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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1460037
This article is part of the Research Topic Promoting Innovative Learning-oriented Feedback Practice: Engagement, Challenges, and Solutions View all 3 articles

Good Stress or Bad Stress? An Empirical Study on the Impact of Time Pressure on Doctoral Students' Innovative Behavior

Provisionally accepted
Xin Zhang Xin Zhang *Zhixing Zhao Zhixing Zhao
  • Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In recent years, with rapid societal advancement and profound transformations in knowledge production, doctoral students are increasingly facing significant time pressures. These pressures not only stem from an escalation in research tasks but also from urgent demands for innovative outputs. Grounded in Affective Events Theory, this study explores the dual impact of time pressure on the innovative behaviors of doctoral students in China. It specifically examines how challenge and hindrance time pressures affect doctoral students' innovative behavior through the mediating role of research self-efficacy and the moderating role of supervisor support. This research employed SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.3 for statistical analysis, analyzing multi-time point data collected from 452 Chinese doctoral students between May and August 2023. The results reveal that challenge time pressure significantly positively impacts doctoral students' innovative behavior, while hindrance time pressure has a significant negative impact. Furthermore, research self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between both challenge and hindrance time pressures and innovative behavior. In this process, the moderating role of supervisor support is significant, enhancing the positive effects of challenge time pressure and mitigating the negative impacts of hindrance time pressure, highlighting the importance of supervisor support in optimizing the impact of time pressure and promoting doctoral students' innovative behavior. These findings not only enrich the theoretical framework in the field of time pressure research but also provide practical guidance for universities and supervisors on how to support doctoral students in effectively managing time pressure and fostering their innovation.

    Keywords: Challenge Time Pressure, Hindrance Time Pressure, Innovative behavior, Research self-efficacy, Supervisor support

    Received: 05 Jul 2024; Accepted: 18 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhang and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xin Zhang, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.