2. Literature Review
Academic identity is an ambiguous term within the literature and seems to appear most commonly as referring to research work and positioning. Other phrases including "professional identity", "scholarly identity", "researcher identity", and "disciplinary identity" also refer to how researchers position themselves within their particular fields and exhibit skills and thinking [12,15] which are often used interchangeably. Identity is shaped by the interplay between micro-level individuals and the larger and macro-level contexts within which they exist [16]. Academic identity, built upon this foundation of personal identity, incorporates both the professional role within academia and the broader social identity within the academic community [17]. The discipline and academic freedom, which are in many cases the sources of meaning and self-esteem, as well as being what is most valued, emerge as most important for academic identities [18]. Academic identity is regarded as the definition that broadly conceptualizes the construct in terms of beliefs, attitudes, and efficacy related to scholarly research [19], and often appears in the literature on doctoral students as a key outcome of graduate education [20]. For doctoral students, who are involved in an ambiguous and confusing complex roles, such as students, researchers, teachers, and departmental members [6], academic identity entails both skill and independence, demonstrated through how one reads, writes, speaks, and acts [12]. From the perspective of Sweitzer, doctoral students' professional identity is related to their perceptions about and development of the three key roles of doctoral student, research assistant, and teacher [21]. Choi et al. regarded professional identity as an individual's felt and recognized association with a vocation requiring specialized knowledge and skills and pertinent values, activities and norms, and they then defined identity as scholar as a specific type of professional identity and as an individual’s felt or recognized association with communities doing scholarship pertaining to an academic discipline in doctoral programs [22].
As identities are not fixed but fluid and continuously constructed, co-constructed, and reconstructed over time [23], academic identity is not stable with clear-cut boundaries; instead, it is constantly rebuilt, reshaped and renegotiated in social interaction [14]. The development of a researcher requires doctoral students to internalize their identification
with and commitment to the professional role [24]. Ulriksen et al. recognized identity as always being embedded in culture, and newcomers had to understand the social and cultural setting which they entered and relate that to their identity [25]. Several studies have described the process of constructing a doctoral academic identity by exploring the different stages of socialization [20,26], which equates identity development with the process of socialization. As indicated by socialization models, independent academic identities are pursued only after the socialization of doctoral students and do not emerge during progression toward professionalism [27]. Other studies regard the construction of academic identity as an iterative process shaped primarily by social structures and interaction [12,28]. For example, Jazvac-Martek found that construction, development, or changes to academic identity were interactive, based on continuous reflexive dialogue and relations with significant others, and remained a dialogic process throughout the doctorate [29].
Previous studies have explored the factors influencing the academic identity of doctoral students. Several scholars emphasized the crucial role of supervisors (advisors, mentors) as interactive partners in the construction of doctoral students' academic identity. Weiss suggested that the frequency and nature of contact with faculty members were significantly related to the amount of professional role commitment [30]. Curtin et al. found that advisor support was associated with a stronger sense of belonging and academic self-concept for doctoral students [31]. The informal peer group was also an interacting group that created the potential for change in or development of students' identification [32]. Foot et al. highlighted the importance of students undertaking self-reflection and dialogue with peers and suggested that peers could provide support to each other through socialization and identity transition [33]. In addition, disciplines and institutions provide environments that influence doctoral students' academic identity [34–36], from which students experience a sense of belonging to a collective community. Smith and Hatmaker developed a multi- level model of the organizational, relational, and individual level tactics through which doctoral students learned to become researchers, and offered insight into the students' own proactivity [37]. The socialization model emphasizes knowledge acquisition, investment, and involvement as the core elements to promote the role identity of graduate students [27]. The recognition and development of academic identity is an important aspect of doctoral education [38]. Generally, previous studies have focused on exploring doctoral students' academic identity from external environments, while paying less attention to the psychological mechanisms of academic identity. Therefore, to further uncover the black box of doctoral students' identity construction, it is necessary to explore how Chinese doctoral students understand academic identity at the psychological level.
3. Methodology and Data
This study adopted the grounded theory as the research method to explore how doctoral students develop an academic identity. Grounded theory, as a qualitative research approach, is discovered, developed, and provisionally verified through systematic data collection and analysis of data pertaining to the phenomenon [39] (p. 23). It provides researchers with a framework to generate a theory from the context of a phenomenon and offers a process to develop a model to be used as a theoretical foundation [40]. This study collected and analyzed data using the grounded theory proposed by Strauss and Corbin, referencing Chen and Wang's coding method in practice [41]. Pre-existing studies on the construction of doctoral students' academic identity have yet to establish a universally accepted and definitive analytical framework. The process of identity construction is iterative, unstable, and diverse for doctoral students, making it challenging to describe in a uniform manner. Grounded theory assists in generating a theory from the data that can illuminate the phenomena of academic identity construction among doctoral students, and also provides this study with a robust analytical tool to explore the characteristics manifested by doctoral students as a group.
3.1 Data Collection
This study collected data through semi-structured individual interviews. When selecting participants who could provide the maximum amount of information for the research question, factors such as doctoral stage, gender, discipline, and institution were considered. Multiple interviews were conducted with 21 doctoral students from research universities (see Appendix A). The semi-structured interviews consisted of nine open-ended questions asked in sequential order; these questions were developed based on the literature. Examples of the questions included the following: (1) How would you describe your identities? (2) Describe what happened when you thought of yourself as a researcher, and (3) talk about what helped you form an academic identity and the experiences that created doubts or hesitations about becoming a researcher. The participants were from three Chinese research universities and included 11 males and 10 females, with 4 from natural science, 6 from engineering, 4 from humanities, and 7 from social science. The interviews, which lasted approximately 60–120 minutes, were audio recorded. After all the interviews were conducted, a member of the research team transcribed and translated them into English. Memos were written throughout the research process to document theoretical ideas.
3.2 Data Analysis
This study adhered to the grounded theory data analysis procedures outlined by Strauss and Corbin [39], which proceed in three coding steps: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.
For a grounded theory study, data analysis begins with the open coding of transcripts. In this stage, we suspended all preconceived notions and analyzed the data in an open and theoretically sensitive manner. Careful reading and deconstruction of the interview transcripts, notes, and memos revealed key concepts and allowed us to establish labels. Through this process, we identified seven categories. These categories, including their properties and dimensions, are conceptualized in Table 1.
