A framework for doctoral education in developing students’ mental well-being by integrating the demand and resources of the program: An integrative review

The Job Demands-Resources model

2.1

A well-known stress-coping model that accounts for employee wellbeing is the JD-R model (Demerouti et al., 2001). The model highlights that the demands and resources stem from the job, and its imbalance causes burnout and ill-being. Although the JD-R model was created to examine employees’ well-being in the workplace, it has also been used to research and learning environments. According to Levecque et al. (2017) in the context of doctoral education, “job demands” refers to the obligation’s researchers have to fulfill as part of their doctoral studies and jobs that could affect their mental health. The term “job resource” refers to institutional, supervisory, peer, and family support that can shield students from the detrimental effects of work demands and help them maintain their motivation. Demand and resources for doctoral programs are generated from numerous sources over the course of the program, which affects students’ well-being (Pyhältö et al., 2012). Doctoral researchers, institutions, and supervisors appraise research demand and resource differentially (Ellis et al., 2015). The JD-R model was used to explain how the doctoral journey became more difficult due to increasing program demand and low resource availability. These studies, however, fail to anticipate its impact on students’ mental health (Haven et al., 2019; Ryan et al., 2021; Sufyan & Ali Ghouri, 2020). As a result, we reviewed all prior studies to better understand the demand and resource that influence doctoral students’ well-being at three levels (i.e., institutions, supervisors, and personal).

Differentiated doctoral program demands

2.2

Individuals appraise stressful circumstances or work environments either as challenge demand that stimulate them, or hindrance demand which threaten them. This framework is referred to “differentiated demand model” (Cavanaugh et al., 2000; LePine et al., 2005). Challenge demand encourage desired outcomes, including learning, job satisfaction, and organisational commitment, whereas hindrance demand result in negative consequences such as withdrawal symptoms, burnout, and turnover intentions (LePine et al., 2005). Hindrance demand cause burnout, whereas individuals can overcome challenge demand by acquiring a necessary resource (Ellis et al., 2015). Role conflict, organisational politics, role ambiguity, administrative hassles, and interpersonal conflict are examples of hindrance demand. Time constraints, workload, and job responsibility are challenge demand (Lepine et al., 2005). Few studies have been reported on this challenge-hindrance demands framework in the doctoral education setting, compared to the working environment (McCauley & Hinojosa, 2020). Consequently, it is essential to identify the differentiated demands that affect the mental health of doctoral students, which assist the educator restructure their program.

Doctoral Program’s contextual resource

2.3

According to Demerouti et al. (2001) job resource favorably impacts a worker’s accomplishments, learning, growth, and psychological and physical well-being. Based on the Conservation of Resources theory (COR), job resources might be contextual or personal. Contextual resources are situated outside the individual and are related to the workplace or social setting (Hobfoll, 2001). Contextual resource for doctoral students can be outside (e.g., peers, supervisors, family, or friends) or within the university (Skopek et al., 2020; Waight & Giordano, 2018). The doctoral student’s social environment, the institution’s research training, and supervisory support are contextual resource in doctoral education (Sufyan & Ali Ghouri, 2020). The combined effect of peer, supervisor, and department support was empirically analyzed by Dericks et al. (2019) as a contextual resource in predicting doctoral students’ satisfaction. The doctoral completion rates were improved by critical institutional resource and transparency in the program criteria (Skopek et al., 2020). Few studies support the impact of contextual resource on doctoral students’ mental health; however, the moderating effect they play in stressful settings is ignored.

Personal resources of doctoral students

2.4

Personal resource are the traits of an individual which help them to achieve their goals by reducing the adverse effects of their work demand thereby improving their well-being (Ellis et al., 2015; Hobfoll, 2001). Essential personal resource that has been researched in the past include resilience, self-efficacy, optimism, and intrinsic motivation (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). To encourage program completion, a doctoral student’s personal resource is more critical than contextual resource (Pyhältö et al., 2012). The strength of personal resource during the doctoral journey is reflected in many theories. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is one such theory, which conceptualized the intrinsic motivation as crucial personal resource for doctoral candidate. Studies on doctoral education resources has highlighted the importance of cultivating intrinsic motivation in doctoral students (De Clercq et al., 2021). To pursue a doctoral study, students must have an innate curiosity, delight, and excitement (Litalien & Guay, 2015). High intrinsic motivation encourages students to invest time in learning and study (Shin et al., 2018). Existing research has shown an important association between doctoral students’ well-being and intrinsic motivation (De Clercq et al., 2021). However, studies about doctoral programs that evaluate the moderating role of intrinsic motivation between demand and mental health well-being are missing.

Mental well-being of doctoral students

2.5

The well-being of a doctoral student refers to the state of mind of the researcher that is primarily influenced by the demand of their role and the resource provided by the program (Juniper et al., 2012). According to empirical research (Sverdlik & Hall, 2019), there is a positive correlation between employees’ mental health and organisational outcomes. Previous studies have looked at various factors that can affect a doctoral student’s well-being, including their supervisors’ expectations being unclear, their lack of social support, limited access to financial resource, their relationships with them being incompatible with their supervisor, and their scholarly community networks (Barry et al., 2018; Juniper et al., 2012; Marais et al., 2018). However, little studies support the theory of contextual-personal resources and the dual role of doctoral program demand. The differentiated demands of doctoral programs to ascertain their favourable or unfavourable effects on well-being have yet to be made clear in previous studies. More literature is also needed to explore connected resources that improve students’ well-being. Doctoral education is inextricably associated with a stressful journey. Hence, we propose that the intrinsic drive of the student moderates the program’s high demand on the student’s mental health. The fundamental role of intrinsic motivation within the JD-R model framework is not well understood yet. To consider all the doctoral program demand and resource that impact the students’ mental well-being the current study adopted the integrative review methodology, which also fulfill the aforementioned gap in the literature. We employed Bronfenbrenner’s ecological paradigm, which considers that various interrelated demand and resource. The challenge demand has roles to play in boosting study engagement; therefore, job resource should be enabled at every step of doctoral education. Individuals with great personal resource can better handle obstacles to achieving mental well-being. A detailed analysis of the student’s mental health should make these demand and resource of the doctoral program more transparent. University advisors and institutions can build the policy framework for doctoral education with the current review findings. We present theory-driven suggestions for doctoral educators to enhance program challenges and provide helpful contextual resource throughout the program journey.

Problem formulation

3.1

Doctoral students are more likely than the general population to have stress and mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression (Hazell et al., 2020; Levecque et al., 2017). In order to address the mental health issues facing doctorate students, the current study structured the problem statement as a research question by taking into account all the constructs that affect the students’ mental health. The existing studies on doctoral education recommended combining differentiated demand and multifaceted resource framework along with their guiding theory while evaluating doctoral students’ mental health (McCauley & Hinojosa, 2020). We considered the following research questions to consider all the constructs of mental well-being. (1) What challenge and hindrance demand of the doctoral degree affect doctoral students’ mental health? (2) What personal and contextual resource help doctoral students cope with stress? (3) What relevant guiding theories support the well-being of doctoral students? These questions helped to synthesize our research findings, allowing us to reflect on earlier work and create an integrated framework for doctoral education.

Search method

3.2

Two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, were used for the literature search, and Boolean operators were used for the keyword search. As part of the search strategy, the following keywords were used: “doctoral program” OR “doctoral education” OR “doctoral scholar” OR “doctoral student” AND “differentiated demands” OR “challenge and hindrance”, AND “JD-R” AND “motivation” AND “well-being” AND “mental health” AND “stressors”. The “doctoral candidates”, “Ph.D. scholar” and “Ph.D. students” all undertook an identical Boolean procedure. In order to incorporate the relevant papers, the author conducted a manual search by going over the cited articles from the chosen list.

3.2.1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria

We used the PRISMA integrative review checklist to find, identify, evaluate, and synthesize studies. Studies conducted in an “academic setting”—defined by the criteria that consider research on the JD-R model, motivational studies, differentiated job demands, and well-being among doctoral students—were taken into consideration for inclusion. Due to major improvements in structured doctoral education across many nations beginning in the 20th century, the reviewer included the articles published in English from 2000 onward (Kot & Hendel, 2012). We included the quantitative, qualitative, conceptual, review and mixed methodologies to provide a comprehensive overview of the research literature. Reviewers disqualified studies outside the purview of the aforementioned inclusion search criteria. The studies concentrating on institutional or individual outcomes, such as program satisfaction, Ph.D. dropout rate, and student performance, were eliminated from the analysis. The articles that did not match the quality standard following JBI were excluded based on the quality ratings the reviewers gave. The articles were picked depending on whether the final selections had undergone theoretical and empirical validation. Lastly, the review contained 45 papers (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Flow chart of the integrative review selection process.

Critical quality appraisal

3.3

Using the JBI quality appraisal checklist, the selected articles’ quality was evaluated. The methodological quality of the article, the possibility of bias in the analysis, the reliability, and the validity scale employed in the selected article are all assessed using this tool. Two reviewers separately evaluated the quality of the included articles. Differences that emerged during the procedure were resolved with the assistance of the third author. This approach assisted in overcoming bias throughout the evaluation stage. The extended data (Acharya et al., 2023a), includes a quality assessment checklist that has been compiled for use in Annexures A through E. We have extracted a total of 26 cross-sectional design studies based on the JBI critical assessment checklist: two articles on the randomized experiment, one observational study, four conceptual papers, and 12 qualitative studies for the data analysis.

Data analysis and presentation

3.4

The selected studies were screened based on the methodological approach, causes and effects, theoretical background, and factors that support doctoral students’ mental health. The associated variables from the final 45 articles were found, and they were compared iteratively, coded, categorized, and summarised for an integrated conclusion (see Table 1).

3.4.1.1 Differentiated demands and doctoral students’ well-being

Long hours of work, regular presentations of their research findings, learning rigorous methodologies and analysis techniques, obtaining tangible research results in the form of high-quality publications, and maintaining a healthy student-supervisor relationship are all demands placed on doctoral students (Litalien & Guay, 2015; Sufyan & Ali Ghouri, 2020). These complexity, study responsibility, and workload of the doctoral program have grown over a period and have considered as challenge demand (Pervez et al., 2021). A lack of program clarity further constrains the doctoral program, a communication gap between the supervisor and student, low-quality required coursework, and a lack of infrastructure hinder the advancement of doctoral studies (Levecque et al., 2017; Sin et al., 2021). The ambiguity in the doctoral program, the poor relationship with the supervisor, family, and advisory members, and the resource deficiency that threatens the students’ mental health are all summed up in these hindrance demand (McCauley & Hinojosa, 2020). According to McCauley and Hinojosa (2020) student view the doctoral program’s challenge demand as a chance to advance and hindrance demand as a risk to their ability to study. In conclusion, challenge demand to benefit a student’s wellbeing, but hindrance demand negatively impact a student.

3.4.1.2 Contextual resources of doctoral programs

The resources of the job assist doctoral students in attaining their objectives and advancing their research. The importance of resource at three levels was hypothesized in a recent integrative review of the JD-R model: the institution level, the team level (supervisor style and co-workers), and the individual level (personal resource) (Kwon & Kim, 2020). According to empirical studies, the contextual resources from the institution, supervisor, and social are most critical in supporting doctoral students’ well-being (Ryan et al., 2021; Waight & Giordano, 2018). Contextual resources are those offered by institution that increase the intrinsic motivation of doctoral students. These resources include access to research learning infrastructure, financial assistance through scholarship, transparency in the policy structure, and helpful advice from the scholarly community (Janssen et al., 2021). The social support helps the doctoral student to deal with stress include emotional and in-person assistance from family and peers, online mentoring groups, and more (Boone et al., 2020). Critical supervisor resource promote the well-being of the student that include open and honest communication, emotional and technical support, flexible supervision, patience level of supervisor, listening skill, and a willingness to appreciate students’ self-reflection (Dericks et al., 2019). Contextual resource like supervisors and social support mitigate the negative correlation between hindrance demand and work engagement (Pervez et al., 2021). In a non-academic setting, online support, family, and mentors are important resource (Waight & Giordano, 2018). According to Tadić et al. (2015), job resource strengthens the relationship between challenge demand and job engagement. Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems approach, Jackman et al. (2022) present interconnections between supervisors, institutions, and peers surrounding Ph.D. student for their development.

3.4.1.3 Intrinsic motivation as a personal resource in the doctoral study

According to studies on doctoral education, the primary personal resource needed to complete the doctoral journey is internal motivation (Litalien & Guay, 2015). The inherent urge and drive to engage in an activity for its own sake, rather than for external incentives or demands, is referred to as intrinsic motivation (Chan et al., 2019). The doctoral student’s intrinsic motivation is related to their positive personal experience that enhances the doctoral student’s overall learning experience and increasing their academic engagement, performance, and chances of academic success (Dericks et al., 2019; Litalien & Guay, 2015; Matheka et al., 2020). Intrinsic motivation of the doctoral student is often associated with their positive personal experience and its influence on improving their performance and academic engagement Intrinsic motivation reduces the impact of hindrance demand on occupational pressure and, as a result, enhances the mental health of doctoral students (McCauley & Hinojosa, 2020). Intrinsically motivated doctoral student pursues doctoral education because they have an innate passion for acquiring knowledge in their domain area and can overcome hindrance (Matheka et al., 2020). Intrinsic motivation combined with contextual resource promotes doctoral learning outcomes while reducing the impact of burnout and strain (van den Broeck et al., 2011). Intrinsic motivation assists in enhancing the basic psychological needs in doctoral student (van den Broeck et al., 2011). Intrinsically motivated doctoral students feel like they can be competent to master the research challenges, autonomy to choose their interested research topic, and are part of an academic research community or group that supports their research efforts (van den Broeck et al., 2011).

3.4.1.4 Significance of well-being in JD-R model

Studies on doctoral well-being using the JD-R model is of utmost relevance in understanding the interaction of multiple demands and resources in enhancing doctoral students’ overall well-being (McAlpine et al., 2022). Researchers can use the JD-R model to identify specific job demands that may be detrimental to student’s mental health and design interventions to mitigate these demands (Anttila et al., 2021). Furthermore, rather than emphasizing the positive elements of mental health, prior studies have primarily focused on mental illnesses or distress. As a result, by considering both positive and negative elements of doctoral program demand and resources, the current study sheds light on doctoral students’ mental health. This understanding can eventually influence the development of evidence-based interventions and support systems to increase doctoral students’ well-being and achievement.

3.4.2 Guiding and contributing theories

In the current review the challenge-hindrance demands concept is evolved from Folkman and Lazarus’s (1985) Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC). According to the TMSC hypothesis, doctoral student appraises program demand as the challenge, or as the hindrance based on their subjective surroundings. The theory also states that challenge demand support personal resource to lower the individual strain, while hindrance demand might cause stress (Pervez et al., 2021). McCauley & Hinojosa, (2020), have examined a doctoral program’s challenge-hindrance demand impact on student’s professional development based on the TMSC model However, this study dearth in identifying the impact of various challenge hindrance program demand on students’ well-being. In this context, one would agree that an empirical study on the degree to which doctoral students appraise the demand of their program is necessary.

The doctoral study comprises resource along with demand using ideas from the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory. Doctoral students are indeed needs to be motivated to build the resource to manage stressful expectations, according to the COR theory. The lack of these contextual resource puts student in a complex environment, leading to burnout. Student who has enough contextual and personal resource can manage their workload and retain their mental well-being. According to the COR theory, social (e.g peer and family), the institution, and the supervisor support serve as contextual resource, whereas intrinsic motivation is a personal resource that helps in preserve the doctoral students’ mental health (Sufyan & Ali Ghouri, 2020). Employing the COR theory as a guide Boone et al. (2020), found that resource obtained through peer support, supervisor mentorship, learning support from institution, and emotional support from the family will increase a person’s intrinsic motivation by preventing resource loss. Sufyan and Ali Ghouri (2020) used the JD-R model and COR theory to analyze the stress experienced by doctoral student. Based on this study’s findings, their academic career will be impacted by excessive demand and a lack of resource. Thus, their findings imply that a key factor in influencing students’ mental health is the potential for inclusion of COR and JD-R.

The Causality Orientations Theory (COT), a sub-theory of SDT, which describes how people familiar with autonomous, controlled, and impersonal orientation that serves as the theoretical foundation for intrinsic motivation. Doctoral students behave in accordance with their desires during autonomous orientation, in controlled orientation, students concentrate on their benefits and rewards, while in impersonal orientation, they feel anxious (Deci et al., 2001). According to COT, higher degrees of autonomous orientation reduce burnout, allowing doctoral students to achieve higher levels of self-determination and self-esteem, in contrast, controlled or impersonal orientation (Litalien & Guay, 2015; Lynch et al., 2018). The intrinsic motivation promoted by the intervention or motivational program, such as incentive policies, schemes, and programs, supports researcher’s autonomous orientation rather than supporting the controlled orientation.

The Basic Psychological Need Theory (BPNT), a mini theory under SDT, serves as the theoretical foundation for the present framework’s emphasis on mental health in doctoral program. According to BPNT, individuals exhibit better mental health and behave more ethically when their social setting support for their basic psychological needs (Deci et al., 2001). Autonomy-supportive resource are the social environments that improve individual well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Supervisors, professors, and peer are autonomy-supportive resource that help doctoral students meet their basic psychological needs (Devos et al., 2015; Sverdlik & Hall, 2019). According to the BPNT, when the doctoral program is autonomy-supportive it enhances doctoral students’ autonomy orientation (Van Rooij et al., 2021). Therefore, during the doctoral program journey, the researcher’s mental health is influenced by the work autonomy and challenge demand placed on doctoral students. Figure 2 depicts the conceptual framework for the mental well-being of the doctoral students considering the factors differential demands, resource, intrinsic motivation, and mental well-being. The theoretical underpinning of each construct has been reported in Figure 2.

Figure 2. A nomological network of mental well-being of doctoral students.

TMSC=Transactional model of stress and coping; COR=Conservation of Resources; COT=Causality orientations theory; BPNT=Basic Psychological Needs Theory.

Future directions

4.1

Prior research on the JD-R model has focused on analysing how demand and resource affect organizational outcomes including service quality and organizational commitment. Additionally, it influences on individual outcomes includes job satisfaction, in-role and extra-role behaviors, and creativity. Limited studies have examined the interaction of demand and resource on individual’s well-being using JD-R model. Future studies, however, might use empirical observation to examine the impact of demand and resource on students’ mental health in a learning environment. Future research can examine the impact of resource and demand on individual physical wellness (such as sleep disruption, gastrointestinal issues, frequent headaches, and eyestrain) in a setting with high demand. Second, by considering the job crafting technique, future studies can provide the framework for doctoral students’ well-being (Demerouti, 2014). By driving changes in the demand and resource of doctoral programs the scholar may devote to their research and are acting as “proactive crafters” of their studies. In keeping with job crafting, researchers can enhance their interpersonal connections with supervisors, peers, and scholarly communities through online collaborations. They can also master diverse methodologies and develop their academic writing abilities.

Third, just two of Ryff’s relationships (Ryff, 1989) six psychological well-being factors—autonomy and positive relationships—have been considered when examining doctoral researchers’ mental health. Researchers typically tend to display a high degree of autonomy, awareness of the fundamentals of the topic, and the development of a research identity. Therefore, future studies might consider using a comprehensive definition of Ryff’s model to describe the researchers’ mental health.

Implications for higher education institutions

4.2

By adopting the proposed challenge-hindrance framework in doctoral education, institutions, doctoral educators, and practitioners can benefit while designing strategies to reduce doctoral students’ mental health. Recommendations for institutions include reframing the workload and responsibilities of the doctoral program at the start of the journey that a student must undertake and educate them about the rationale for this rigorous journey. Here, education institutions are supposed to discuss with students fairly while distributing the teaching load, offering research training, involving administrative duties, and increasing the quantity and calibre of journal publications. Doctoral program come with many obligations that ensure the students pick up different competencies and skills along the way. This research complexity is addressed by offering professional development training such as advanced statistics workshops, seminars on writing for high-impact journal publications, substantial research methodologies, and coping with the challenging academic publication process. The institutions must be transparent with the students about completing program requirements, which include presenting research output at conferences, managing the research fund along with personal expenses, developing the necessary research competencies.

Doctoral educators could assist the students by providing resources at three levels: peer, supervisor, and institution. Doctoral student may receive financial aid from their institutions to attend workshops on statistical analysis, doctoral research colloquia, and professional conferences. Institution may work on enhancing the students’ morale by providing a research infrastructure that includes private workspaces, necessary research tools, software for analysing the data, providing an opportunity for research collaboration with the similar topics, and research databases. Institution could facilitate interventions like mindfulness, research resilience, and stress-time-management workshops to enhance students’ emotional and psychological development. By arranging a weekly meeting with students to review their research progress, providing specific, and constructive feedback, and collaborating with experts in the student’s field, supervisors can help students gather the necessary supporting resource. Supervisor can also serve as mentor by offering emotional support for their students and showing respect for the student’s academic and personal responsibilities, such as family time, household work, and exercise. Supervisor can also authorship credits to their students by including them in other research initiatives or peers. Fostering positive relationships with students helps to maintain and preserve future resource. Peer resources in the form of socioemotional support, networking with peers from other universities in the same field, participation in various research groups, and sharing research ideas all inspire doctoral students which enhance their self-determination.

Promoting doctoral students’ autonomous motivation to lessen psychological distress by institutions and advisors is strongly advised. They advise creating an intervention that stimulates and nurtures the doctoral students’ interest in the subject of their research. Supervisors should receive training to support the psychological requirements of the students, which goes beyond research project supervision.

Extended data

Figshare: Quality assessment checklist by Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), for “A framework for doctoral education in developing students’ mental well-being by integrating the demand and resources of the program: An integrative review”, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22298995 (Acharya et al., 2023a).

This project contains the following extended data:

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 Public domain).

Reporting guidelines

Figshare: PRISMA checklist for “A framework for doctoral education in developing students’ mental well-being by integrating the demand and resources of the program: An integrative review”, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22300792 (Acharya et al., 2023b).

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 Public domain).