The role of scholarly identity and basic needs support during doctoral studies on career aspirations of early career scientists
基于自我决定理论，对180名博士毕业生进行纵向研究，发现博士期间与科学共同体的社会关联通过学术身份影响其毕业后一年内留在学术界的抱负，而能力和自主支持无显著作用。
The lack of support in academia, especially during doctoral studies, is a widely debated issue. Such experiences can be expected to be highly relevant to young researchers for their developing identity as scholars and their career aspirations. According to self-determination theory, support for the three basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and social relatedness in the doctoral context should foster the development of scholarly identity, which in turn is linked to career aspirations. In this longitudinal study, we investigated how doctoral graduates (N = 180) perceived such support during their doctoral studies and how these perceptions were related to their scholarly identity and career aspirations one year after finishing their doctorate. Our findings showed that only social relatedness to the scientific community during the doctorate was positively related to graduates’ aspiration to stay in academia later on. Scholarly identity mediates this effect. We found no effects of competence and autonomy support. We discuss theoretical implications and the need for further research on the relations between the three basic needs. We discuss the applicability of these findings beyond the national context.