Aim/Purpose: Doctoral student completion rates are notoriously low; although statistics differ depending on which study one consults, a typical completion rate is about 50%. However, studies show mentors can use strategies to improve students’ graduation rates. Our purpose was to learn from effective mentors about the processes they believe are most important in guiding doctoral students to the successful completion of a dissertation and, specifically, the strategies they implement to help students with writing and research methods. The study was confirmatory and exploratory; we posed several hypotheses and we were attentive to emergent themes in the data. Background: This paper addresses the problem by providing practical strategies mentors can use to help students succeed. Methodology: We conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 effective mentors of doctoral students representing highly ranked educational programs at universities across the United States. We conducted conventional and summative content analysis of the qualitative data. Contribution: This research showed that effective mentors provide students with technical support (e.g., scholarly writing and research methods), managerial support (e.g., goal-setting and time management), and emotional support in the form of encouragement. This research goes beyond prior studies by providing specific strategies mentors can apply to improve their practice, particularly regarding support with research methods. Findings: The data showed that encouragement, help with time management, and timely communication were key strategies mentors used to support students. Mentors also provided resources and directed students to use skills learned in previous coursework. Many mentors spoke about the importance of writing a strong research question and allowing the question to guide the choice of methods rather than the other way around. Mentors also said they pushed students to conform to APA style and they used Socratic methods to help students develop the logical organization of the manuscript. Many mentors referred students to methodologists and statisticians for help in those areas. Recommendations for Practitioners: Individual mentors should conduct a self-assessment to learn if they need to improve on any of the technical, managerial, and interpersonal mentoring skills we identified. Moreover, doctoral programs in educational leadership and related areas are advised to conduct careful assessments of their faculty. If they find their faculty are lacking in these mentoring skills, we recommend that they engage in professional development to increase their capacity to provide effective mentoring. Recommendation for Researchers: We recommend that future researchers continue to explore strategies of effective mentors. In particular, researchers should interview mentors who specialize in quantitative methods to learn if they can offer clever and innovative approaches to guide doctoral students. Impact on Society: We conclude this paper with practical strategies to help mentors become more effective. We also make some policy recommendations that we believe can improve the mentoring process for doctoral programs in education. We believe better scholarship at the doctoral level will provide new knowledge that will benefit society at large. Future Research: This research was a springboard for some new research questions as follows. We recommend future researchers to study how often effective mentors meet with students, how quickly they provide feedback on written drafts, and their strategies for delivering tough feedback in a caring way (i.e., feedback that the student’s work did not meet expectations).

Aim/Purpose: Doctoral education faces a serious problem: many students across the country begin the degree, but never graduate. However, effective mentoring can help students attain graduation, signaling their successful transformation to scholar. We believe the power of the mentor to bring about the transformation from student to scholar has to do with the quality of the relationship between mentor and protégé. In particular, we believe this relationship is most effective if it is characterized by the mentor’s tough love. Our purpose in this study was to interview mentors who are considered effective, to learn their thoughts on the importance of trust relationships, and to learn their ways in nurturing these relationships. Background: A mentor is a senior, more experienced person who guides a junior, less experienced person (in this context, a doctoral student). The role of the mentor is to provide guidance, modeling, technical support, personal support, and psychosocial support. In this paper, we sought to put forth a theory to explain the kinds of behaviors and attitudes that would characterize an effective mentor. The theory, called tough love theory, is a merger between parenting theory and trust theory. According to tough love theory, mentors who are benevolent, competent, honest, reliable, and demanding will bring about optimal growth of students. Methodology: We conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 effective mentors of doctoral students representing seven universities across the United States. We conducted conventional and summative content analysis of the qualitative data. Contribution: This study contributes new insights to guide a doctoral mentor on ways to develop a relationship with a protégé that will provide a catalyst for growth. Findings: The findings were consistent with tough love theory. Moreover, an emergent theme of the research was the dynamic nature of the mentor–protégé relationship, whereby the dependent student transforms into an autonomous, independent scholar. Recommendations for Practitioners: We recommend that doctoral mentors become tough love mentors, i.e., mentors who are trustworthy and who possess high standards. Recommendation for Researchers: These findings have implications for the development of mentor relations theory. Specifically, we identified the following characteristics that effective mentors believed to be necessary for protégé success: trustworthiness and high standards. Impact on Society: We believe the characteristics of effective mentors may generalize to doctoral study in other disciplines, such as the sciences and the arts. We also believe the characteristics of effective mentors may generalize to other contexts, such as business. Future Research: We encourage future researchers to test the tough love mentoring theory with quantitative data.

We assessed the effects of age, cognitive level, gender, and family structure on 120 Ss' definitions of family, divorce, and adoption and their acceptance or nonacceptance as instances of family each of 21 human groupings that varied on biological, legal, and spatial relatedness. Affect was the most frequently mentioned criterion in definitions of family, especially among Ss who were older and at higher cognitive levels. Age and cognitive level effects were also found for Ss' definitions of divorce and adoption. Although mean acceptance rates were higher than 75% for several of the sets of human groupings as instances of family, age and cognitive level effects were found on Ss' acceptances of those groupings composed only of biological relatedness or of biological and spatial relatedness, and there were gender effects on Ss' acceptances of groupings composed only of legal ties or of legal and spatial ties. The general absence of family structure effects is discussed.

Aim/Purpose: The primary aim of this study was to reveal the assessment tools and a theory preferred to mentor doctoral students with integrity and trustworthiness. The connection between mentors’ feelings of trustworthiness and protégé success were explored. Background: This study examines the concept presented in 1983, 1985, and 1996 by Kram of mentor relations (MR) theory, which illustrates that graduation rates can improve with effective mentoring. In the United States, doctoral programs have low graduation rates. Scholars and researchers agree that doctoral programs must develop ways and means to improve their graduation rates. This researcher examined an extension of Kram’s mentor relations theory by employing the Mentor Integrity and Trustworthiness (MIT) theory, which depicts that mentors with a strong sense of integrity and trustworthiness provide a safe haven for protégés to succeed. As supported by Daloz, a trustworthy mentor provides a safe haven for protégés to take the intellectual risks required to produce an original contribution to the canon of scholarly knowledge in the form of a doctoral dissertation. Methodology: A quantitative research methodology of data collection ensued including the researcher generated MIT scale and the mentors’ perceptions of protégés’ independence (MPPI) scale, a survey to establish acceptable levels of internal consistencies for items on the two scales, a supported evidence of the content validity of the two scales, the researcher’s analysis of the validity of the MIT theory, and a multi-stage sampling method to recruit a research sample of 50 mentors from four universities in the eastern part of the United States from several education-related doctoral programs. The doctoral programs were diverse in terms of selectivity, type of degree, and mentors’ years of experience. Contribution: This research study contributes to existing literature knowledge by generating the relationship between mentors’ feelings of trustworthiness and protégés’ success as measured by graduation rate and the number of awards won by protégés. The validation of the mentor integrity and trustworthiness (MIT) scale and the mentor perceptions of protégé independence (MPPI) scale, and the supported evidence of content validity and reliability for both scales will deepen and extend the discussion of doctoral mentoring in higher education. Findings: Results indicated that mentors’ feelings of trustworthiness were correlated with the number of dissertation awards won by protégés and with graduation rates. Graduation rates and dissertation awards rates were not measured directly, but were reported by the mentors. In addition, the researcher found that mentors perceived their protégés to be independent scholars, in general, however, minimally in the area of writing the research methods section of their dissertation. Recommendations for Practitioners: The researcher discussed the practical implications for mentors’ professional development in trustworthiness and integrity. The researcher also provided the Right Angle Research Alignment table to help protégés organize and manage the research methods section of their dissertation. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers should continue to explore MIT theory with experimental methods to attempt to improve the internal validity of the theory. Impact on Society: The researcher encourages scholars to test the MIT theory in mentoring relationships that go beyond doctoral studies such as mentoring in business and in the arts. The researcher also encourages scholars to test whether the MIT theory is relevant in other kinds of teaching relationships such as coaching and tutoring. Future Research: Further research questions that arise from this study are as follows: What can mentors do to improve their integrity? What can mentors do to improve their feelings of trustworthiness? How can the MIT and MPPI instruments be refined and improved?

This research tested whether the relationship between school achievement and self-image would show different developmental patterns for girls and boys during early adolescence. The study followed 242 subjects from sixth through eighth grade. Multiple correlations and covariance matrix analyses (LISREL) revealed a stronger positive relationship between school achievement and self-image for boys and girls in sixth grade and especially in seventh grade. Longitudinal analyses of covariance matrices, within gender, showed that the relationship between self-image and achievement decreased for girls and increased for boys as they moved from sixth to seventh grade. This trend reversed itself for girls and remained stable for boys between seventh and eighth grade. These finding are discussed in terms of gender intensification and the effects of classroom and social context changes that occur during early adolescence.