AERA and Spencer Foundation Release Report on COVID-19 Impacts on Doctoral Students and Early Career Scholars

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), a COSSA governing member, and the Spencer Foundation have released a report, Voices from the Field: The Impact of COVID-19 on Early Career Scholars and Doctoral Students, as part of an ongoing effort to assess and address pressing needs facing scholars and doctoral students during the pandemic. The report’s findings are drawn from a series of focus groups conducted in spring 2020 and are organized into seven themes: (1) Research Impact: Disruptions, Delays, and Adaptations; (2) Impact on Teaching: The Need to Be Inventive, Inclusive, and Intentional; (3) Balancing Acts: Negotiating Family, Home, Community, and Professional Life; (4) The Emergence of a Dual Pandemic and Confronting Racism; (5) Employment Trajectories, Uncertainties, and Deferments; (6) Institutional (In)Capacity to Respond and Support; and (7) Emerging and Lost Connections, Communities, and Communication. The full report is available on the AERA website. AERA and the Spencer Foundation plan to release a second report later in 2021 that focuses on findings from a major national survey on the experiences and concerns of early career scholars and doctoral students in education research.