Information Exchanged in Mentoring Between Faculty Advisors and Their Doctoral Students

Socialization of doctoral students refers to the learning and adjustment process through which they acquire information and knowledge about their work, department, university, and discipline. This dissertation explores characteristics and activities of mentoring relationships and examines information types exchanged in the relationships using a mixed method design that combines qualitative interview and quantitative survey methods. The study draws upon a socialization content framework developed in organizational settings. Interviews with ten library and information science (LIS) doctoral students from nine universities in the United States (U.S.) were conducted. Based on data from these interviews, ideal mentoring was defined as a supportive relationship that combines professional and interpersonal characteristics. The author also identified sixteen types of information exchanged in doctoral mentoring: Language, History, Coursework, Research, Skills, Teaching, Networking, Structure, Politics, Goals, Strategies, Values, Norms/Tradition, Rules/Policies, Benefits, and Personal life. In addition to the identification of content dimensions, the author observed four meaningful levels to which the content types can be applied: Work, School/Department, University, and Discipline. The author tested and generalized interview findings through surveying 132 LIS doctoral student participants in the U.S. The survey findings supported the importance of both professional and interpersonal characteristics of mentors, although the participants placed more value on professional than interpersonal characteristics. When comparing participants' perceptions of their current mentors/advisors and ideal mentors, current mentors were quite similar to ideal mentors, although there were statistically significant differences on many characteristics between current advisors and ideal mentors. Moreover, the survey confirmed that information exchange occurs in all of the sixteen types, although frequencies varied. In particular, information exchange was more frequent in the group of participants who considered their advisors to be mentors than it was among those who did not. It was also found that there is a changing pattern in the overall frequency of information exchange across the stages of doctoral work. This dissertation presented faculty mentor characteristics comprehensively and concretely, which will enable faculty advisors to reflect on and improve their mentoring practices. It also suggested doctoral students' experiences from the perspective of information, which contributes to increasing our understanding of its role in the doctoral training process. Through investigation of the types of information exchanged, the author attempted to make the immeasurable and invisible dimension of mentoring measurable and visible in order to illustrate the important role of information and information exchange. Finally, the author proposed a modified definition of mentoring/mentors, adding the dimension of information to existing definitions. Theoretically, the current study addressed the dearth in content framework research in academic settings, especially academic mentoring, and it established a foundation for the examination of interpersonal information behavior in mentoring. Practically, the list of mentor characteristics identified from the study could be referenced to evaluate advisors/mentors, allowing them to address shortcomings. In addition, the study findings may help characterize and understand the doctoral study process from the perspective of information science, which can be used for improving current doctoral advising/mentoring practices, contributing to decreasing students' attrition rates and promote their professional and personal success. Last but not least, the information types can be used to develop a measurement system that evaluates the effectiveness of knowledge transfer and mentoring.