With credentialing as well as academic quests: students’ bounded agency in pursuit and navigation of professional doctoral studies
研究了中国内地学生在香港攻读教育博士（EdD）的动机与经历，发现他们在就业市场压力和博士入学障碍下，将EdD作为获取博士学位和追求学术生涯的战略性妥协，体现了“有限能动性”。
This qualitative study investigates the motivations and experiences of Mainland Chinese students pursuing a Doctor of Education (EdD) in Hong Kong. Data was collected through in-depth individual interviews with eleven participants and analysed through an interpretative phenomenological approach. Through the theoretical lens of student agency, it becomes clear that students actively choose the EdD as a strategic compromise in their ‘credential quest’ to obtain a doctoral degree as well as ‘academic quest’ to pursue academic careers, amidst structural constraints of a competitive job market and perceived barriers to PhD entry. The findings demonstrate that students exercise their agency through both active and passive compromises to pursue largely academic aspirations by enrolling in EdD programmes. This strategic compromise influences how they approach their EdD studies, primarily for academic aspirations, and entails significant challenges for them to navigate their studies, which is further reinforced by institutional requirements and expectations for academic achievements of EdD students. This is a powerful illustration of ‘bounded agency’: strategic agents make rational choices under structural dynamics and conditions constrained by rising labour market competition, credentialism, academic hierarchies, and institutional policies, while their agency is channelled into a compromised pathway that creates a persistent struggle to align their academic aspirations with a professionally oriented programme. The findings of this study carry several important implications for higher education institutions, doctoral education, and EdD students.