Mapping the Departmental Doctoral Advising Landscape: A Case Study of Engineering Doctoral Advising from Faculty and Student Perspectives

Brian M. Chan; Mark Vincent Huerta

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Graduate Studies Division (GSD) Technical Session 3: Advising in Graduate Education
Tagged Division: Graduate Studies Division (GSD)
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/47759

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Paper Authors

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Brian M. Chan Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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Brian Chan is a PhD student in the Department of Engineering Education and Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. His primary research interests in engineering education encompass graduate education, student well-being, and strategies for continuous improvement.

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biography

Mark Vincent Huerta Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University orcid.org/0000-0003-2962-0724

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Mark Huerta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. He earned his PhD in Engineering Education Systems & Design at Arizona State University and has a BS/MS in Biomedical Engineering. His research focuses on exploring and understanding engineering learning environments. He harnesses these insights to propose solutions that encourage the creation of safe and inclusive educational environments conducive to learning, professional development, and innovation. His research interests include graduate student mentorship, faculty development, mental health and well-being, teamwork and group dynamics, and the design of project-based learning classes.

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Abstract

This practice-based case study explores—through the lens of the Community of Practice (CoP) framework—the current practices and attitudes surrounding doctoral student advising in an engineering department, contributing to the broader efforts to institute systemic changes in graduate engineering education. Graduate advising, viewed as a network of social interactions, involves faculty exchanging information and supporting each other and their students. Our study utilizes in analysis specifically the process-based definitions of CoP as the process through which a community generates, applies, and reproduces knowledge and in which an ongoing process of legitimate peripheral participation takes place. While there is not a dearth of advising relationship-focused studies, department-level advising practices are relatively underexplored. This study aims to bridge this gap by considering graduate program administrator and doctoral student perspectives on departmental practices that support advising. Our research questions investigate advising support structures, mentoring resources, feedback mechanisms, and conflict resolution processes. Our results reveal differences in emphasis in faculty and student perspectives. Faculty emphasized a decentralized advising process, relying on graduate school guidelines and sequential communication. The absence of formal requirements allows the adoption of diverse mentoring approaches and mentoring tools at the discretion of faculty members. Further, a significant challenge emerges from the lack of actionable evaluation of faculty advising competencies. In contrast, doctoral students highlighted structured onboarding, a flexible culture, reasonably abundant funding, and a need for more structured protocols to address more serious student concerns, revealing the necessity to consider departmental policies or practices that can solicit student feedback in safer ways. Both perspectives underscore the importance of feedback, but interestingly, faculty concerns about confidentiality differ from students' desire for open communication channels. Further, representing one of the major discrepancies, feedback from the doctoral student focus group participants highlighted an unfamiliarity with diversity climate surveys and how they were used and reported. This was an interesting finding considering how the department typically advocates and emphasizes the use of diversity climate surveys for feedback and information-gathering. This study contributes to the literature on graduate advising and identifies potential gaps in understanding between faculty and students, potentially highlighting misaligned expectations in advising support structures.

Citation
Format

Chan, B. M., & Huerta, M. V. (2024, June), Mapping the Departmental Doctoral Advising Landscape: A Case Study of Engineering Doctoral Advising from Faculty and Student Perspectives Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://strategy.asee.org/47759

TY - CPAPER
AB - This practice-based case study explores—through the lens of the Community of Practice (CoP) framework—the current practices and attitudes surrounding doctoral student advising in an engineering department, contributing to the broader efforts to institute systemic changes in graduate engineering education. Graduate advising, viewed as a network of social interactions, involves faculty exchanging information and supporting each other and their students. Our study utilizes in analysis specifically the process-based definitions of CoP as the process through which a community generates, applies, and reproduces knowledge and in which an ongoing process of legitimate peripheral participation takes place. While there is not a dearth of advising relationship-focused studies, department-level advising practices are relatively underexplored. This study aims to bridge this gap by considering graduate program administrator and doctoral student perspectives on departmental practices that support advising. Our research questions investigate advising support structures, mentoring resources, feedback mechanisms, and conflict resolution processes. Our results reveal differences in emphasis in faculty and student perspectives. Faculty emphasized a decentralized advising process, relying on graduate school guidelines and sequential communication. The absence of formal requirements allows the adoption of diverse mentoring approaches and mentoring tools at the discretion of faculty members. Further, a significant challenge emerges from the lack of actionable evaluation of faculty advising competencies. In contrast, doctoral students highlighted structured onboarding, a flexible culture, reasonably abundant funding, and a need for more structured protocols to address more serious student concerns, revealing the necessity to consider departmental policies or practices that can solicit student feedback in safer ways. Both perspectives underscore the importance of feedback, but interestingly, faculty concerns about confidentiality differ from students&#39; desire for open communication channels. Further, representing one of the major discrepancies, feedback from the doctoral student focus group participants highlighted an unfamiliarity with diversity climate surveys and how they were used and reported. This was an interesting finding considering how the department typically advocates and emphasizes the use of diversity climate surveys for feedback and information-gathering. This study contributes to the literature on graduate advising and identifies potential gaps in understanding between faculty and students, potentially highlighting misaligned expectations in advising support structures.
AU - Brian M. Chan
AU - Mark Vincent Huerta
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Mapping the Departmental Doctoral Advising Landscape: A Case Study of Engineering Doctoral Advising from Faculty and Student Perspectives
UR - https://strategy.asee.org/47759
ER -