2025/05/21 by Katrina McChesney, James Burford, Liezel Frick · 1 voice
Health Professions · Psychology · Social Sciences · #COVID-19 and Mental Health #Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions #Higher Education Practises and Engagement
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/13603108.2025.2506473
openalex publication_date 2025/05/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
While some doctoral students pursue formalised ‘distance’ or ‘online’ programmes, many other doctoral students also work off-campus some or all of the time, either by choice or by necessity. These distance doctoral students have been relatively invisible within higher education, resulting in this cohort sometimes lacking access to support services, research culture, and a sense of institutional belonging. This invisibility and restricted provision raise equity concerns given that distance study is a route commonly used by communities that are underserved by higher education. This paper draws on an international survey of 521 doctoral students from a range of geographic and disciplinary contexts who shared their experiences of distance doctoral study. We report the successes, barriers, opportunities, and strategies that characterised these students’ experiences, ‘lifting the lid’ on modes of doctoral study that have previously been underexplored. Given these insights, we identify practical implications for higher education policymakers, graduate schools, supervisors, and student support services. We argue that this large and important cohort of doctoral students deserve equitable provision no matter their location of study, and we call for practical changes to disrupt historic constructions of distance pathways as ‘second-best’.