What We Have Learned About Doctoral Student Mentoring At CTU: A Roundtable Discussion (And Hopefully a Provocation)

Abstract

Over the last four years, CTU Doctoral Studies leadership and faculty have crafted and launched a new framework to mentor doctoral students to complete a high-quality practitioner dissertation. A 2020 poster session introduced a framework for doctoral research supervision that departed from the overall instructional framework employed in all CTU programs and embraced development of an innovative instructional framework for doctoral research supervision based on a mentoring-centric ethos and reflexive management strategies. This was followed by additional research and publications in 2020-2023. But has all this work made a difference? As the title of this provocation asks, “What have we learned about doctoral student mentoring as they proceed through the dissertation journey?” What do we need to change and what do we need to keep? What are the biggest bumps in the road our students face and how do we help them? These questions and others were explored in a roundtable discussion/provocation opportunity produced by a group of five CTU doctoral research faculty members.

Keywords

• dissertation mentoring
• doctoral degree persistence and completion
• innovative practitioner research
• reflexivity
• reflexive management
• scholar-practitioner