Over the past two decades or so motivation has been strongly linked to why some students finish PhD education and others don't. The previous article has already explored the importance of graduate students being motivated during their studies. While the present article introduces the reasons behind the growing interest in linking motivation and completion of graduate studies, which are vital for new PhD comers and decision-makers in academia to be acquainted with. During the literature survey, an intriguing paper connecting the dots between motivation and PhD very elegantly came to my attention. The paper uses what is the so-called self-determination theory to develop a motivation scale to determine the likelihood of a PhD student quitting his/her studies. After laying out the reasons that motivate researchers in connecting motivation and completion of a PhD, the aforementioned article is summarized in detail.

The growing interest in defining the motivation elements and their effects on successfully completing a PhD originates from the somewhat unsettling reality in academia. In Canada and the United States, depending on the program and major, the percentage of attrition among PhD students could reach up to 50%¹, an alarming rate indeed. Unfraternally, in academia (in a lot of institutes around the world), graduate students are exhausted mentally and monetarily. The supervisor-student relation (the work environment), future career options, and financial concerns have been identified as the main components that define the state of the mental health and financial decisions among graduate students^2,3. A recent study has shown that undesirable and unbalanced environments often cause stress disorders, e.g. depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion³. The study also points out that the psychological well-being of around one-third of PhD students is at risk.

Obviously, the rigidity of the relation between the supervisor and his/her student is a strong influence on the student’s scientific outcome. Healthy relations support high-quality work and steady performance, while toxic relations lead to poor outcomes and become a source of stress. The toxic relation may not be necessarily the result of an evil intention. It’s often the result of good intentions that are meant to help research thrive although it’s on the expense of the students. Take for example, when researchers or project leaders at some institute find themselves working on tight budgets, they might propagate unrealistic future opportunities to attract new PhD comers to fill underpaid positions. When students find out what the reality is, it’s either too late that might cause them serious stress disorders, or it motivates them to leave projects midway. Exaggerating reality and hiding critical information is harmful to both the psychological well-being of the students, and the scientific progress. A lot of PhD students are in for the science and, in fact, are willing to earn little for a few years. So, being honest upfront is far more beneficial since it builds mutual trust for a lifelong collaboration.

The other two issues, financial concerns and career outlook, are two intertwined issues. Financial pressure and family support very much affect the financial decision PhD students make. Since graduate students are poorly paid almost everywhere, that leaves students either hunting for additional income in order to make ends meet, or waiting for the right moment to clutch a job offer. In the first case, students start to dedicate less time to research and more time on finding income sources that lead the scientific outcome and quality to be negatively affected. While in the second case, research is left hanging, and eventually, that leads to waste efforts and resources. Although it is absolutely justified for someone to pursue financial stability, research would be negatively effected. Perhaps by providing proper financial plans for PhD trainees to rely on it might help reduce the severeness of the dropout issue.

Frankly, there are other reasons that add up to the high dropout percentage among PhD trainees; such as funding issues, academic isolation, and lack of commitment among students⁴. Since the present article is meant as a quick introduction to the subject, these reasons aren’t considered here. For those of you who would like to dig in, these two articles^1,4 (links below) discuss these reasons and some other more in detail.

At the end of the day, not only students are affected, but also research is affected, too. The scientific impact lessens and scientific productivity drops. Needless to mention that research leaders and supervisors’ scientific reputation is harmed, too, when research is left incomplete. So far, the article hasn’t even barely scratched the surface of the issues in academia that graduate students and research are facing every day. It’s worth noting that by mentioning and discussing such issues is not meant to demonize academia but rather to remind ourselves that there are issues and need to be taken care of. In that spirit, based on scientific advice, some suggestions to improve the situation of PhD students and scientific research are discussed later on in this article.

A 2015 study⁵ developed a motivation scale based on self-determination theory (SDT) designed only for PhD students. First of all, SDT suggests that there are two categories; autonomous and controlled, that are associated with regulating the motivation level in human behavior. The first category, autonomous, on one hand, originates from within the human being. For example, when you exercise your favorite hobby, e.g. playing chess, for hours nonstop, it’s because you deeply enjoy it and it’s a source of passion. In another word, autonomous motivation pushes you to do a certain activity for its own sake. On the other hand, controlled motivation originates from external sources such as pursuing a reward or avoiding a punishment. For instance, when a child finishes his/her broccoli it’s because either he was told he would be having marshmallow after dinner or because he would be sent to his/her room if he/she doesn’t finish the broccoli. In rare cases, however, some naughty children might eat the broccoli just because, to them, it looks like a small tree and they want to see the look on their parents’ faces when a tree grows out of their heads. Nonetheless, although both autonomous and controlled motivations push you to do what you do, which one dominates the most predicts your future continuing a particular activity.

What the 2015 study did was, based on STD, a carefully designed survey was handed out to Canadian PhD students (some of which successfully finished their PhDs and some didn’t) to extract information about the origin of their motivations, anxiety level, dropout intentions, postdoctoral intentions, satisfaction with the program and university, academic performance, and thesis problems. Based on that, a complex scale was developed. To simplify matters, the scale suggests that if you are doing a PhD with autonomous motivations you are more likely to make solid progress toward finishing your PhD with good outcomes. And if you are more inclined toward finishing a PhD with controlled motivations you are more likely to increase your mental suffering, e.g. anxiety, and percentage of dropout intentions. In other words, when students answer the question of why they’re doing a PhD by saying something like "Because my doctoral studies meet my goals and my objectives in life and for the pleasure I feel in accomplishing my study thesis” or saying “For the prestige associated with a PhD and to find a job with good working conditions” the scale shows that the responders of the first statement have smoother journeys and, overall, better outcomes than the responders of the second statement. The study suggests that if society (e.g. the society that put a prestigious value on acquiring a PhD), parents (e.g. associating success with academic level), or supervisors (e.g. wrongly motivating students) stressfully push students during their graduate studies, these PhD trainees are more likely to produce poor outcomes and suffer some sort of mental health disorders. Instead, the study suggests, by supporting the autonomous motivations that originate from within the students, the PhD trainees are more likely to thrive and, as a consequence, help research thrive too.

Increasing the success rate of finishing a PhD is not only helpful to students, but also to scientific research as well as institutions. With the ever-increasing numbers of graduate students every year, institutes and faculty members are urged to adopt new policies and approaches to foster and protect graduate students that in turn sharpen the progress of scientific research. If we wish academia to continue to flourish, properly supporting graduate students is an imperative step.