| In many disciplines, the doctorate is the highest academic degree. Doctoral education is a complex process that includes transformation through knowledge acquisition and professional identity development (Gardner, 2009). Typically, the scope of the doctoral experience includes years of coursework, successfully passing a comprehensive or qualifying examination, independently conducting research, and defending the dissertation.;The challenges of student academic transformation, persistence, and doctoral program completion can have varying effects on doctoral students' health and health behaviors throughout the student experience. Health researchers suggest that health and health behaviors play an integral role in an undergraduate's student's ability to be academically persistent and ultimately graduate (El Ansari & Stock, 2010).;To date, there has been minimal research specifically related to doctoral students' perceptions of the effects of their doctoral student experience and their health and health behaviors. Using phenomenology, this qualitative study focused on fourteen second-year physical therapy doctoral students' perceptions of the effects of their education experience on their health and health behaviors. A modified health and wellness ecological health conceptual framework model using specific factors related to the doctoral education experience guided this research study through data collection and analysis specific to the study's purpose.;Study findings suggest that doctoral student perceptions are that education experiences have a direct effect on personal health and health behaviors, including challenges such as varying levels of stress, insufficient time to accomplish the demands of the doctoral program and personal lives, and financial concerns. In terms of health responses to these three main challenges, exercise, nutrition and sleep were the three main behaviors most cited by study participants.;Learning more about doctoral students' challenges and how students respond to those challenges can provide academic programs information to support student success and persistence. Student health and wellbeing play a strategic role in a doctoral education experience and when students have feelings of both physical and emotional control, they may be more likely to demonstrate positive academic performance and persistence in their program. |
