Communities of practice supporting doctoral studies

The International Journal of Management Education 10 (2012) 29–38

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Communities of practice supporting doctoral studies Katja Lahenius* Aalto University, School of Science, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, P.O. Box 15500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 10 August 2010 Received in revised form 2 May 2011 Accepted 1 September 2011

The learning environment for doctoral studies has been seen to be an important factor affecting the quality of doctoral education. Previous studies claim that students should have an opportunity to engage themselves with practising researchers and a community of peers, experts, and others. However, earlier research demonstrates disciplinary differences among learning environments and the students’ opportunities to engage with the scientific community. This paper draws on the experiences of three small groups of doctoral students in order to illuminate the importance of communities of practice in doctoral education in terms of students’ perceived experiences of doctoral study. The study is set in the context of industrial engineering and management. A qualitative methodology was used to explore students’ experiences of participating in small groups and ways in which this participation has contributed to their doctoral studies. An inductive protocol was used to analyse the data gathered through thematic interviews (N ¼ 10). The findings of this study suggest that communities of practice can have a positive effect on doctoral students’ doctoral experience, and therefore support their doctoral studies. The results suggest that some students need help from faculties and departments in order to develop peer connections. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Community of practice Doctoral education Qualitative research Case study Peer support

1. Introduction Recently, doctoral education has gained much attention all over the world. Among others, the issue of completion rates has gained increasing attention (McAlpine & Norton, 2006; Walker et al. 2008), and there have been many studies aimed at finding ways to strengthen the quality of doctoral education with regard to the effect on poor completion rates (Gardner, 2009; Golde, 2005; Walker et al., 2008). One important factor affecting the quality of doctoral education (Golde, 2005) and doctoral students’ research processes and learning experiences (Chiang, 2003) has been seen in the learning environment of doctoral studies. Scholarly communities, defined here as the multiple relationships that result from the pursuit of shared scholarly interests and endeavours, provide the particular context of the learning environment for doctoral studies to take place within certain social practices. Therefore, the learning environments vary greatly from discipline to discipline (Becher, 2001). The varying experiences of doctoral students have been seen to depend on disciplinary differences (Chiang, 2003; Pyhältö, Stubb, & Lonka, 2009). Studies show that science scholars usually work in collaboration with others, whereas scholars in the humanities or education will typically work in an individual manner, in greater isolation (Chiang, 2003; Gardner, 2009; Golde, 2005). In this study the focus is on industrial engineering and management, which deals with the development, improvement, implementation, and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy,

* Tel.: þ358 50 384 1747. E-mail address: katja.lahenius@aalto.fi. 1472-8117/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijme.2012.02.003

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material, and processes (Salvendy, 1992). Given its direction, the structure of doctoral education in industrial engineering and management mainly reflects the traditions of disciplines in the humanities; in other words, social sciences and management. Previous studies claim that students should have an opportunity to engage with practising researchers and a community of peers, experts, and others (Pearson & Brew, 2002) provided by communities of practice (Austin, 2009). Unlike the natural and health sciences, the humanities and social sciences take a more individual approach to research, and therefore cannot provide such a community of practice with which to explore experiences as does the team-based research approach (McAlpine & Norton, 2006). If so, then what can be done in order to support students within disciplinary contexts that usually employ an individual approach, so that the students will have the same kinds of opportunities to engage with different kinds of communities as those that exist for students that are part of a team-based research approach? What can departments and faculties do for their students? This paper draws on the experiences of three small groups of doctoral students in order to illuminate the importance of communities of practice in doctoral education in terms of students’ perceived experiences of doctoral study in the context of industrial engineering and management. In this paper the aim is to address two main issues. The first aim is to explore students’ experiences of participating in small groups and ways in which this participation has contributed to their doctoral studies. The second aim is to investigate the formation of these groups, as representing communities of practice. 2. Literature review Previous research argues that doctoral students need opportunities to gain a sense of belonging to scholarly communities during their doctoral training (Conrad, 2007; Pyhältö et al., 2009). A scholarly community always provides a learning environment for doctoral studies within certain social practices. McAlpine and Norton (2006) propose that doctoral education should be seen as an integrative and systemic perspective, the student experience of learning being at its core. They state that “emphasizing the social and complex nature of learning acknowledges that the thinking and learning of professors and students is situated within distinct academic tribes or communities of practice”. Tight (2008) states that if communities of practice are seen as a structure, higher education is a series of somewhat overlapping communities of practice. Previous research demonstrates that it was particularly those scholarly communities that provide students with the feeling of being recognised members of the community that were perceived as being satisfactory (Chiang, 2003), thereby promoting students’ well-being (Pyhältö et al., 2009). In particular, those disciplines that provide doctoral students with a chance to work in group settings make available many forms of support for doctoral students (Chiang, 2003). As previous studies (Chiang, 2003; Pole et al., 1997) have shown, doctoral education in engineering includes teamwork, close relationships with supervision, and doctoral students being regarded as members of a group. In contrast, disciplines in the humanities, such as psychology and social sciences and economics, have traditionally emphasised the individual nature of doctoral education. In these disciplines, doctoral studies, and especially the doctoral thesis, are conducted almost in isolation, with doctoral students being regarded as learners and not as full members of the group (Becher, 2001). Moreover, students usually start their doctoral studies with quite broad assumptions with regard to their future thesis topic, and they are supposed to work with their topic inductively (Neumann, 2007). To overcome the problems identified within doctoral education, such as isolation, communities of practice have been seen to be helpful (Wisker, Robinson, & Shacham, 2007). Lave and Wenger (1991) define communities of practice as “a system of relationships between people, activities and the world; developing over time, and in relation to other tangential and overlapping communities of practice” (p. 98). Lave and Wenger (1991) state that a community of practice can be created with the goal of gaining knowledge related to its members’ field. The members learn from each other through the process of sharing information and experience, and have an opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally (Lave & Wenger, 1991). As used in this study as a definition, a community of practice is therefore an active system including individuals who are united in action and in the meaning that action has for them and for the larger group (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Further, communities of practice, rather than being formal structures, are informal entities. These “exist in the minds of their members, and are glued together by the connections the members have with each other, and their specific shared problems or areas of interest” (Ardichvili, Page, & Wentling, 2003). Communities of practice are not stable or static entities but evolve over time as new members join and others leave (Wenger, 1999). In this sense, communities of practice cannot be formed (Liedtka, 1999; Roberts, 2006). The evolving nature of communities of practice can be described in terms of different stages. These stages are presented by Wisker et al. (2007) and are presented in Table 1. The potential community often starts with informal interaction (Ruuska, 2005), where a loose network of people shares similar issues and needs (Wisker et al., 2007). In the coalescing stage people come together. finding value in learning activities. After time, in the maturing stage, the community relies on a set of shared meanings that are intimately bound up with the practice of the work itself, the purpose that such work serves and for whom, and on the ongoing development of its individual members (Liedtka, 1999). In the active stage, the community is established and goes through cycles of activities. In order to remain engaged, it needs to sustain energy, the accumulation of a history of shared experiences, and the management of boundaries and the opening of peripheries that allow various degrees of engagement (Wenger, 1999). But if the community does not remain useful to its members and people move on, it begins dispersing (Wisker et al., 2007). The concept of a community of practice has been shown to be relevant in the context of doctoral studies (Austin, 2009; Boud & Lee, 2005; Devenish et al., 2009; Tight, 2008; Wisker et al., 2007). Higher education, including doctoral education, can be viewed as overlapping communities of practice (Tight, 2008), or, as McAlpine and Norton (2006) describe it, as nested

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Table 1 The stages in the development of a community of practice (Wisker et al., 2007). Stage

Description

Potential Coalescing Maturing

Initially there might be quite a loose network of people with similar issues and needs. People come together, finding value in learning activities. After time, the community itself takes charge of its practice and grows, developing a learning agenda, joint activities, and shared commitments. It is likely to produce changes and artefacts. The community is established and goes through cycles of activities. To remain buoyant and engaged, it needs to sustain energy, renew interest, recruit new members, and gain influence. The community can come to the end of its usefulness and people move on.

Active Dispersing

contexts, the disciplinary context being one of the communities of practice. Within the disciplinary context, there can be other communities of practice. Boud and Lee (2005) stated that different kinds of study groups can also be identified as communities of practice. Their study focused on the context of peer learning. The findings of earlier research suggest that students’ peer relationships play an important role in the development of doctoral students (Boud & Lee, 2005; Gardner, 2007), having a positive effect on the progress of their studies in both coursework and research (Martinsuo & Turkulainen, 2011) and the completion rates of doctoral degrees (Devenish et al., 2009). Falchikov (2001, p. 1) defines “a peer as someone of the same social standing, while a peer group consists of those of the same status with whom one interacts”. Boud (2001, p. 4) defines peer learning as students learning from and with each other in both formal and informal ways, emphasising the reciprocal nature of peer learning. Examples of peer learning include, among others, student-led workshops, study groups, and team projects. Earlier studies show that communities of practice can support students’ learning experience. Austin (2009) shows that collaborative learning processes in doctoral education in a classroom setting enhance the quality of the community of practice and strengthen the learning experience of the participants. Learning is enhanced when doctoral students make their learning meaningful to themselves and are supported in their learning when they are part of a community of practice in which they are engaged with others (Austin, 2009). The findings of Devenish et al. (2009) highlighted the relevance of the concept of a community of practice when exploring a study group of doctoral students and the students’ experience of doctoral training. Devenish et al. (2009) state that mutual respect and shared meanings were important in their experience of doctoral study, and, further, can contribute to measurable outcomes such as completion rates. However, these researchers suggest that study groups could benefit from the presence of faculty staff, at least in the early stages of the study group. As this literature review has shown, there has been little theorisation on communities of practice related to doctoral education. Therefore, the meaning of communities of practice in doctoral education needs to be acknowledged and better understood. Earlier research on communities of practice in doctoral education has mainly concentrated on the classroom context (Austin, 2009; Wisker et al., 2007). The study of Devenish et al. (2009) highlighted the students’ own active role in developing communities of practice and their meaning in successful student experience. However, greater understanding is still needed, particularly of those settings where doctoral students themselves have actively participated in developing communities of practice, and the factors affecting the development of communities of practice in doctoral education. 3. The research design 3.1. The research setting This study explores doctoral students’ experiences in communities of practice. There is special interest in two kinds of communities: peer-to-peer reading groups, and one pilot group for part-time students led by a senior scientist from the Department. The initiative for this study emerged when in the department where the research took place there was concern about part-time students and their poor progress during their doctoral studies. In order to provide doctoral students with more support, the idea of a pilot group for doctoral students was established, named “students anonymous” by the senior scientist in the department’. There was a call for students to participate in the group and finally five part-time students took up the opportunity. There was an initial meeting at which a senior staff member, a scientist, discussed the agenda, and the students’ wishes for the group’s work, with the students wanting to participate in the group. In the first session the aims of the meetings (a total of six within five months) were jointly set up. The aim was to support each student’s own research plans and to discuss issues related to scientific work in general, including, among other things, research methods, scientific writing, and conferences. At the same time there were two known reading groups formed of doctoral students working in the same department. The student-led communities were both reading groups, with up to eight people (full-time students) gathering together to discuss selected literature. No senior scientist participated in the reading groups’ activities; in this regard they were purely peer groups. From this the idea of exploring all three of these groups and investigating the doctoral students’ experiences within them emerged. The empirical study focuses on two research questions.

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1. What kinds of experiences do doctoral students have of participating in the small groups and in which ways has this participation contributed to their doctoral studies? 2. How did the participating doctoral students experience the development of the study groups? The underlying intent is to identify ways in which university departments, and doctoral students themselves, can support progress during doctoral studies. 3.2. The research context The study was conducted within one department at a technical university in 2009. The department’s research fields and doctoral studies cover the broad areas of strategy, industrial engineering, industrial management, and industrial psychology, and thus doctoral students’ backgrounds represent several different disciplines, e.g. engineering, economics, psychology, and education. Most of the disciplines are similar to those found in the social sciences and humanities. In the department both full-time and part-time students are required to fulfil similar degree requirements. Full-time doctoral students are expected to complete their doctoral degree in four years, whereas for part-time doctoral students the deadline for completion may vary from four to ten years. There are over 200 active doctoral students, as compared to 400 bachelor’s and master’s students enrolled in the department. The active students are here those who have registered themselves so that it is recognised that their status is ‘present’. A majority of doctoral students (almost 70%) undertake their doctoral studies on a part-time basis while employed in another organisation. The full-time students, on the other hand, are those who have a position in the department, mainly as a researcher attached to a project or in a very few cases as a teaching assistant. In the Finnish doctoral education system, doctoral students are required to complete 60 credits of theoretical studies and to write and defend a dissertation thesis in order to complete their degree. In the department in this research context, prospective doctoral candidates apply for the doctoral programme once a year and applications are reviewed, prioritised, and decided upon by the faculty. Doctoral students organise their own funding, either through a research team in the department or with nearby research institutes, or through industrial employment or scholarships. The doctoral programme is organised in a flexible manner, and doctoral students can agree upon their unique studies with a professor on the basis of an individual study plan. The traditional apprenticeship model of doctoral education, with an informal to formal working alliance between a supervisor and a doctoral candidate, has been in use in the department. There are 15 professors in the department with, among other things, responsibility for supervising doctoral students. Additionally, a co-supervisor may be nominated for the student if the thesis topic or methodology requires additional expertise to that which the lead supervisor can provide. 3.3. Data collection A qualitative, interpretive research strategy was selected to gain illustrative empirical evidence of students’ experiences of communities of practice and the formation of these communities. The three study groups were supposed to demonstrate communities of practice in doctoral education, as Boud and Lee (2005) propose. As a community of practice is defined as an active system including individuals who are united in action and in the meaning that action has for them and for the larger collective, these study groups were considered to provide a system for doctoral students to engage themselves in meaningful action: discussing literature together or promoting their own research plan. The groups aimed to provide students with the feeling of belonging to a certain study group (see Lave & Wenger, 1991). The members learn from each other through the process of sharing information and experience while discussing the literature or research plans, and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally (see Lave & Wenger, 1991). Thematic interviews were chosen as the data collection method, because the interviews provide access to areas of reality, for example, a person’s subjective experiences (Peräkylä, 2005). The following criteria guided the selection of the research participants. First, all were doctoral students in the department, and second, each participant had to be involved in some kind of small group activity. The researcher contacted the students (N ¼ 5) participating in the pilot group and inquired about their willingness to participate in the study. All were interested, although in the case of one student it was not possible to organise an interview. In addition to those students, two doctoral students who were known to participate in reading groups were asked to participate and be interviewed. Through snowball sampling (Patton, 2002) three further students were asked to participate in the study. This resulted in a total of 10 interviews, which were held with selected doctoral students in the summer of 2009. Four of the interviewees were part-time students, six were full-time students. Six of the interviewees were men, consistent with the proportion of the entire doctoral student population of the department. The interviewees clearly differed in how long they had been studying; they had started their doctoral studies between 1995 and 2008. Moreover, their ages ranged from 30 to 60 (Table 2). A semi-structured interview protocol was used to reveal the experiences of the doctoral students. The outline inquired about the students’ experiences of the groups in which they were involved. The questions inquired why the students participated in the group, how the group developed during their participation, and what kinds of ways of working existed in the group. Furthermore, the students’ background information was discussed, including the topics of their motivation to

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Table 2 Characteristics of individuals in study groups.

Student status Distribution of the age of students Starting year of doctoral studies

Reading group 1

Reading group 2

Pilot group

Full-time 30–34 2006–2008

Full-time 30–34 2005–2008

Part-time 45–60 1995–2005

study, funding, supervision, and the progress of their studies. The interviews lasted from 25 to 74 min (average 40 min) and took place in the interviewer’s workplace office or a meeting room. The participants in the pilot group were interviewed after they had their fifth meeting, which was also the last meeting they held as a group of “anonymous researchers”.

3.4. Data analysis The interviews were recorded and fully transcribed for the purpose of analysis. The interviews were analysed purely from the interview transcripts, using an inductive approach at the individual level. The material was analysed by using thematic analysis (Boyatzis, 1998), followed by the phases described in the article by Braun and Clarke (2006) on thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data. It serves to organise and describe a data set in detail and further, to interpret various aspects of the research topics (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In this study thematic analysis was a relevant method and one which helped to draw out the experiences, meanings, and reality of the participants (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 81). First, the researcher familiarised herself with the data by reading the transcripts of the interviews and the notes made during the interviews. Second, with the aid of the ATLAS.ti software program, the data were organised into meaningful groups in order to generate initial codes (see (Tuckett, 2005)). Third, after all of the data had been initially collated and coded, the codes were analysed and an approach to how they could be sorted into themes was considered. The analysis yielded a total of 250 codes, which were collated into 30 initial themes. The criteria for the themes grew out of the interview questions. After the themes had been reviewed, some were blended into each other, forming a total of five main themes and twelve sub-themes. The themes were defined and named – starting the group; the development of the group; academic development; scientific community; peer support – and a report of the analysis was written up. In view of the small number of interviewees, in the report the emphasis was on securing the anonymity of the interviewees. The results are supported by data extracts translated from Finnish to English by the researcher. 4. Results 4.1. Descriptions of the groups Three different groups were studied. Descriptions of each group are provided below. 4.1.1. Reading group 1 This was a study group formed by full-time doctoral students. The study group had existed since 2007. Reading Group 1 started from the informal discussions of four full-time doctoral students wanting to study important readings related to their research field. “We wanted to study important readings related to our research field and at that time the department did not offer such a course or seminar to the students. So we had an initial meeting where seven of us decided what to read and also about the ways of working in this group. One of us asked a senior researcher for tips for the readings, and we started with those.” Thomas The number of participants in the group’s meetings varied from 3 to 8 doctoral students, participation being voluntary. The meetings were cancelled if less than three students were able to come to them. Otherwise the meetings were arranged weekly or once every two weeks. “Of course, during these years there have been different people participating in this group. From the seven of us who started this group, there are only two of us left. Some people have also visited once or twice.” Thomas 4.1.2. Reading group 2 This was a study group formed by two full-time doctoral students. There are seven students in the group. The study group had been working for 6 months. The idea is to read certain literature together. “I was chatting with my colleague – we both worked at the Department – and I said that I needed to read certain literature for my thesis and we decided to do that together. But then we talked about this idea with other colleagues,

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full-time doctoral students, and some of them were also interested. So we made a plan and organised the first reading session.” Mark Participation is based on doctoral students’ voluntary choice and the aim is to help everybody to keep in touch with their doctoral studies while they are occupied with project work. “Participating in this group is totally voluntary and if you are busy then it is fine; you don’t need to make any excuses if you are not able to come. There is one person who wants to hang on, I mean getting emails, although he is not able to come to meetings. That’s fine.” Mark 4.1.3. Pilot group This study group was established by a member of the department. The duration of the study group was 5 months. The aim was to provide more support for those students who wanted that kind of support. “I read about this group in a newsletter and I thought that this could provide me with a place to get support, meet other students, maybe network with them, and also force me to do something related to my doctoral studies.” Tim Five part-time doctoral students in different phases of their studies joined the group. In the first session the aims for the meetings (a total of six within five months) were jointly set up. The aim was to promote each student’s own research plans and to discuss issues related to scientific work in general, including, among other things, research methods, scientific writing, and conferences. “We had quite different research interests; the only thing we had in common was that we were all part-time students. Also, everybody was struggling with time management. We agreed to present our studies during the meetings and then discuss some other issues, like publishing and scientific writing.” Tim 4.2. The factors that affected the development of peer communities of practice The results here are grouped into two themes: starting the community of practice, and the development of the community of practice. 4.2.1. Starting the community of practice As in the development stages presented by Wisker et al. (2007), potential communities of practice exist when people come together and share the same needs. The reading groups started from the informal discussions of two or three students about a common interest in reading certain literature. Group participants further discussed the ways of working of the reading group and other possible participants. Additional participants were recruited through the grapevine. These were mainly colleagues from research projects or other students seen in the corridors or the coffee rooms at the department. “Then there were a couple of people who were very interested, X, me, and N. then we met and discussed what we wanted to do.” Nigel In contrast to the reading groups started by doctoral students themselves, the pilot group was launched by the department and led by a senior scientist. It was called together in a newsletter sent to all doctoral students. Five part-time students answered the call and joined the group. In the first session the aims for the meetings (a total of six over a period of five months) were jointly set up. During the first meeting the overall aim for the group was set, which was to support each student’s own research plans and to discuss issues related to scientific work generally, including, among other things, research methods, scientific writing, and conferences. The motivation to participate in this group varied among students. The principal reason for participating was to boost one’s own doctoral studies and achieve contact with the department. 4.2.2. Development of community of practice In order for the potential community to develop into a community of practice a coalescing stage (Wisker et al., 2007) is required, during which the participants need to find value in the community’s learning activities. In the case of the reading groups, there had been discussions among the participants about the literature to be read. The question of whether there was a need to read certain literature or to generally familiarise oneself with the scientific literature in the research field was the main issue for most of the students participating in these reading groups. “It was, like, we sat down and what people wanted to read. after a while the idea came up that we should read those classic readings...” Nigel “In the beginning it was really free, we just agreed how much we would read for the next time...” Sam Moreover, the reading groups offered the doctoral students a place in which to engage with the academic environment. Most of the doctoral students were employed in demanding projects and did not really have time to concentrate on their doctoral studies. Therefore, the value of the learning activities also included a boost for one’s own doctoral studies and staying in touch with one’s own doctoral studies, rather than solely the project activities.

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“Sometimes you just don’t have time, you have to prioritise; for example, they had this very interesting book there but I didn’t have time to participate because of my work.” Mark The number of participants in the meetings of the reading groups varied from 3 to 8 doctoral students, which was considered to be the ideal situation. The meetings were cancelled if less than three students were able to attend. Otherwise the meetings were arranged weekly or fortnightly. “The ideal number for participants (in the reading group) is six or eight; if there are more the discussion is not that focused.” Alex Developing further into a maturing stage, the community of practice itself takes charge of its practice and grows, developing a learning agenda, joint activities, and shared commitments. As with the reading groups, the shared commitment was gained through voluntary participation and by allowing people to participate in the sessions without being prepared. “It was more like. somebody said that he hadn’t read the book and wondered whether to come or not and then everybody was, like, of course you should come – it’s nice that you can also participate as a listener.” Alex The positive and supportive climates of the groups were experienced as being very important. The students felt that a positive atmosphere promoted a willingness to continue to participate in the group. “I doubt that I would have otherwise activated my studies without this group. and that positive atmosphere and spirit. I was delighted to participate.” Kevin The reading groups were at different stages: the first had been ongoing for about two years, two people keeping it going and thereby showing commitment to the group, while some other participants only participated occasionally in group activities. But a characteristic of communities of practices is that new people join in the group activities when others leave (see Wenger, 1999). In the maturing stage there had been many different ways of working in Reading Group 1. Through trial and error the group tried to find the best practices for the group. In order to remain an active group, there were efforts to recruit new members. One effort to renew the interest among possible participants was the decision to set up certain objectives for one session. In this session other researchers were invited to discuss the scientific papers that group students had authored. The pilot group was at the potential stage; there was no great commitment to learning for the whole group, but rather the students were looking more for support for their own studies. The reason behind this was that the students did not perceive the available support from their student peers because it addressed a wide variety of research topics and methodologies. After the meetings, the students did not see a future for the group, especially without the presence of a senior scientist. “Well, I feel I did not receive anything from anybody for my own work; even though everybody was supposed to read each other’s work and give comments, I didn’t get any. and then my topic was from a different discipline.” Eric The findings suggest that the study groups that were examined represented communities of practice in different stages (see Wisker et al., 2007). The pilot group represented a potential community of practice; people came together trying to find a common interest. On the contrary, Reading Group 2 was in the coalescing stage, where students came together and found value in discussing the literature and sharing information and experiences. Reading Group 1 represented a community of practice in an active stage, where the community has gone through cycles of activities and has recruited new members. Shared meaning and finding value in activities in a community of practice are important in order for the community to be able to develop from the potential stage into an active community of practice.

4.3. Students’ experience of the community of practice as support for their studies The doctoral students’ experiences of the communities of practice and their effect on their doctoral studies varied among students. The reports of the students’ experience were divided into three themes: belonging to a scientific community, academic development, and the experience of support from student peers. The students felt that these groups offered a place in which they could belong to a scientific community. Belonging to a community offered a chance to network with student peers and discuss issues related to scientific work. Being a member of a group demonstrated that the researchers’ work is not about being in isolation and trying to solve problems, but it is about being a member of an academic community and participating in discussions and creating new meanings. “This group has been a kind of a community for me.” Nigel “Working with your dissertation thesis is lonely work; it’s nice to have issues that you can discuss with other people” Sam Furthermore, for some students group participation provided additional contact with the department, which was considered to be very important. Working outside the scientific community in isolation is quite demanding and the connection to the department usually lies solely in the supervision relationship.

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“I got this information and I thought that my only contact is my supervisor. I don’t know anyone else, well, because I did my licentiate thesis while working elsewhere... so I thought it would be nice to have other contacts here too.” Eric In general the reading groups were seen to promote knowledge sharing within the department. The personal networks helped students to get to know each others’ research interests and topics better. “Well, you know others as colleagues and you know other people’s research focus and . it is a kind of social network.” Oliver With regard to their academic development, the students described how their skills and competences in reading scientific literature had been developed while participating in the reading groups. The group context provided doctoral students with an opportunity to discuss the readings with student peers and to test their own ideas. Moreover, the discussions provided students with the chance to reflect upon their reading and see if other students had understood the readings in the same way. The reading groups were considered to be useful in developing the skill of reading and making meaning from difficult scientific texts. “Our recent literature has been quite difficult to understand and it’s good to have someone to discuss it with.” Oliver “And then when discussing you get more out of it and you can find new perspectives.” Nigel Through discussing the literature with other students, the reading groups also provided a place for learning the principles of academic discussion. Argumentation skills were seen as having developed during these discussions. “And it’s about that you get used to that kind of discussion.” Sam “You can discuss . you improve your argumentation and you find the way of thinking of what is required...” Nigel The existence of the groups in themselves was also perceived as promoting students’ doctoral studies. Some students perceived group pressure as important in the sense of making progress with their studies. “I got lots of speed from the group. it was the group pressure. It gave me a kick.” Brian “I think it was, like, the pressure that you got from the group.” Tim In Finland, doctoral students can work on their doctoral studies for as long as they want because the current legislation prevents universities and institutions from setting time limits. The groups offered the students an avenue to hang on to the idea of making progress in their studies. In addition, some students perceived participation in the groups as a way to stay in touch with their doctoral studies, even though they did not otherwise have time to concentrate on these studies or their thesis work because of other demands. “I decided to try that way. if it would be more effective for me.” Oliver “It has maintained the sort of academic thinking. where am I going.” Alex “You can concentrate on your project work and forget the rest, but while participating in this kind of reading group, it reminds you of the scientific work and your doctoral studies.” Alex The students participating in the reading groups felt that they had a chance to obtain additional support for their doctoral studies from their student peers. In addition to opportunities for academic development and being a member of the scientific community, the peer group offered a place to create new relationships and friendships. It was also seen as a place to discuss overall progress and problems related to one’s own studies. “Well, these people have become more, you know – we’re more like friends...” Nigel “It’s been a way to get to know people more deeply. you also discuss other, social issues with them.” Thomas The results presented here show that the students participating in the study groups felt that they had a chance to obtain additional support for their doctoral studies. The study groups offered a place in which to belong to a scientific community, enhance their academic development with regard to scientific practices, and experience support from their student peers. 5. Discussion The findings of this study suggest that communities of practice, according to students’ experiences, can have a positive effect on doctoral students’ doctoral experience and therefore support their doctoral studies. Especially in the context of an individual research approach to doctoral education (McAlpine & Norton, 2006), communities of practice in the form of study groups can offer additional support to doctoral students (Chiang, 2003), and create channels for students to achieve greater contact with the scientific community. Contrary to Robert’s (2006) arguments that communities of practice cannot be formed, the results of this study suggest that such communities can be formed; however, there are important factors that must be noted when starting these communities and to make them develop from their potential through to the maturing and active stages. The findings of this

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study suggest that shared meaning and finding value in the activities of a community of practice are important in order for the community to be able to develop from the potential stage into an active community, as Reading Group 1 in this study demonstrates (Wisker et al., 2007). This study demonstrates that the reading groups in this study provide a community of practice as defined by Lave and Wenger (1991), being active systems including doctoral students united in action reading literature and discussing it, and in the meaning that action has for them and for the larger collective. However, as has been seen, the pilot group did not unite doctoral students in producing results that were meaningful for the group as a whole. In that sense, the pilot group never became a community of practice as defined by Lave and Wenger (1991). The results affirm the notion put forward by Devenish et al. (2009), who suggested that during the early stages of the formation of communities of practice, including an academic staff member to provide mentoring and direction could be beneficial, as was seen with Reading Group 1, which got mentoring from a senior researcher, and with the pilot group, which was led by a senior scientist. The results suggest that some students, especially part-time students, might need help from departments and faculties to develop their peer interaction, especially in getting the chance to network with other students. Although in this study the students from the pilot group felt that they did not get peer support, the need for peer interaction still existed. Therefore, departments should provide different kinds of platforms for scientific discussion and networking with other doctoral students and the scientific community. This would make opportunities available for all student groups. But, as seen in this study with the pilot group, the students should have common interests in order to get peer support; the opportunity alone is not enough. The continuity of the study group is also important, so that students can engage with it. The results demonstrate that students who are able to access and contact other student peers occasionally have better chances to obtain peer support. They have opportunities to network with their colleagues and the broader scientific community. Lunches, coffee breaks, and accidental meetings in the corridors and other places in the department all offer students opportunities to make new connections, which might lead to the establishment of new peer groups, and in that way help them utilise peer support during their studies and help them to form communities of practice in the form of study groups. Despite the richness of the data, there are certain limitations to this study. First, the study focused only on a small group of students, therefore limiting the generalisability of the results. Second, only three different communities were investigated; these represented communities in different stages of their life cycles. Third, while this study concentrated on the study groups providing support for doctoral students, it did not fully examine all the forms of support students need and which is available during their doctoral studies. A thorough examination of different forms of support – the various different communities existing in departments and faculties – may be helpful to providers of doctoral education trying to develop support mechanisms for doctoral students. 6. Conclusions This study investigated students’ experiences of communities of practice during their doctoral studies. It contributes to the existing literature on communities of practice by broadening it, specifically to learning communities outside the classroom. The findings showed that communities of practice could have a positive effect on doctoral students’ study experience and therefore support their doctoral studies. It is especially the disciplines that do not provide their doctoral students with a teambased learning environment (McAlpine & Norton, 2006) that would benefit greatly from providing their students with different kinds of communities of practice, for example, as in this study, in the form of study groups. These study groups could provide students with the experience of being a member of a wider scientific community (Pyhältö et al., 2009) and therefore support the student’s study experience. Study groups can also offer a place for peer learning and a source for peer support (Boud & Lee, 2005). Furthermore, the findings of this study provide an insight into the factors affecting the formation of communities of practice within doctoral education. 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