness of the doctoral students' lunchtime sessions which bring together between 8 and 15 doctoral students once a month on various themes? Let's also mention the individual interviews accessible to all to (re)learn how to manage your time, your priorities and your research projects.

If the subject interests you and you would like to talk about it or have more information, contact us to euraxess@unamur.be.