The Ethics in Doctoral Advising Relationships

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Improving the Doctoral Experience

Abstract

Doctoral advisors provide powerful models for how their advisees should conduct themselves as teachers, advisors, and researchers. Ethical decision-making permeates all aspects of the doctoral program, yet little has been written about the ethics in the advisor-advisee relationship. Using a grounded theory framework, the authors sought to understand the ethical situations that arise in doctoral advising relationships. The research draws from interviews with participants across four university campuses and includes doctoral students, faculty advisors, and administrators of doctoral programs. This research shows that conversations about ethics are rare in doctoral programs. Doctoral students have more awareness of ethical situations than faculty or administrators. Emerging themes are ethics as an elephant, ethics as an iceberg, and ethics as reins.

Authors

• Boni Hamilton, University of Colorado Denver

• Jenni L. Harding-DeKam, University of Northern Colorado

• Stacy Mae Loyd, University of Northern Colorado