Asee peer logo

Scoping Review of Instruments for Measuring Doctoral Students' Mentoring Relationships with Advisors or Mentors

Download Paper |

Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 20

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/47958

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Terkuma Stanley Asongo University of Massachusetts, Lowell

visit author page

I hold a degree in science education from the University of Agriculture Makurdi in Nigeria. Following that, I completed coursework for a master’s program in research, measurement, and evaluation at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I also earned a master’s degree in biomedical science from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Currently, I am pursuing a Ph.D. in research and evaluation at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Before embarking on my doctoral journey, I worked as a science teacher and research assistant for several years. I made the decision to leave my teaching position to pursue a doctoral education, and I am currently serving as a research and teaching assistant for a STEM education course in my department. My research interests primarily lie in the fields of STEM education, quantitative methods, psychometrics, and large-scale data analysis. At present, I am actively engaged in a project focused on mentoring relationships between Ph.D. students and their advisors.

visit author page

biography

Hsien-Yuan Hsu University of Massachusetts, Lowell Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-2155-2093

visit author page

Dr. Hsien-Yuan Hsu is an Assistant Professor in Research and Evaluation in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Hsu received his PhD in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University and has a background of statistics

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Topic: Scoping Review of Instruments for Measuring Doctoral Students' Mentoring Relationships with Advisors or Mentors. Topic: Scoping Review of Instruments for Measuring Doctoral Students' Mentoring Relationships with Advisors or Mentors. Background. Pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) is a profound scholarly journey that requires dedication, rigorous research, and consistent guidance from experienced mentors. Within this rigorous journey, the mentoring relationship emerges as a cornerstone, guiding the student through the intricacies of academic research and professional development (Nieto, 2016). For doctoral students in engineering, effective mentoring equips them with the necessary information and skills, fostering their evolution as both scholars and industry professionals (Sherman et al., 2021). Despite the evident importance of mentoring relationships, to the best of our knowledge, instruments developed to measure doctoral students’ perceptions of these relationships with their advisors or mentors have not been comprehensively reviewed. There remains limited insight into the available instruments, their quality, and most crucially, their validity, especially concerning students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Addressing this gap will empower researchers and educators to select the most suitable instrument to ascertain if their doctoral students perceive a positive relationship with their mentors. This is particularly vital during the early stages of doctoral training to determine if interventions are necessary. For doctoral students and their advisors, being familiar with these instruments offers a valuable tool for self-monitoring, ensuring the cultivation and sustenance of high-quality mentoring relationships and prompting necessary actions when needed.

Purpose Using the methodology of a scoping review, the purpose of this study objective is to provide a comprehensive picture of the current state of instruments developed in scholarly literature to measure doctoral students' perceived mentoring relationships with their advisors or mentors. This involves outlining the theoretical frameworks underlying the instruments, detailing the instruments’ psychometric features, and identifying gaps in the existing literature. Additionally, this research seeks to examine the suitability and potential adaptation of identified instruments, specifically within the context of engineering education. This evaluation will provide insights into whether the identified instruments can effectively measure mentoring relationships and whether any modifications need to be made to their applicability. Scope/Method The scoping review will adhere to the PRISMA extension for conducting scoping reviews, including formulating research questions, locating relevant studies, selecting appropriate sources, organizing and analyzing data, and presenting findings. The review will include studies published in scholarly journals, ASEE conference proceedings, and gray literature. Search keywords will consist of "Ph.D. students," "mentoring relationships," "advisors," and "higher education." We will create search strings using boolean operators (AND, OR) to combine our key concepts. We will use synonyms and variations to capture a comprehensive set of relevant articles. For example: "Ph.D. students" OR "doctoral students" OR "graduate students”, “mentoring relationships" OR "mentoring programs" OR "mentorships”, “advisors" OR "supervisors" OR "faculty advisors" OR "academic mentors", OR "universities" OR "graduate schools". The study will span electronic databases such as Scopus and Eric. Additionally, a manual examination of reference lists from pertinent research will be conducted. The inclusion criteria cover studies that validate instruments for measuring doctoral student perceptions of mentoring relationships, including both scale validation studies and applied research.

Asongo, T. S., & Hsu, H. (2024, June), Scoping Review of Instruments for Measuring Doctoral Students' Mentoring Relationships with Advisors or Mentors Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://strategy.asee.org/47958

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2024 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015