Research Experiences of Doctoral Students and Publication After Graduation

Abstract

Graduates of a Special Education Program between 1975-1988 were surveyed to investigate research-related graduate experiences and rates of publication after graduation. Those students who published an article or presented a paper at a national conference published signficantly more after graduation. As expected, graduates who were employed in academic or research positions published significantly more than those in practitioner positions. Those who had research apprenticeships published significantly more than those who did not have such apprenticeships, regardless of whether they took a practitioner or academic/research position after graduation. Also, students who had research apprenticeships viewed their relationship to their faculty mentor differently than other students. Students' career goals or other variables may have affected the type of graduate program they experienced, thereby limiting our ability to draw causal relationships between graduate research experiences and later publication rates.