We explored online dissertation chairs’ perceptions of trust in the mentor—mentee relationship, as trust was identified as a crucial factor in the success of doctoral students. Through the implementation of a multiple-case study, and a qualitative, online questionnaire, and through qualitative data analysis, we discovered 16 chairs’ perceptions of trust and that student vulnerability is an important part of the relationship that chairs consistently work to alleviate. Findings point to the importance for chairs to establish trust through feedback, consistency, and personal connections with students. Second, chairs perceived student vulnerability to include both students’ discussion of their academic skills (or lack thereof) and their willingness to share personal information. Chairs were very resourceful in enacting strategies to alleviate all types of student vulnerability, including recognizing student strengths and pointing to the positives of vulnerability and by offering scholarly resources for students to develop their academic strengths.

We used collaborative autoethnography (CAE) to investigate how we, in our prior work as doctoral mentors at an online institution that assigned students to dissertation chairs, navigated the challenges associated with relationship deterioration with some of our student protégés. We explored how the process of reflection and interrogation might shape our future responses to conflict so that we might improve our strategies for successful and satisfying mentoring outcomes. We applied Rusbult, Zembrodt, and Gunn's (1982) framework, with constructs Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect (EVLN), to examine specific cases from our work as dissertation mentors. Originally created to help explain responses to romantic relationship deterioration, we applied this framework to the dissertation mentor-protégé relationship in order to reflect on ways to improve student progress. Two themes from our analysis of each case emerged from the data. Each theme tied to the student's behavior and the impact that behavior had on our collective perception. Implications are provided for mentoring students in online doctoral programs.

Subsequent recall is improved if students try to recall target material during study (self-testing) versus simply re-reading it. This effect is consistent with the notion of “desirable difficulties.” If the learning experience involves difficulties that induce extra effort, then retention may be improved. Not all difficulties are desirable, however. Difficult-to-read ( disfluent) typefaces yield inconsistent results. A new disfluent font, Sans Forgetica, was developed and alleged to promote deeper processing and improve learning. Although it would be invaluable if changing the font could enhance learning, the few studies on Sans Forgetica have been inconsistent, and focused on short retention intervals (0–5 minutes). We investigated a 1-week interval to increase practical relevance and because some benefits only manifest after a delay. A testing-effect manipulation was also included. Students ( N = 120) learned two passages via different methods (study then re-study vs. study then self-test). Half the students saw the passages in Times New Roman and half in Sans Forgetica. Recall test scores were higher for passages learned via self-testing than restudying, but the effect of font and the interaction were nonsignificant. We suggest that disfluency increases the local (orthographic) processing effort on each word but slowed reading might impair relational processing across words. In contrast, testing and generation effect manipulations often engage relational processing (question: answer; cue: target)—yielding subsequent benefits on cued-recall tests. We elaborate this suggestion to reconcile conflicting results across studies.

The inclusion of peer-delivered services in organizations providing behavioral health care has significantly increased in recent years, and substantial resources are being directed toward implementing recovery-oriented mental health services using peer-provided programs. Previous research found that participants in such programs have improved recovery outcomes. While there are demonstrated positive associations between recovery outcomes and peer-provided services, there is limited research on the effectiveness of specific peer-provided interventions. Veteran X is a peer-led program developed in the Department of Veterans Affairs in which participants serve as a recovery team for a fictitious Veteran who faces numerous social and mental health issues. This study compared the effectiveness of the Veteran X program with treatment as usual on measures of recovery wellbeing, symptoms and functioning, and risk and protective factors for substance use disorders. Methods: Participants were recruited (N = 80) over a period of ten months, and had self-selected into treatment as usual (TAU, N = 37), or treatment as usual plus Veteran X (N = 43). Results: No baseline differences were found on the pretest measures. Both groups improved on all measures after 60 days of participation, however Veteran X participants improved significantly more than TAU participants on the measures of recovery wellbeing and symptoms and functioning. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The results of this study appear to support the positive contribution of the Veteran X program in improving recovery wellbeing and symptoms and functioning among participating veterans. Impact and ImplicationsVeteran X is an innovative approach to peer-led services in which participants serve as a recovery team for a fictitious Veteran with social and mental health concerns. Results of this study suggest that Veteran X is associated with gains in recovery wellbeing, symptoms and functioning, and may be a useful adjunct to traditional mental health treatment.

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