Lynn Mcalpine
Biographic Data
| ID | 188468 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lynn Mcalpine |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lynn |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcalpine |
| SIGNATURE | MCALPINE L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5361-1361 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 108 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 39 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
What is the point of the PhD in this age of uncertainty
In contemporary European societies, we are living through increasingly turbulent times characterised by rapid societal shifts driven by new technologies, communication methods, and work practices. Simultaneously, universities face mounting external pressures such as government policies, funding cuts, and reallocation. In this paper, we view these challenges as an opportunity to reconsider the fundamental nature of PhD education. If the PhD, as we…
Considering‐Mobility
Globally more than half of PhD graduates work beyond academia and they change jobs with greater frequency than in academia. We have been researching this post‐PhD mobility for some time, and recently, in beginning a study, we became intrigued by transcript excerpts that were not actual mobility but still referenced mobility. On examining these more closely, we realised they represented assessing options/possibilities without actual moving . This …
Are contemporary notions of academic career progression ‘fit-for-purpose’? Evidence for a new framing of (academic) careers
Of what value are institutionally rooted terms notions like ‘mid-career’ or ‘early career’ academic? I argue here we need a more expansive perspective on careers than the linear institutional process represented in such terms as they as do not represent the reality of contemporary academia. This argument is rooted in the evidence emerging from our close to 20 years of narrative methodology research which demonstrated that today’s (academic) caree…
Academic work demands and the primacy of English
For some time, academics have reported the increasing complexity and demands of work (Clegg, S. 2008. “Academic Identities Under Threat?” British Educational Research Journal 34 (3): 329–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920701532269), including the difficulty of gaining permanence (Taylor, A. 2018. Scientists Don’t Stay for Long in Their Jobs Anymore: Study. Accessed July 20, 2023. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/scientists-dont-stay-…
Rectors and university-societal engagement
Globally, the past 10–15 years has seen universities experiencing increasing governmental reforms, including expectations for greater societal engagement. This places demands on the most senior university leaders to address and be seen to address these expectations. How do they situate themselves and negotiate their demanding role both inwardly and outwardly? We addressed this question in a case study of four rektors in four (of the eight) univer…
How do deans of humanities understand and enact societal engagement within their broader experiences of leading? A Danish case study
Globally, universities have experienced growing policy demands and societal expectations, including being engaged societal actors – with senior university leaders expected to strategically address these requirements. To understand the specificity of leadership around this issue, we focused on one disciplinary cluster, the humanities, often seen as particularly challenged regarding such engagement. We asked: How do Deans of Faculties of Humanities…
What do PhD graduates in non-academic careers actually do
A growing literature examines PhD graduates working beyond academia. These studies are critiqued for rarely addressing the sectoral and organisational structural factors that influence actual work. So, we examined how the non-academic, contextually situated, organisational job specifications of fifteen PhD graduates interacted with their daily work experiences – looking particularly at the role of (a) communication since effective communication i…
Valuing humanities
Globally, the issue of research impact has grown as governments articulate policies around research as a contributor to economic and societal development, often through an econometric justification. This has triggered much discussion amongst humanities scholars in public formally-reasoned peer-reviewed texts that are rarely empirically-based. This Denmark-based empirical study used an individual biographical and historical structural framework to…
What value do PhD graduates offer? An organizational case study
Prior studies of PhD graduates beyond the academy have focused on graduates' perceptions of work or the views of employers and organizational factors. We argue this bifurcation of individual and structural factors contributes to an incomplete understanding of PhD career trajectories, as it ignores the interaction between individual and structural factors that ultimately influences career trajectories. Using an individual-structural framework, we …
Developing as a post-PhD researcher
Grant funding is critical to building a sustained research career. Yet in this climate of academic performativity little is known about how individual academics make their contribution to knowledge fundable. This in-depth longitudinal case study explores an approach evolved by an experienced Canadian scientist whose work is recognized for both scholarly and societal impact. We demonstrate how, over ten years, his agentive participation in academi…
A novel perspective on doctoral supervision
While supervision is often characterised as a relatively private relationship, we would argue it is strongly influenced by departmental, institutional, national and global factors. It is also intertwined with other academic work and life experiences – with time playing an important role, not just as regards lifecourse but also changing institutional policies and practices. Using this embedded dynamic perspective in a longitudinal institutional ca…
Africans’ experiences of international PhDs
Globally, countries often view PhD training as building research capacity and may encourage international mobility of potential PhDs as they expect them to return home – not considering individuals as agents negotiating their own intentions. We examined the interaction between such structural factors and 36 PhD graduates' efforts (from 13 African countries) to negotiate their intentions, particularly around international mobility as they navigate…
PhD experience (and progress) is more than work
Prior studies have reported high levels of PhD stress resulting in exhaustion and cynicism related to negative institutional factors. Yet, we know little of the possible influence of personal lives on exhaustion/cynicism. This mixed-methods study examines the interrelation. We drew on exhaustion, cynicism, life-work relation scales and free-write responses about managing life and work of 123 Swiss PhD students. Respondents typically reported posi…
PhD holders entering non-academic workplaces
This paper addresses the subjective experiences of PhD holders from Switzerland and the UK who pursue careers beyond academia. Drawing on the concepts of organisational culture and culture shock, we examined the challenges that characterise this passage from academia to non-academic workplaces. With an exploratory aim, we analysed 32 semi-structured interviews conducted with PhDs engaged in non-academic careers in private, public, or parapublic s…
What perspectives underlie ‘researcher identity’? A review of two decades of empirical studies
Over the past two decades, identity has emerged as a concept framing studies of early career researcher experience. Yet, identity is an amorphous concept, understood and used in a range of ways. This systematic review aimed to unpack the underpinnings of the notion of researcher identity. The final sample consisted of 38 empirical articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the last 20 years. Analyses focused on (a) identifying the dimensions…
Examining cross-national research teamwork
Purpose Teamwork has long featured in social science research. Further, with research increasingly “cross-national,” communication becomes more complex, for instance, involving different cultures, languages and modes of communication. Yet, studies examining team communicative processes that can facilitate or constrain collaboration are rare. As a cross-national European team representing varied disciplines, experiences, languages and ethnicities,…
What influences PhD graduate trajectories during the degree
During the past two decades, PhD graduate numbers have increased dramatically with graduates viewed by governments as a means to advance the knowledge economy and international competitiveness. Concurrently, universities have also invested in policies to monitor satisfaction, retention, and timely completion—and researchers have expanded the study of PhD experience. We, as such researchers, have increasingly received invitations from university d…
Early career researchers making sense of their research experiences
Early career researchers’ journey (i.e. doctoral researchers and post-PhDs) is increasingly challenging, but little is known about how they live and interpret their significant experiences, that is how they attribute meaning to these experiences and their associated feelings. Moreover, research about how doctoral researchers and post-PhDs deal differently with such experiences remains scarce, especially when accounting for the interpretation of s…
What sustains doctoral students’ interest? Comparison of Finnish, UK and Spanish doctoral students’ perceptions
Interest plays a major role in the doctoral experience. However, previous research has not considered how the national context might influence interest. This study focused on exploring cross-national variation in doctoral students’ experiences by comparing Finnish, UK and Spanish doctoral students’ research interests. Participants (n = 2.426) responded to the Doctoral Experience survey. Spanish students sustained higher levels of researcher and i…
The PhD Experience
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’ exper…
Identity-Trajectories of Early Career Researchers
The book asks how we can make sense of career paths for PhD graduates, something that has rarely been systematically studied. It offers a coherent
Supervising doctoral students
International policy changes that have prioritised increasing growth in the numbers of doctoral students have led to wide-ranging debate about the changing purpose of the doctorate. However, there has been little research aimed at investigating doctoral supervisors’ views of the purpose of the doctorate, despite the significant role supervisors play in enacting any doctoral policy changes. This paper explores the purpose of undertaking a doctorat…
Helping teachers to focus on learning and reflect on their teaching
Newer researchers in higher education
In this article, we explore the extent to which 42 newer researchers, in the academic sub-field of higher education, were aware of, responded to and negotiated their careers in relation to higher education policies. Participants, who were mainly from European countries, tended to divide into two similarly sized groups: one that engaged with and made strategic use of higher education policy, who we termed ‘policy actors;' and another who felt that…
Doctoral Education
Analyzing Interview Data
PhD holders entering non-academic workplaces
This paper addresses the subjective experiences of PhD holders from Switzerland and the UK who pursue careers beyond academia. Drawing on the concepts of organisational culture and culture shock, we examined the challenges that characterise this passage from academia to non-academic workplaces. With an exploratory aim, we analysed 32 semi-structured interviews conducted with PhDs engaged in non-academic careers in private, public, or parapublic s…
Identity‐trajectory
Our longitudinal qualitative research program examining doctoral student, post‐PhD researcher and new lecturer experience is situated in an international literature documenting how early career academics learn through experience. In common with others, our work is framed within an identity perspective. What makes our view of identity distinct is a biographical focus: emphasizing individual agency; situating academic work within the personal arena…
Different places, different specialisms
We share a common interest in researching the experiences of doctoral students. Over time, as we conducted our independent studies, we became increasingly interested in the varied ways in which doctoral students constructed their identities in relation to their past experiences, present and shifting intentions and affect, personal and social resources and more general life contexts. In this paper we analyze a subset of data from two studies of do…
Teaching Beliefs in Mohawk Classrooms
This study describes the teaching beliefs of three primary-level teachers (two Mohawkand one nonaboriginal) teaching in the same Mohawk community and analyzes the ways in which cultural identity and language impact on these beliefs. It is evident from this study that depicting teachers as belonging to specific cultural groups may inadequately represent the complexity and diversity of teachers in aboriginal classrooms. Individual personal historie…
Examining cross-national research teamwork
Purpose Teamwork has long featured in social science research. Further, with research increasingly “cross-national,” communication becomes more complex, for instance, involving different cultures, languages and modes of communication. Yet, studies examining team communicative processes that can facilitate or constrain collaboration are rare. As a cross-national European team representing varied disciplines, experiences, languages and ethnicities,…
Africans’ experiences of international PhDs
Globally, countries often view PhD training as building research capacity and may encourage international mobility of potential PhDs as they expect them to return home – not considering individuals as agents negotiating their own intentions. We examined the interaction between such structural factors and 36 PhD graduates' efforts (from 13 African countries) to negotiate their intentions, particularly around international mobility as they navigate…
PhD experience (and progress) is more than work
Prior studies have reported high levels of PhD stress resulting in exhaustion and cynicism related to negative institutional factors. Yet, we know little of the possible influence of personal lives on exhaustion/cynicism. This mixed-methods study examines the interrelation. We drew on exhaustion, cynicism, life-work relation scales and free-write responses about managing life and work of 123 Swiss PhD students. Respondents typically reported posi…
Challenging the taken-for-granted
Taken-for-granted pedagogical practices and institutional policies are often built without evidence of effectiveness, or can result from external calls for accountability that are often accepted given the lack of evidence to challenge them. We argue the need for evidence-based perspectives to support the rethinking of such practices and policies related to doctoral education and potentially to challenge external drivers that are placing increasin…
Zones
The authors of this article value the framework provided by the conceptions and approaches to teaching literature, yet have come to feel it does not fully represent the complexity of the relation between teacher thinking and action. Drawing on a socio‐cognitive perspective, they studied lecturer interviews collected over a semester to examine how their thinking related to action. They identified four zones of thinking that represent a spectrum of…
The induction year experience in a cross-cultural setting
Rethinking Research Processes and Praxis in the Social Studies
Traditionally, social studies researchers have worked in isolation from marginalized cultural groups in developing approaches for assessing cultural representation in textbooks. This study attempted to address this issue by developing a culturally driven textbook assessment instrument in cooperation with educators from a culturally marginalized group in Canada — First Nations people. The instrument reflects the close attention given to the manner…
Teaching Beliefs in Mohawk Classrooms
This study describes the teaching beliefs of three primary-level teachers (two Mohawkand one nonaboriginal) teaching in the same Mohawk community and analyzes the ways in which cultural identity and language impact on these beliefs. It is evident from this study that depicting teachers as belonging to specific cultural groups may inadequately represent the complexity and diversity of teachers in aboriginal classrooms. Individual personal historie…
Patterns of Perceived Language Ability and Use in Arctic Quebec
The present research focused on mothers of school children living in small isolated communities in arctic Quebec (Nunavik). Patterns of perceived language ability and use in three languages, Inuttitut, English, and French, for both themselves and their children were examined. The pattern of perceived language ability was similar across the three languages. Fluency was superior to literacy, understanding was better than speaking, and reading score…
Analyzing Interview Data
Zones
The authors of this article value the framework provided by the conceptions and approaches to teaching literature, yet have come to feel it does not fully represent the complexity of the relation between teacher thinking and action. Drawing on a socio‐cognitive perspective, they studied lecturer interviews collected over a semester to examine how their thinking related to action. They identified four zones of thinking that represent a spectrum of…
Telling the second half of the story
Common measures used by academic developers, e.g. lecturer satisfaction with workshops, are necessary but insufficient indicators of impact since they tell only the first half of the story. Documenting whether positive responses translate into teaching actions that influence students is the second half of the story. In this study, the project team undertook to document this second half: the influence of a workshop for lecturers on student experie…
Concept mapping to support university academics' analysis of course content
The authors’ goal in working with university academics is to support an intellectual process of close examination of instructional decisions, making explicit the rationale and intentionality underlying those decisions. Subject matter understanding is the primary point of reference in this process. The focus of the research described here is the use of an unstructured form of concept mapping to support academics in the analysis of course content a…
Knowledge and Identity Work in the Supervision of Doctoral Student Writing
For as long as human beings have used it to organize and conduct their activities, writing has played an integral role in the creation, sharing, and contestation of knowledge.Tracing the intertwined history of writing and secular knowledge of civilizations in Europe, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, China, India, and Mesoamerica, and Europe, Bazerman and Rogers (2008a, b), for example, map out the complex ways in which writing has been instrum…
Different places, different specialisms
We share a common interest in researching the experiences of doctoral students. Over time, as we conducted our independent studies, we became increasingly interested in the varied ways in which doctoral students constructed their identities in relation to their past experiences, present and shifting intentions and affect, personal and social resources and more general life contexts. In this paper we analyze a subset of data from two studies of do…
Challenging the taken-for-granted
Taken-for-granted pedagogical practices and institutional policies are often built without evidence of effectiveness, or can result from external calls for accountability that are often accepted given the lack of evidence to challenge them. We argue the need for evidence-based perspectives to support the rethinking of such practices and policies related to doctoral education and potentially to challenge external drivers that are placing increasin…
Conceptualising the PhD as preparing for academic practice in geography
Identity‐trajectory
Our longitudinal qualitative research program examining doctoral student, post‐PhD researcher and new lecturer experience is situated in an international literature documenting how early career academics learn through experience. In common with others, our work is framed within an identity perspective. What makes our view of identity distinct is a biographical focus: emphasizing individual agency; situating academic work within the personal arena…
Doctoral Education
Navigating careers
While the doctorate was once perceived as preparation for an academic position, internationally more than half of all graduates leave the higher education sector by choice or lack of opportunity. We know little of how they perceive and navigate the transition from PhD to other career. This longitudinal study of 23 sciences doctoral students, post-PhD researchers, and pre-tenure academics in Canada assessed the interpretive value of two constructs…
Helping teachers to focus on learning and reflect on their teaching
Newer researchers in higher education
In this article, we explore the extent to which 42 newer researchers, in the academic sub-field of higher education, were aware of, responded to and negotiated their careers in relation to higher education policies. Participants, who were mainly from European countries, tended to divide into two similarly sized groups: one that engaged with and made strategic use of higher education policy, who we termed ‘policy actors;' and another who felt that…
Supervising doctoral students
International policy changes that have prioritised increasing growth in the numbers of doctoral students have led to wide-ranging debate about the changing purpose of the doctorate. However, there has been little research aimed at investigating doctoral supervisors’ views of the purpose of the doctorate, despite the significant role supervisors play in enacting any doctoral policy changes. This paper explores the purpose of undertaking a doctorat…
The PhD Experience
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’ exper…
Identity-Trajectories of Early Career Researchers
The book asks how we can make sense of career paths for PhD graduates, something that has rarely been systematically studied. It offers a coherent
What sustains doctoral students’ interest? Comparison of Finnish, UK and Spanish doctoral students’ perceptions
Interest plays a major role in the doctoral experience. However, previous research has not considered how the national context might influence interest. This study focused on exploring cross-national variation in doctoral students’ experiences by comparing Finnish, UK and Spanish doctoral students’ research interests. Participants (n = 2.426) responded to the Doctoral Experience survey. Spanish students sustained higher levels of researcher and i…
What influences PhD graduate trajectories during the degree
During the past two decades, PhD graduate numbers have increased dramatically with graduates viewed by governments as a means to advance the knowledge economy and international competitiveness. Concurrently, universities have also invested in policies to monitor satisfaction, retention, and timely completion—and researchers have expanded the study of PhD experience. We, as such researchers, have increasingly received invitations from university d…
Early career researchers making sense of their research experiences
Early career researchers’ journey (i.e. doctoral researchers and post-PhDs) is increasingly challenging, but little is known about how they live and interpret their significant experiences, that is how they attribute meaning to these experiences and their associated feelings. Moreover, research about how doctoral researchers and post-PhDs deal differently with such experiences remains scarce, especially when accounting for the interpretation of s…
What perspectives underlie ‘researcher identity’? A review of two decades of empirical studies
Over the past two decades, identity has emerged as a concept framing studies of early career researcher experience. Yet, identity is an amorphous concept, understood and used in a range of ways. This systematic review aimed to unpack the underpinnings of the notion of researcher identity. The final sample consisted of 38 empirical articles published in peer-reviewed journals in the last 20 years. Analyses focused on (a) identifying the dimensions…
Examining cross-national research teamwork
Purpose Teamwork has long featured in social science research. Further, with research increasingly “cross-national,” communication becomes more complex, for instance, involving different cultures, languages and modes of communication. Yet, studies examining team communicative processes that can facilitate or constrain collaboration are rare. As a cross-national European team representing varied disciplines, experiences, languages and ethnicities,…
Sociology (30 works) · Psychology (29 works) · Pedagogy (26 works) · Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions (22 works) · Political science (22 works) · Social science (17 works) · Higher education (12 works) · Public relations (12 works) · Higher Education and Employability (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works)