Construction of Scientific Knowledge and Meaning: Perceptions of Portuguese Doctoral Students

This research focuses on how doctoral education is promoting, or can promote, levels of cognitive and psychosocial development that allow students to solve problems in creative, autonomous and cooperative ways. This goal is considered highly relevant for doctoral education, given its focus on the production of scientific knowledge. Following a qualitative design we analyse the preliminary results of a group of interviews carried out with recent PhD holders aimed at eliciting their retrospective thoughts about the PhD experience and the cognitive and psychosocial gains arising from this process.