International Doctoral Students’ Career Decision-Making During COVID-19: A Narrative Review Informed by Prospect Theory
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut borders, disrupted research, and froze hiring, international doctoral students faced some of their life’s most consequential career decisions. This paper addresses the underexplored issue of how these students made career decisions during this period of deep uncertainty and disrupted academic and professional trajectories.
While prior studies have documented psychological and academic challenges faced by doctoral students during the pandemic, little attention has been given to the decision-making processes of international doctoral students regarding their post-PhD careers.
A narrative literature review was conducted, synthesizing 16 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025. The review applied prospect theory to interpret students’ responses to career disruptions. The included studies span diverse geographic regions and employ qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods.
The study demonstrates the value of prospect theory in analyzing doctoral career decisions under crisis. It challenges linear models of career development and offers a more contextualized understanding of agency in career decision-making.
Mapped against the four constructs of prospect theory, the review finds that:
• Reference points: students recalibrated their reference points in response to disrupted expectations.
• Loss aversion: decisions often prioritized avoiding setbacks, such as visa ex-piration or loss of academic progress, over pursuing new opportunities.
• Risk seeking under uncertainty: some students pursued unconventional or high-risk career paths to avert certain losses.
• Diminishing sensitivity: emotional responses diminished over time as stu-dents adapted to prolonged uncertainty.
• The pandemic redefined success as resilience, stability, and adaptation.
Practically, this study calls for universities and doctoral programs to adopt flexible policies, offer transparent communication regarding immigration and funding, and expand definitions of success beyond traditional academic benchmarks to support international students during crises.
Future studies should longitudinally track pandemic-era doctoral graduates, examine comparative institutional responses, and investigate how intersecting identities shape adaptability during disruptions.
By uncovering how international doctoral students navigated high-stakes decisions during the pandemic, this paper informs the development of more equitable, supportive, and crisis-resilient systems in global higher education.
Research should explore long-term career impacts of COVID-19 on international PhD graduates, institutional preparedness for future crises, and the intersectional dimensions of vulnerability and resilience in doctoral education.
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