Abstract
Mentoring has been identified as an essential component in the development and success of future faculty. As such, the purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the mentoring experiences of graduate students enrolled in school psychology programs. Additionally, we wanted to determine if differences were present in the mentoring experiences of self-identified racial minority students and their White peers given the lack of diversity among school psychology faculty. Quantitative analyses indicated that students enrolled in school psychology programs are fairly satisfied with their mentoring experiences. However, respondents who completed the open-ended questions indicated that they had difficulty accessing their mentor, they wanted more mentoring on careers in academia, and that they desired more support for conducting research and teaching. Therefore, there are several aspects of mentoring that need to be improved if the field of school psychology wants to increase the number of students who will peruse a career in higher education.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alvarez, A. N., Blume, A. W., Cervantes, J. M., & Thomas, L. R. (2009). Tapping the wisdom tradition: essential elements to mentoring students of color. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 40(2), 181–188.
Barrett, T. G., & Smith, T. (2008). Southern coup: recruiting African American faculty members at an elite private Southern research university. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 946–973.
Beeks, A., & Graves, S. L. (2017). Academic leaderships views of school psychology and black students: the case of historically black colleges and universities. Psychology in the Schools, 54(6), 612–623.
Bigelow, J., & Johnson, W. B. (2001). Promoting mentor-protégé relationship formation in graduate school. The Clinical Supervisor, 20(1), 1–23.
Blake, J. J., Graves, S., Newell, M., & Jimerson, S. R. (2016). Diversification of school psychology: developing an evidence base from current research and practice. School Psychology Quarterly, 31, 305–310.
Chandler, D. R. (2011). Proactively addressing the shortage of blacks in psychology: highlighting the school psychology subfield. Journal of Black Psychology, 37, 99–127.
Clark, R. A., Harden, S. L., & Johnson, W. B. (2000). Mentor relationship in clinical psychology doctoral training: Results of a national survey. Teaching of Psychology, 27, 262–268.
Clark, C., Mercer, S. H., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Dufrene, B. A. (2012). Barriers to the success of ethnic minority students in school psychology graduate programs. School Psychology Review, 41, 176–192.
Clopton, & Haselhuhn, C. (2009). School psychology trainer shortage in the USA: current status and projections for the future. School Psychology International, 30, 24–42.
Coleman, S., & Stevenson, H. C. (2013). The racial stress of membership: development of the faculty inventory of racialized experiences in schools. Psychology in the Schools, 50(6), 548–566.
Graves, S. L. (2009). Albert Sidney Beckham: the first African American school psychologist. School Psychology International, 30, 5–23.
Graves, S., & Wright, L. (2007). Comparison of individual factors in school psychology graduate students: why do students pursue a degree in school psychology. Psychology in the Schools, 44, 865–872.
Graves, S. L., & Wright, L. B. (2009). Historically black colleges and university students’ and faculties’ views of school psychology: Implications for increasing diversity in higher education. Psychology in the Schools, 46, 616–626.
Graves, S. L., & Wright, L. B. (2013). A qualitative study of racially diverse school psychology faculty experiences in the professoriate: implications for increasing diversity in higher education. Trainers’ Forum, 31, 29–46.
Hayes, A. F., & Krippendorff, K. (2007). Answering the call for a standard reliability measure for coding data. Communication Methods and Measures, 1, 77–89.
Jacobi, M. (1991). Mentoring and undergraduate academic success: a literature review. Review of Educational Research, 61(4), 505–532.
Johnson, W. B. (2007). On being a mentor: a guide for higher education faculty. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Johnson-Bailey, J., & Cervero, R. M. (2004). Mentoring in Black and White: the intricacies of cross-cultural mentoring. Mentoring and Tutoring, 12, 7–21.
Leech, N. L., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2008). Qualitative data analysis: a compendium of techniques and a framework for selection for school psychology research and beyond. School Psychology Quarterly, 23, 587–604.
Lincoln, Y . S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Malone, C. M., Jacobs, D., & Sullivan, A. L. (2010). Mentorship for culturally and linguistically diverse school psychology graduate students. (STUDENT CONNECTIONS)(report). Communique, 39(3), 31.
Maton, K. I., Wimms, H. E., Grant, S. K., Wittig, M. A., Rogers, M. R., & Vasquez, M. J. T. (2011). Experiences and perspectives of African American, Latina/o, Asian American, and European American psychology graduate students: a national study. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 68–78.
Mccoy, D. L., Winkle-Wagner, R., & Luedke, C. L. (2015). Colorblind mentoring? Exploring. White faculty mentoring of students of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 8, 225–242.
Milkman, K. L., Akinola, M., & Chugh, D. (2015). What happens before? A field experiment exploring how pay and representation differentially shape bias on the pathway into organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1678–1712.
Neville, H. A., Gallardo, M. E., & Sue, D. W. E. (2016). The myth of racial color blindness: manifestations, dynamics, and impact. American Psychological Association.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). In M. Q. Patton (Ed.), Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Proctor, S. L., & Truscott, S. D. (2012). Reasons for African American student attrition from school psychology programs. Journal of School Psychology, 50, 655–679.
Proctor, S. L., Simpson, C. M., Levin, J., & Hackimer, L. (2014). Recruitment of diverse students in school psychology programs: directions for future research and practice. Contemporary School Psychology, 18, 117–126.
Proctor, S. L., Kyle, J., Fefer, K., & Lau, C. (2018a). Examining racial microaggressions, race/ethnicity, gender, and bilingual status with school psychology students: the role of intersectionality. Contemporary School Psychology, 22, 355–368.
Proctor, S. L., Nasir, A., Wilson, T., Li, K., & Castrillon, P. (2018b). Retention and persistence of African-American students in school psychology programs. Psychology in the Schools, 55, 506–522.
Shapiro, E. S., & Blom-Hoffman, J. (2004). Mentoring, modeling, and money: the 3 Ms of producing academics. School Psychology Quarterly, 19, 365–381.
Stark, K., Perfect, M., Simpson, J., Schnoebelen, S., & Glenn, R. (2004). Encouraging academic careers: one of many desirable career options for doctoral school psychologists. School Psychology Quarterly, 19, 382–397.
Zambrana, R. E., Ray, R., Espino, M. M., Castro, C., Douthirt Cohen, B., & Eliason, J. (2015). “Don’t leave us behind”: the importance of mentoring for underrepresented minority faculty. American Educational Research Journal, 52, 40–72.
Zellers, D. F., Howard, V. M., & Barcic, M. A. (2008). Faculty mentoring programs: reenvisioning rather than reinventing the wheel. Review of Educational Research, 78, 552–588.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Graves, S.L., Newell, M., Harrell, F. et al. A Mixed Data Analysis of Graduate Student Mentoring for Faculty Careers in School Psychology. Contemp School Psychol 25, 99–108 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-019-00253-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-019-00253-0