Tourism and hospitality research student experiences: how to achieve quality, inclusivity and belongingness

Abstract

What constitutes a quality research student learning experience? Using an interpretive social sciences approach, and the tradition of autoethnography and the interpretive processes of reflexivity and constructivist grounded theory, the lived research student experiences of three students, who have each completed one research program and are currently enrolled in PhD programs reflected on their individual and collective experiences with regard to this question. Based on these three students’ autoethnographies, quality research student experiences provide personal, social, supervisor, research profession, learning communities, and other life connectivities generated through conducive conditions for learning, communities of practice and inclusive research cultures wherein research students experience and do research in order to become researchers and to belong to research communities.