Status evaluation of doctoral students at D-BAUG
ASB Board 2022/2023
November 2023
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Sample composition
- 3 Time management
- 3.1 Effective working hours
- 3.2 Expected duration of doctoral studies at the beginning of the doctorate
- 3.3 Expected duration of doctoral studies now
- 3.4 Difference between expected and current doctoral studies duration
- 3.5 Distribution of total workload
- 3.6 Distribution of total workload by salary rate
- 4 General satisfaction: doctorate
- 5 Supervision from professor
- 6 Supervision by day-to-day supervisor (hereafter advisor)
- 7 Teaching
- 8 Services at the Department
- 9 Varia
- 10 Summary
1 Introduction
Objective: The ASB Board is dedicated to understanding the backgrounds, interests, and concerns of the scientific staff at the department of civil, environmental, and geomatic engineering (D-BAUG) at ETH Zurich. This survey will be conducted regularly (topics will be rotated).
Topics: Socioeconomic characteristics, well-being and satisfaction, general experience as a doctoral student, including teaching responsibilities and experiences with their supervisor(s).
Data collection period: July 17th - August 23rd, 2023
1.1 Response rate
| Category | Headcount in July 2023 | Completed answers received for the survey | Response rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctoral students | 244 | 111 | 45.5% |
Notes: The total number of doctoral students is higher. Only the doctoral students who were part of a “paid by ETH” list provided by D-BAUG were invited to participate in this survey. Wherever present, a dashed, vertical red line represents the median value. All questions included the option “Prefer not to say”. The option was seldom chosen and is not included in the following graphs.
2 Sample composition
First, the background of the survey’s participants are described by
the following factors: age, gender, citizenship, and their salary levels
as a doctoral student. ## Age
2.1 Gender
2.2 Citizenship
2.3 Salary level
3 Time management
3.1 Effective working hours
- 18% of doctoral students report working more than 50 hours per week!
3.2 Expected duration of doctoral studies at the beginning of the doctorate
3.3 Expected duration of doctoral studies now
3.4 Difference between expected and current doctoral studies duration
- A doctorate at D-BAUG takes at least one year longer than expected for about 43% of students.
3.5 Distribution of total workload
3.6 Distribution of total workload by salary rate
Notes: In the following, if the horizontal axis is specified by numbers ranging from 1 to 7, they mean on a sclae from 1 = “Strongly disagree”, 4 = “Somewher in-between/Undecided”, to 7 = “Strongly agree”.
4 General satisfaction: doctorate
4.1 Satisfaction with decision to pursue doctorate
4.2 Satisfaction with employment situation
4.3 Satisfaction with work-life balance
- 29% of doctoral students report being strongly to slightly dissatisfied with their work-life balance.
4.4 Coping with pressure
- About 21% of the surveyed doctoral students struggle to cope with the pressure from their doctorate.
4.5 Clarity of “other” tasks
5 Supervision from professor
5.1 Support frequency from professor
5.2 Meeting frequency with professor
5.3 Adequacy of supervision
5.4 Expectation of supervision
- About 32% of doctoral students had expected more direct supervision by their supervising professor.
5.5 Usefulness of feedback
- About 74% of doctoral students report that the feedback by their professor is useful.
5.6 Atmosphere in research group
6 Supervision by day-to-day supervisor (hereafter advisor)
6.1 Advisor position
- 32% of doctoral students consider their professor to be their day-to-day supervisor.
6.2 Position of advisor (if not supervising professor)
| Position | Count |
|---|---|
| Adjunct professor (Titularprofessor/in) | 2 |
| Assistant professor, non-tenure track | 2 |
| Assistant professor, tenure track | 2 |
| Associate professor | 1 |
| Full professor | 6 |
| Post-doctoral researcher | 19 |
| Privatdozent/in | 1 |
| Senior scientist | 37 |
| Other | 6 |
6.3 Support frequency possibility of advisor
6.4 Meeting frequency with advisor
6.5 Adequacy of supervision by advisor
6.6 Usefulness of feedback
- About 92% of the doctoral students with a different day-to-day supervisor than their professor consider the feedback from the day-to-day supervisor as useful.
6.7 Subjective supervision level (advisor vs. supervisor)
7 Teaching
7.1 Reasons for teaching
| Reason for Teaching/TA | N | % |
|---|---|---|
| I do not teach/TA any courses | 29 | 26.1 |
| I want to because I like teaching | 48 | 43.2 |
| I want to because it is relevant for my CV/future career options | 21 | 18.9 |
| I want to because teaching increases my salary | 8 | 7.2 |
| My professor requires me to do so | 54 | 48.6 |
| Other (please specify): | 5 | 4.5 |
7.2 Subjective teaching level
7.3 Teaching level relative to other team members
8 Services at the Department
8.1 Doctorate rules and regulations at D-BAUG
8.2 Experience with our educational developer
9 Varia
9.1 “Not going well”
- Poor supervision (no concrete feedback, pressure to publish even when the work is unfinished, lack of interest from the supervisors, little guidance, communication)
- Long leave of absences by some professors leaves doctoral students without a contact person for supervision
- Pressure, little free time, poor work-life balance, health problems
- Salary
- Bureaucracy, administrative hurdles
9.2 “Going well”
- Good supervision (support, communication)
- Research freedom and topic
- Opportunity to attend summer/winter schools, conferences
- Development of soft skills
- Atmosphere in group and institute
- Facilities and infrastructure
10 Summary
The survey conducted by ASB (Association of the scientific staff at D-BAUG) during the summer of 2023 targeted towards the doctoral students at D-BAUG had a response rate of about 46%. The following are some key findings of the survey:
- 18% of doctoral students report working more than 50 hours per week.
- 43% of doctoral students expect their doctorate to take at least one year longer than what they initially expected.
- 86% of doctoral students are satisfied with their decision to pursue a doctorate.
- 29% and 21% of doctoral students report being strongly to slightly dissatisfied with their work-life balance and struggle to cope with pressure, respectively.
- 32% of doctoral students had expected more direct supervision by their supervising professor. Based on the individual comments on what has been going well and what not, the following can be summarized:
- Some doctoral students have great experiences in terms of their doctorate, both regarding their supervision, opportunities such as attending conference or ETH’s infrastructure.
- However, also some doctoral students report difficult situations, where the supervision is poor, their professors have taken long leave of absences leaving them without any guidance and supervision or that they struggle with maintaining a health work-life balance.