A study of the motives of doctoral students

Abstract

The aim of the study is to find answers to the question of why young people decide to continue studying at the postgraduate level after completing their master's programme. At the heart of the study is the analysis of the motives which lead young, qualified persons that could take up employment, to become doctoral students. Motivation for doing something is commonly referred to as a set of internal and external factors that influence the decisions or behaviours. Motivation changes at different points of time and in different situations. In this project we assessed the motives to become a doctoral student through the memories of PhD graduates. A qualitative analysis concentrated on the narration of 10 doctoral graduates who are currently working as instructors at Czech universities. All of them specialized in the field of educational studies and worked at a university for a maximum of five years after completion of doctoral studies. They were hired for the position of academic staff member, not for the position of postdoctoral fellow. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.