Motivation of STEM doctoral students integrating sustainable development goal 14: Life below water into their research: An international study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted the process of the attainment of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2030. The higher education institutes have endeavoured efforts to the attainment of the SDGs. Current literature has mainly focused on the pedagogical approaches, knowledge, skills and competencies for sustainable development in higher education from the universities’ teaching and learning and management perspective. Although higher degree research students are important stakeholders in higher education, very few studies probed into the higher research degree students’ motivation for incorporating elements of sustainability or SDGs in their research to create a positive change in the ecology, economy and equity. To close this research gap, this study aims at exploring the motivation of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) doctoral students in integrating one of SDG 14 Life below Water in their research. This qualitative study is guided by two research questions: (1) Why do STEM doctoral students integrate SDG 14 Life below Water in their research? (2) What is STEM doctoral students’ experience of integrating SDG 14 Life below Water into their academic pursuits? Adopting the Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the researchers examined the self-efficacy development and academic goal attainments of 20 doctoral students from four countries and regions, namely Australia, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea. The researchers conducted two semi-structured interviews and one focus group activity with each participant to collect in-depth data, thereby identifying two themes and four sub-themes as the personal and contextual factors contributing to the doctoral students’ motivation: personal belief in environmental protection and management, influences of the traditional cultural beliefs about the ocean, attaining social equity and responsiveness to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study can be useful for the university management, supervisors, teaching and research supporting staff to devise strategies and plans to motivate higher research degree students to design and align their research with sustainability in future.