Purpose This study aims to focus on the experiences of biomedical science students nearing the end of their doctoral programs and the factors that influence their well-being. In addition to identifying general challenges, the study aims to expand understanding of how interactions with principal investigators (PIs) can influence students' well-being and engagement in wellness practices. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study presents an analysis of interview data collected from 90 trainees five years after beginning their graduate programs. All were participants in a larger mixed-methods, longitudinal study. Emergent themes and a codebook were established after reviewing interview transcripts and completing memos. Codes were applied to data, and reports were generated to confirm and challenge early interpretations. Findings Participants described four key factors that influenced their well-being: perceived work/life balance; managing progress on research; program completion and job search; and overall faculty relationships. While relationships with PIs could be a source of stress, participants more often described how both interactions with, and observations of their PIs could amplify or mitigate their ability to manage other stressors and overall sense of well-being. Originality/value While researchers in the USA have increasingly considered the factors impacting graduate student mental health, there has been less of an emphasis on wellness and well-being. Furthermore, there has been less attention to how PIs contribute, in positive and negative ways, to these outcomes. This study offers insight into well-being at a specific timepoint, considering dynamics unique to wellness and well-being in the later stages of doctoral training.

Graduate students' mental health and well-being is a prominent concern across various disciplines. However, early predictors of mental health and well-being in graduate education, specifically doctoral education, have rarely been studied. The present study evaluated both the underlying latent classification of individuals' mental well-being and predictors of those classifications. Results estimated two latent classes of students' mental health and well-being: one class with generally high levels of mental well-being and one with lower levels of mental well-being. Regression analyses showed that mentoring in the second year of doctoral study, certainty of choice in the third year, and both academic development and sense of belonging in the fourth year were positive predictors of membership in the higher mental well-being class. In contrast to some prior studies, demographic variables were not related to the identified well-being classifications. Regression analyses further showed that mental well-being was negatively related to participants' number of publications and research self-efficacy, indicating a problematic relationship between scholarly productivity and confidence and well-being. These findings may be used to identify and provide targeted support for students who are at-risk for having or developing lower levels of mental well-being in their graduate programs.

While previous research documents that women in STEM doctoral programs tend to fare better when their advisor shares their gender identity, this study provides new insights into the role of student-advisor gender identity congruence, relying on a longitudinal sample of doctoral students in biology and using structural equation and latent growth curve modeling. Findings show that advisor gender played an inconsistent and typically indirect role in predicting student outcomes. Further, all students, regardless of gender, tended to report higher quality advising when their advisor was a woman, pointing to potential gender inequities in advising expectations of faculty. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed.

Guided by theories of socialization and possible selves, this study examines how STEM doctoral students perceive their academic and professional trajectories. More specifically, we rely on four years of interview data from 66 doctoral students in the biological sciences to explore students' perceived trajectories, focusing on the salient identities and experiences that shape the way students identify and describe their graduate experiences over time. Findings reveal wide variation in terms of how students described their trajectories, with some students describing linear trajectories and/or unchanging career interests, while others described their developmental trajectories as highly turbulent and non-linear. These perceived trajectories were largely shaped by student-advisor interactions, the value students placed on becoming independent scientists, and the privilege students brought with them to their graduate programs.

Despite increased enrolment of women and students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in doctoral programs, notable inequalities in academic careers persist. We investigate one potential source of these inequalities: publication rates during graduate school. Results, based on a sample of doctoral students in biological sciences across 53 institutions, indicate that both white women and students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups (African American and Latinx) have lower publication rates than white men. Notably, these gaps grow over time and are not explained by background factors, socialization experiences, or family obligations. The same patterns persist for first-authored publications for African American and Latinx students, but not white women, suggesting potentially differential mechanisms of exclusion. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Threshold concepts are transformative elements of domain knowledge that enable those who attain them to engage domain tasks in a more sophisticated way. Existing research tends to focus on the identification of threshold concepts within undergraduate curricula as challenging concepts that prevent attainment of subsequent content until mastered. Recently, threshold concepts have likewise become a research focus at the level of doctoral studies. However, such research faces several limitations. First, the generalizability of findings in past research has been limited due to the relatively small numbers of participants in available studies. Second, it is not clear which specific skills are contingent upon mastery of identified threshold concepts, making it difficult to identify appropriate times for possible intervention. Third, threshold concepts observed across disciplines may or may not mask important nuances that apply within specific disciplinary contexts. The current study therefore employs a novel Bayesian knowledge tracing (BKT) approach to identify possible threshold concepts using a large data set from the biological sciences. Using rubric-scored samples of doctoral students' sole-authored scholarly writing, we apply BKT as a strategy to identify potential threshold concepts by examining the ability of performance scores for specific research skills to predict score gains on other research skills. Findings demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy, as well as convergence between results of the current study and more conventional, qualitative results identifying threshold concepts at the doctoral level.

Developing research self-efficacy is an important part of doctoral student preparation. Despite the documented importance of research self-efficacy, little is known about the progression of doctoral students' research self-efficacy over time in general and for students from minoritized groups. This study examined both within- and between-person stability of research self-efficacy from semester to semester over 4 years, focusing on doctoral students in biological sciences (N = 336). Using random intercept autoregressive analyses, we evaluated differences in stability across gender, racially minoritized student status, and first-generation student status. Results showed similar mean levels of self-efficacy across demographic groups and across time. However, there were notable differences in between-person and within-person stability over time, specifically showing higher between-person and lower within-person stability for racially minoritized and first-generation students. These findings indicate that racially minoritized and first-generation students' research self-efficacy reports were less consistent from semester to semester. Such results may indicate that non-minoritized and continuing-generation students' experiences from semester to semester typically reinforce their beliefs about their own abilities related to conducting research, while such is not the case for racially minoritized nor first-generation students. Future research should examine what types of experiences impact self-efficacy development across doctoral study to offer more precise insights about factors that influence these differences in within-person stability.

Building on literature addressing doctoral student socialization and scientific research groups, we qualitatively explore the gendered nature of laboratory rotations for 54 women pursuing STEM doctorates. Using in-depth interviews and a feminist phenomenological approach, findings highlight how women (re)constructed strategies to select lab rotations, relying on social comparisons, social cues about labor practices, and support from principal investigators, peers, and departmental staff. This study documents how women were sometimes felt they had to choose between a prestigious lab aligning with their interests and a lab that would not be overtly sexist. We conclude with practical implications for enhancing equitable socialization structures in STEM.

One of the central goals of doctoral programs is to develop independent researchers and scholars who will lead the next generation of knowledge production. Despite extant evidence of inequalities in doctoral education, few studies have closely examined the experiences of first-generation college students who pursue a Ph.D. We examine how first-generation and continuing-generation doctoral students conceptualize the role of the faculty advisor/principal investigator (PI) in supporting their development as researchers. Our analysis of interviews from 111 first-year Ph.D. students in the biological sciences indicates that first-generation and continuing-generation students had similar overarching conceptions of PIs and the role of PIs in their development. However, the two groups ascribed different meanings to the same concepts. First-generation students expected more direct, skill-based guidance and assistance with learning to do research the right way. Conversely, continuing-generation students expected independence and support for their specific needs. We rely on Bourdieu's conceptualization of habitus to explain these differences and conclude by offering implications for advancing equity in doctoral education and supporting first-generation students, particularly regarding the alignment of student-advisor expectations.

Purpose This study aims to examine how science, technology, engineering, and mathematics doctoral students interact with postdocs within the research laboratory, identifying the nature and potential impacts of student-postdoc mentoring relationships. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 53 doctoral students in the biological sciences, this study uses a sequential mixed-methods design. More specifically, a phenomenological approach enabled the authors to identify how doctoral students make meaning of their interactions with postdocs and other research staff. Descriptive statistics are used to examine how emergent themes might differ as a product of gender and race/ethnicity and the extent to which emergent themes may relate to key doctoral student socialization outcomes. Findings This study reveals six emergent themes, which primarily focus on how doctoral students receive instrumental and psychosocial support from postdocs in their labs. The most frequent emergent theme captures the unique ways in which postdocs provide ongoing, hands-on support and troubleshooting at the lab bench. When examining how this theme plays a role in socialization outcomes, the results suggest that doctoral students who described this type of support from postdocs had more positive mental health outcomes than those who did not describe this type of hands-on support. Originality/value Literature on graduate student mentorship has focused primarily on the impact of advisors, despite recent empirical evidence of a cascading mentorship model, in which senior students and staff also play a key mentoring role. This study provides new insights into the unique mentoring role of postdocs, focusing on the nature and potential impacts of student-postdoc interactions.