The Hidden Curriculum: Educational Pillars for Doctoral Researchers’ Meaningful Experience and Successful Completion

Through the lens of a doctoral learning ecology model, doctoral researchers can be expected to encounter four foundational needs within an expanded doctoral pedagogy. Each need arguably requires a specific mode of support. Firstly, doctoral researchers require professional support to help achieve the required academic quality of their work via written or oral feedback on draft chapters or papers. Doctoral researchers then need moral support as they gradually integrate themselves as members of the research community. The third need requires practical support in navigating the organisational complexity of the Graduate School system. Finally, doctoral researchers benefit from emotional support that is key in sustaining a healthy work-life balance, which entails integrating academic, professional, and personal identities and learning trajectories into a sustainable doctoral ecology.