Reimagining Mentorship for Full-Time PhD Students: A Reflection for Academic and Professional Development for PhD Programs

The PhD journey is fraught with hidden curricula, and current mentorship programs are not adequately addressing them. These unwritten norms may range from simple acts such as developing a writing attitude, intentionally cultivating social networks, and simply knowing the procedures and milestones of the PhD process (Ardeljan, 2021). A significant proportion of PhD students go through different phases of experience during their studies. In some cases, this may include, but is not limited to, mental health challenges, including depression, and the general lack of advising support. PhD students who lack support, relationships with faculty mentors, and peers are likely to withdraw from their programs, experience longer degree completion time, and encounter negative psychological problems (Nehls et al., 2016; Pancheri et al., 2013). Improved mentorship programs could potentially affect the expectations and outcomes for PhD student progress (Hall & Liva, 2022). 

There are both formal and informal mentoring programs to address the challenges PhD students encounter in their studies. Nonetheless, these approaches –used separately– may not be addressing the challenges faced by PhD students. Existing mentorship frameworks do not meet the mentorship needs of contemporary PhD students.

Mentorship in PhD Programs

PhD students continually face isolation, critical feedback, and external pressures. Formal mentorship models involve groups of students being mentored by a senior faculty member, usually embedded within the degree program (Lewinski et al., 2017). This may include advisor-advisee relationships and dissertation chair-student relationships. This type of formal mentorship may not achieve its intended objective for students who achieve greater success through peer-led mentorship. This has led to informal mentorship– or peer-led mentorship programs– in which PhD candidates serve as mentors for early PhD students. This may include collegial support in navigating the early stages of their study, as well as dissertation advice. The limitation of the informal model, taken separately, is that it is mostly homogeneous in terms of student composition. Also, peers may lack the capacity to provide the best guidance for each student’s needs, making it unsustainable for PhD student thriving.

One common thread in formal and informal mentorship is the homogeneity of the groups involved (Lewinski et al., 2017). Yet, PhD students are not monolithic in terms of their years in the program, learning needs, and their unique identities. Since PhD students are at different phases of their programs and face unique challenges, we propose a model we co-developed, the Siloing Formal-Informal Mentorship Model (SFIMM), as a structural approach to support and create a learning community that recognizes and responds to the lifecycle of PhD students. In the next section, we will review the phases of the PhD journey, followed by an in-depth description of the SFIMM approach.

Lifecycle and Phases of PhD Journey

The phase I of a PhD student’s lifecycle coincides with the start of their program. In the first phase of their study, PhD students are likely to be in a comfortable phase. This may include maintaining their original research ideas and avoiding engagement with in-depth research discussions. Phase II takes place within the first and second years of the PhD journey. In this phase, most PhD students experience fear as they begin to engage in the full range of their studies. In some contexts, such as the U.S., students develop their ideas through coursework as they begin writing academic papers. It is in this phase that students experience impostor syndrome, doubting their ideas and fearing criticism from advisors and peers. 

In phase III, PhD students typically transition into their third year, having completed or nearing completion of their coursework, which puts them in a learning phase. During this phase, the student may attend conferences, submit papers to journals, learn new tools and skills to support their PhD journey, and build research collaborations. The final phase, phase IV,  is characterized by ongoing growth. This stage is almost equivalent to the fourth year onwards in PhD study. Here, a PhD student’s growth is grounded in making academic and industry impact through research that is connected to the real world. A consequence of this is the development of the capacity to write grants, conduct independent scholarship, and begin publishing quality research. Overall, this phase supports the academic and professional development of PhD students but may not apply to all students or contexts.

A Siloing Formal-Informal Mentorship Model for PhD Students’ Academic and Professional Development

The SFIMM will explore mapping PhD students into cross-level mentorship silos. These silos will include a faculty mentor, a peer leader, and students representing all four phases of the PhD lifecycle. The approach of heterogeneity allows students to learn from colleagues at different stages of their studies, providing insight and advice based on their milestones (Lewinski et al., 2017). To sustain the mentorship practice and experience, we recommend designated mentoring times based on student-led programming. These sessions may begin with mindfulness exercises and check-ins to address issues such as low confidence, impostor syndrome, and isolation. 

Additionally, conversations at this session may be very informal among peers while also engaging in discussion on program expectations, dissertation progress, scholarly writing, resource sharing and support, conferences, and professional development opportunities. The faculty in these cross-level mentorship silos guide without imposing evaluation expectations. As many PhD students were shown to misunderstand the impact of their own mentorship experiences (Feldon et al., 2015), the SFIMM is designed to make mentorship transparent. The peer leaders in this session also build community cohesion, ensuring that all students’ academic and professional needs are supported. Such practices offer space to build confidence and ensure confidentiality. 

The SFIMM integrates formal and informal mentorship while recognizing each student’s program phase through both curricular and cocurricular programs. The curation of mentorship programs provides a more sustainable mentoring model for students. The SFIMM utilizes a blended approach to mentoring and socialization of PhD students by integrating the strengths of formal, faculty-model mentorship with the relational advantages of peer-led mentorship. The approach relies on the idea that PhD students go through comfort (phase I), fear (phase II), learning (phase III) and growth (phase IV) phases. Developing and implementing SFIMM will be a strong driver of PhD student success.

The overarching goal of the SFIMM is to create a space, which honors diverse student representation in each silo while providing both formal and informal support for PhD students across the phases. Therefore, an integrated mentorship ecosystem that includes the phases of PhD students’ journeys could potentially yield outcomes such as reduced isolation, increased persistence and wellbeing, improved clarity about PhD milestones, and stronger advisor-advisee relationships.

Conclusion

The article focused on reimagining the mentorship practices and programmatic directions for full-time PhD students. The success of PhD students depends on feeling supported throughout their studies. There is substantial evidence on the role of mentorship programs in supporting PhD students and the forms they should take. In many cases, formal and informal mentorship programs have been used to support PhD students’ development. Nonetheless, PhD students still grapple with challenges, especially as they transition through the PhD journey. Therefore, there is a need to build a silo community that integrates both formal and informal mentorship programs simultaneously. Based on this, we propose the use of SFIMM in PhD programs to honor heterogeneity as well as diversity in students’ experiences. By blending support from faculty, peers, and peer leaders who represent each stage of the PhD students’ journey, SFIMM could address attrition challenges in PhD programs and foster a learning community that promotes persistence and student success.

 

References

Ardeljan, J. M. (October, 2021). Navigating graduate school: It’s all about the process. Inside Higher Education. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/10/18/how-navigate-unwritten-rules-graduate-school-opinion

Feldon, D. F., Maher, M. A., Hurst, M., & Timmerman, B. (2015). Faculty mentors’, graduate students’, and performance-based assessments of students’ research skill development. American Educational Research Journal, 52(2), 334–370. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831214549449

Hall, W., & Liva, S. (2022). Falling through the cracks: Graduate students’ experiences of mentoring absence. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2022.1.10957

Lewinski, A. A., Mann, T., Flores, D., Vance, A., Bettger, J. P., & Hirschey, R. (2017). Partnership for development: A peer mentorship model for PhD students. Journal of Professional Nursing, 33(5), 363–369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2017.03.004

Nehls, N., Barber, G., & Rice, E. (2016). Pathways to the PhD in nursing: An analysis of similarities and differences. Journal of Professional Nursing, 32(3), 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2015.04.006