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An International Meeting of American Accounting
Association
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Perceptions of Entering PhD Project Doctoral Students |
Bill N. Schwartz
Indiana University South Bend
W. Darrell Walden
University of Richmond
Abstract: We asked entering African American, Hispanic, and Native American doctoral students in business over five years from 1999 to 2003 about their perceptions regarding their doctoral programs and their decision to pursue a Ph.D. Our questionnaire addressed five key areas identified by prior research: (1) knowledge about how their doctoral program operates, (2) knowledge about business professor career opportunities and requirements, (3) what affected them in choosing a doctoral program, (4) areas of perceived difficulty in doctoral programs, and (5) what the reasons were for them entering a doctoral program. The results from 144 African American, Hispanic, and Native American respondents identified by the Ph.D. Project show perceptions of these entering accounting, finance, information systems, management, and marketing doctoral students. We find that the minority students in our study appear very committed to their doctoral programs with few differences between genders.