High Impact, Low Mood: An Analysis of Graduate Student Attitudes and Perceptions Through PHD Memes

• Published in: International journal of doctoral studies 2023-01, Vol.18, p.1-23
• Main Author: Maples, Gordon W
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; College students; Graduate students; Mental health; Public opinion; Social media; Social networks; Stress; Student attitudes
• ISSN: 1556-8881; 1556-8873
• DOI: 10.28945/5075

Aim/Purpose Graduate students face immense pressures and challenges as part of the graduate school experience, with few avenues to express their frustrations. While the crisis of graduate student mental health is well-documented quantitatively, and the stresses of graduate school are explored on the institutional level, there are few qualitative studies of these issues. Background This study aims to explore graduate student attitudes and perceptions about graduate school and academia through the analysis of niche, graduate studentfocused memes. Theories of emotional selection, emotional contagion, and collective coping predict that the creation and sharing of niche-interest memes reflect dominant attitudes and perceptions within niche communities under stress. Methodology This study utilizes content analysis to thematically categorize a sample of 208 meme images created by and posted to the social media account High-Impact PhD Memes. The data is additionally categorized to measure resonance - how well each image was received by the page audience - and visualized using bar codes. Contribution This study offers a new method for examining the attitudes and perceptions of niche groups online by proposing the measurement of emotional resonance, presents a novel visualization for the presentation of thematic coding and offers a new means to analyze internet memes for both content and emotional resonance. Findings Findings indicate that the most frequently occurring themes in niche memes are not necessarily the ones that most highly emotionally resonate with the niche community of interest. The population of current and recent graduate students following High-Impact PhD Memes most highly resonated with the issues of literature access, financial/employment stresses, and overwork. Impact on Society The findings of this study should encourage both researchers and higher education administrators to consider memes as reflections of the emotional states and perceptions of graduate students both collectively and individually, given how they comment on current, pressing issues. Based on the findings here, memes could feasibly be used as elicitation materials in well-being assessments or qualitative research studies to better understand and prompt reflections on the perspectives of graduate students, and ultimately improve programming and supports for the population. Future Research Future research could apply similar methods to study other niche groups under pressure tha