Doctoral student-mothers research

Description

This dataset comprises reflective diary entries and the accompanying research protocol collected as part of a qualitative narrative inquiry into the lived experience of Indonesian doctoral student-mothers. The diary corpus was contributed by seven participants, all doctoral students at Indonesian universities who were simultaneously raising children, who wrote reflective entries over a period of six weeks. Entries were prompted by six weekly themes moving progressively from daily routine and the emotional dimension of motherhood through the academic experience, support systems and expectations, direct conflict between competing responsibilities, and the meaning of balance itself, though participants remained free to write beyond these prompts wherever their experience called for it. The research protocol included in this dataset documents the full data collection procedure, including the weekly prompt schedule, submission and confirmation process, and the trustworthiness measures applied during analysis, namely source triangulation, two-stage member checking, and peer debriefing. All diary excerpts included in this dataset have been pseudonymized to protect participant confidentiality; identifying details such as names, institutional affiliations, and other personally identifying information have been removed or altered, and participants are referred to only by anonymized codes (P1–P7). The dataset is shared to support transparency and reproducibility for the qualitative analysis reported in the associated publication, and to allow interested researchers to examine the primary data underlying its findings on dialectical tensions in doctoral student-motherhood. Given the personal and sometimes sensitive nature of the material, portions of the raw diary text may be subject to access restrictions consistent with the ethical approval and informed consent obtained from participants; researchers interested in the full, unredacted corpus are encouraged to contact the corresponding author directly.

Steps to reproduce

1. Recruit participants who are doctoral students simultaneously raising children, ensuring variation in marital status, spousal presence, and caregiving arrangements to capture a range of intersectional positions. 2. Obtain informed consent, explaining that participation involves writing a reflective diary over a six-week period and that entries may later be used for academic publication in pseudonymized form. 3. Send participants a weekly email each Monday containing a theme and guiding prompts. Themes should move progressively across the six weeks: (1) daily routine, (2) the emotional dimension of motherhood, (3) the academic experience, (4) support systems and expectations, (5) direct conflict between competing responsibilities, and (6) the meaning of balance. 4. Ask participants to write two to three diary entries per week in Word format, dated, with the option to supplement writing with photographs, sketches, voice recordings, or short videos. Frequency should be treated as a minimum guide rather than a binding obligation. 5. Have participants submit their diary entries by 11:59 p.m. each Sunday. Confirm receipt and offer brief encouragement for the coming week. 6. After the six-week period, return each participant's full diary to them for factual verification, allowing them to correct misunderstandings or reclassify information from on-the-record to off-the-record status. 7. Analyze the diary data thematically, combined with contrapuntal analysis to identify competing discourses within each narrative. 8. Share a summary of preliminary analytic interpretations with participants for a second round of member checking, to confirm that interpretations remain recognizable as accurate reflections of their experience. 9. Conduct peer debriefing with academic supervisors or co-researchers throughout analysis to identify potential analytic gaps.

Institutions

• University of Indonesia

  West Java, Depok

Categories

Licence