Doctoral Student Mentoring and the Role of Cognitive Apprenticeship

• In Event: Mentoring and Context

Abstract

This study explores mentoring practices and concomitant student research skill development in five science or engineering faculty mentor-doctoral student pairs over an academic year. We use a cognitive apprenticeship framework, widely assumed to be the mentoring mechanism through which doctoral student skill development occurs, to interpret faculty and student narratives of student skill development and compare these narratives against empirically-based measurements of student research skill development. We found abundant evidence for the “cognitive” component of cognitive apprenticeship, but questionable evidence for the mentoring or “apprenticeship” component. We suggest that cognitive apprenticeship can be particularly potent in the development of student research skills, but not without deliberate intent and intention by both faculty mentor and student.

Authors

• Michelle A. Maher, University of South Carolina

• Joanna Angeline Gilmore, The University of Texas - Austin

• David F. Feldon, Utah State University

• Telesia E. Davis, University of South Carolina