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“This is MY PhD project… or is it?” Understanding perceived doctoral project ownership through psychological ownership mapping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2024

Michelle Rose Cedeno*
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Talya Porat
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Weston Baxter
Affiliation:
Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Abstract

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This paper investigates PhD student's perceived feeling of project ownership and how it influences their project management. Drawing on psychological ownership (PO) theory and the PO mapping method, this study identifies distinct project ownership paths among students, revealing how project engagement can be improved. The findings demonstrate the importance of carefully considered and timely student-supervisor expectation discussions to help influence project ownership. To this end, the paper offers several routes of ownership that can influence project ownership among PhD students.

Type
Design Education
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2024.

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