Fig 1.
a) Distribution of responses across various STEM majors including psychology and social sciences primarily sociology, education, linguistics, political science, public policy, economics, and others. and b) distribution of responses by number of years spent in Ph.D. program.
Table 1.
Definition of professional development (n = 176).
Table 2.
Table of activities experienced in graduate school, categorized into four tiers.
Fig 2.
Plot of PD experiences during Ph.D. training according to discrepancy between what Ph.D. students valued for their PD vs. what they actually experienced (n = 176).
Activities presented in Table 2 are color coded based on the student’s direct PD context. Activities marked red (greatest discrepancy) are related to job search (Tier 4, dark red, 1–4) and expanding professional network beyond academia (Tier 3, light red, 5–8) and activities marked blue (least discrepancy) are related to doctoral program requirements (Tier 1, dark blue, 14–18) and the broader academic community (Tier 2, light blue, 9–13).
Fig 3.
Career values of Ph.D. students and alumni (n = 176), when asked to select top three preferences.
The matching colors indicate values that are often conceptualized in a dichotomous manner.
Fig 4.
Types of professional mentors of Ph.D. students and alumni (n = 154).
The responses in red indicate mentors who are present within the doctoral program.
Fig 5.
Value of peer networks in learning about PD opportunities (n = 175).
Table 3.
Peer-support in PD (N = 99, 74.4%).
Fig 6.
Value of peers-led events in providing information about PD opportunities (n = 173).
Fig 7.
Percentage of alumni respondents (n = 47) within each professional sector, including a breakdown of the type of role within academia.
Fig 8.
Support for transitioning to the first job after graduation by percentage of alumni responses (n = 56).
Table 4.
Challenges in transitioning from doctoral program to first position outside the Ph.D. laboratory (N = 40).
Fig 9.
Alumni responses on a) the most valuable PD activities in doctoral training (n = 43), and b) ways to improve PD activities within doctoral training (n = 40).