Conceptual Framework for Mentoring Doctoral Students

In the research and professional literature, there are at least four lines of inquiry around mentoring: perceptions of successful mentoring in general, mentoring of doctoral dissertations in particular, mentoring specific to the online environment, and relative importance of mentoring behaviors. In each case, particular qualities that make for successful mentoring are identified and described but not coalesced into a conceptual model of mentoring. In examining this literature, the authors identified 94 mentor behaviors and characteristics of effective mentors, which were reduced for redundancies to 55. These were clustered into a conceptual model of mentoring with two domains, academic and psychosocial with four attributes in the academic domain (competence, availability, induction, and challenge) and three in the psychosocial domain (personal qualities, communication, and emotional support). The two domains and seven attributes of this model are described and discussed, outlining some of the implications of this model for further research.