Enhance Mental Health Outcomes of Doctoral Students through A Dynamic Performance Governance approach.

Doctoral education plays a central role in advancing national research capacity, innovation, and academic excellence. However, an increasing body of evidence reveals that doctoral students globally experience high levels of psychological stress, anxiety, and depression. This study focuses on understanding the systemic causes of these mental health challenges, with particular attention to the Chinese context, where rapid expansion, centralized governance, and strong socio-cultural expectations create a uniquely high-pressure academic environment. Drawing upon the Dynamic Performance Governance (DPG) framework and Dynamic Performance Management (DPM) principles, this thesis develops a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) to model the complex feedback structures influencing doctoral students’ mental health. The DPG model highlights the dynamic interactions among strategic resources (e.g., personal time, social norms, and institutional capacity), performance drivers (e.g., workload, supervision, and social pressure), and mental health outcomes. The Chinese model extends the global structure by incorporating contextual factors such as power distance, family responsibility, social bias against mental health issues, and governmental and institutional capacity for collaborative policy interventions. The findings reveal that doctoral mental health cannot be effectively addressed through isolated measures or individual coping strategies alone. Instead, it requires collaborative governance, involving active coordination among government agencies, higher education institutions, supervisors, and students. The study identifies key balancing loops that shape the dynamic equilibrium between academic performance and mental health, such as those related to work-life balance, supervisory relationships, and social expectations. Based on the system analysis, this thesis recommends a set of collaborative policy interventions aimed at strengthening institutional mental health services, reforming supervisory practices, reducing stigma, and promoting well-being as an integral part of doctoral education governance. The research contributes both theoretically and practically by extending the application of DPG to the field of doctoral education and offering a dynamic, governance-based framework for enhancing mental health sustainability in China’s research system.