Dig in Your Heels and Fight! How Women Become Researchers in Communication Sciences and Disorders

This book probes the crisis in Communication Disorders (CSD) of the low and declining numbers of doctoral trained faculty. Based on the first-hand narrative accounts from four women researchers in CSD, the book chronicles the development of their research identities. Examination of their stories reveals four different conceptions of identity development: as cultural participation, co-generative mentoring, clinical practice, and research practice.

Across all four accounts these women demonstrate behaviours consistent with a growth mindset. In particular, they embrace challenges and take risks, are persistent in their efforts to overcome challenges, and learn from the feedback they have been given and from observing the success of others. It includes examples of ways academic programs and faculty can promote the development of growth mindsets in their students.

About the Editor

Karen Leigh McComas is Associate Professor in Communication Disorders at Marshall University, West Virginia, USA. Dr. McComas’s teaching areas include research methods, phonological disorders, and fluency disorders. Her research interests include investigations into the development of research identities in women and an ethnographic study of a community of research practice.

Published November 2014

ISBN 978-1-907826-16-0
Price: £24.99, [+postage and packing]