Mentoring in Two Voices: An Autoethnographic Fugue

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Focus on Methods

Abstract

Mentoring, a crucial component of a doctoral program no matter the discipline studied, traditionally comes from within that discipline. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the methodological journey that we undertook to tell the story of our unusual mentoring relationship- that of a physical therapist and an educational psychologist. Autoethnography was chosen as the framework in which the mentoring relationship was revealed. We use a musical fugue as a metaphor to describe the richness and complexity of our work. Fourteen months of e-mails and other data representing conversations between us were sorted and coded using a systematic approach. Several themes emerged from the data, including frustration, validation/encouragement, care giving/caretaking, power, and collaboration.

Authors

• Cheryll M. Adams, Ball State University

• Emily Joan Slaven, University of Indianapolis