Avrasya Turizm Araştırmaları Dergisi

Yazarlar: Hasibe YAZIT, Derya DEMİRDELEN ALRAWADIEH

Konular:Otelcilik, Konaklama, Spor ve Turizm

Anahtar Kelimeler:Doctorate Education,Postgraduate Tourism Students,Barriers to Postgraduate Education,Tourism Doctorate Programs

Özet: Ph.D. education is regarded as the highest level of formal education life and thus has a significant importance. Ensuring an adequate education quality is crucial for students as they will be either academic researchers or workforce in the sector. This study aims to understand the perceptions of students enrolled into Ph.D. programs in the field of Tourism Management towards these programs and to identify the key challenges they experience in their academic career. For this purpose, qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 18 Ph.D. tourism students in Turkey. Content analysis revealed three key issues summarizing the key challenges faced by Ph.D. students. While the findings reveal that Ph.D. students mostly lament about Ph.D. curriculum (e.g. inadequacy of research methods and academic writing courses); they also reveal that student-related issues (e.g., lack of focus due to economic constraints) and academia-related issues (e.g. excessive homework load and publication pressure) were frequently mentioned. The present study provides a theoretical contribution to the field by revealing the challenges experienced by students, and also offers practical suggestions for different stakeholders in the higher education.

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