The role of scholarly identity and basic needs support during doctoral studies on career aspirations of early career scientists

The lack of support in academia, especially during doctoral studies, is a widely debated issue. Such experiences can be expected to be highly relevant to young researchers for their developing identity as scholars and their career aspirations. According to self-determination theory, support for the three basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and social relatedness in the doctoral context should foster the development of scholarly identity, which in turn is linked to career aspirations. In this longitudinal study, we investigated how doctoral graduates (N = 180) perceived such support during their doctoral studies and how these perceptions were related to their scholarly identity and career aspirations one year after finishing their doctorate. Our findings showed that only social relatedness to the scientific community during the doctorate was positively related to graduates' aspiration to stay in academia later on. Scholarly identity mediates this effect. We found no effects of competence and autonomy support. We discuss theoretical implications and the need for further research on the relations between the three basic needs. We discuss the applicability of these findings beyond the national context.