Mentoring through reflective journal writing: a qualitative study by a mentor/professor and two international graduate students

Abstract

Universities and colleges seek to help all students succeed. However, foreign graduate students experience a different set of challenges than domestic students. Culture shock and writing in a foreign language are just a few examples that threaten their overall success. This qualitative participatory action research study describes and explains how two graduate students and a faculty mentor engaged in mentoring and structured reflective writing activities designed to address these challenges. The research data include a focus group interview, analysis of selected journal pages and conference presentations. Results indicate that reflective journal writing and mentoring help foreign graduate students de-stress, learn the tacit knowledge of the academy and participate in scholarly activities like conference presentations and publishing.

Energizing Students’ Academic Writing Competence through Research Group Activity (A Supervisor Intervention)

“…The data obtained shows the key to the success of students in having a manuscript published in reputable international journals lies in the ability of mentors in guiding students to research and write manuscripts. The mentoring activities undertaken by supervisors are considered as effective strategies of international publication (Stevens et al, 2010). In the mentoring process, there is the acquisition of knowledge (The Rackham School of Graduate Studies, 2006) because it contains numerous procedures that include support, guidance, and consultation from academics who have sufficient experience to academics with limited experience (Kram cited in Stevens et al, 2010).…”

Academic Stressors as Predictors of Achievement Goal Orientations of American and ESL International Students

“…Language difficulty is considered to be the primary challenge for a majority of ESL international students (Mori, 2000;Leong, 2015), which can prevent social interactions with American peers (Hayes & Lin, 1994). Students from non-English speaking countries, especially from Asian countries, usually struggle with language proficiency in English and this could influence their academic pursuits as they may not effectively embark on their academic programs (Stevens, Emil, & Yamashita, 2010;Zua, 2016). Additionally, language barriers might also lead to feelings of exclusion by other students during classroom discussions (Lee & Rice, 2007).…”

Operation labeling algorithm within Xamtanga sentences

“…The data obtained shows the key to the success of students in having a manuscript published in reputable international journals lies in the ability of mentors in guiding students to research and write manuscripts. The mentoring activities undertaken by supervisors are considered as practical strategies of international publication (Stevens et al, 2010). In the mentoring process, there is the acquisition of knowledge (The Rackham School of Graduate Studies, 2006) because it contains numerous procedures that include support, guidance, and consultation from academics who have sufficient experience to academics with limited experience (Kram cited in Stevens et al, 2010).…”

“…In this research, the strategies done by the supervisor to assist the student is the mentoring activity. Mentoring is an essential key to improving the productivity of manuscript publications in international journals (Stevens et al, 2010). Supervisors perform several steps in mentoring in the form of guidance, consultation, and support to students who are novice writers (Kram cited in Stevens et al, 2010).…”

“…Mentoring is an essential key to improving the productivity of manuscript publications in international journals (Stevens et al, 2010). Supervisors perform several steps in mentoring in the form of guidance, consultation, and support to students who are novice writers (Kram cited in Stevens et al, 2010). Especially in mentoring, the supervisor not only performed as a mentor, but also as an advisor, supporter, tutor, master, sponsor, and role model (Stevens et al, 2010).…”