During their doctoral studies, students undergo an emotionally and intellectually intensive process involving a wide range of positive and negative experiences. This article analyses PhD students’ perceptions of the most positive and negative experiences related to doctoral study conditions. Previous researchers have primarily focused on analysing experiences that negatively affect doctoral work and have related these experiences to institutional, social and individual variables. However, little is known regarding positive experiences and how both positive and negative experiences are interpreted and related to variables connected with doctoral study, such as discipline, funding, enrolment type, and the stage of the doctoral process. In total, 1173 doctoral students from 56 Spanish universities completed an open-ended online survey. The findings indicate that opportunities for PhD students to communicate their scientific advances, receive expert feedback and interact with other researchers have a high positive influence on their doctoral journey. However, funding difficulties, particularly for students in the social sciences, and relationships with the research community, principally with the supervisor, were perceived as the main negative challenges. Experiences related to research design, data collection and analysis were perceived either negatively – primarily for mid-level students – or positively. These results should be considered in future doctoral programme policies to determine when, how and why to provide specific support during the doctoral process.

Dialogical self theory is applied to describe the identity of a group of experienced Catalan teachers. Participants (N = 58) were asked about their positions and I-positions via a written survey, and the data were analysed using qualitative and quantitative procedures. The findings show a comprehensive description of nine types of positions (to educate children, to plan instruction, to support and assess learning, to promote a positive learning environment, to improve educational practice, to collaborate with colleagues, to build a relationship with families, to manage the school, and to collaborate with external professionals) as well as thirty types of I-positions. In addition, four clusters of teachers were identified, each of which emphasised different positions: instruction and school management; instruction and improvement of educational practice; education of children and teaching students; and education of children and improvement of educational practice. Comparative research on teachers’ I-positions could be conducted in different contexts.

This study analyses early career researchers’ identity positions from a dialogical-self perspective and their experiences when facing significant research events over their career trajectory. An idiographic longitudinal approach, based on the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), and a narrative methodology were used. Five social science researchers at the beginning of their careers fulfilled a Journey Plot and participated in longitudinal in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Seven researchers’ identity positions emerged from the phenomenological analysis: administrative, tutored-student, academic writer, subject content learner, research designer, academic speaker, and research community member. Results also showed differences in positions’ frequency and distribution when considering research and teaching careers.

Using video technology to support individual and collaborative reflection in pre-service teacher education is an increasingly common practice. This paper explores the type of teaching practice challenges identified by the pre-service teachers and the feedback provided during analysis by school mentors and university tutors through the use of the VEO app to supervise a teaching practicum. Student teachers selected and uploaded a short clip of their dissatisfied interventions during the practicum to the app. Each student analyzed their clip and received online feedback from their school mentor and university tutor. The objectives were to analyze the challenges in the chosen video clips, identify which mentoring feedback episodes occurred, characterize them according to their feedback strategies and analyze differences between school mentors’ and university tutors’ feedback. We conducted a descriptive and exploratory study with a sample of 12 pre-service teachers, their school mentors and their university tutors. Pre-service teachers identified communication and the learning climate as frequent challenges. University tutors used more emotional feedback strategies and a greater range of task assistance feedback than school mentors. Three types of feedback episodes were identified (complementary, collaboration and school mentor-centered episodes). Implications in teacher learning and mentoring programs were discussed.

This intervention study aimed at helping undergraduate students of psychology learn to use the discursive resources useful to make academic voice visible in their texts and to improve their writing practices. The intervention involved tutorial meetings and collaborative revisions in two different learning environments, on-line and face-to face. The final text quality, the students’ knowledge and the amount and the quality of revisions were assessed in both conditions. Results show that the quality of the texts improved for both intervention groups in contrast with for control group, and better texts were related with higher rates of revision and more students’ satisfaction with the intervention.