Annual of social work, Vol. 21 No. 3, 2014.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.3935/ljsr.v21i3.6
CHALLENGES OF QUALITATIVE STUDIES
Žižak Antonija
orcid.org/0000-0003-3653-340X
; Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article defines mentoring as a support process in which an experienced and competent professional teaches, advises and provides friendly support, encouragement and protection, and serves as a role model in the student’s early professional and/or personal development.
The aim of this paper is to present and analyse some of the challenges faced in mentoring Ph.D. students who have chosen to apply qualitative methodology in their research. Thus, a specific literature overview is given in order to establish the contribution of mentoring in the general professional identity development as well as in the professional development of Ph.D. students. The main literature review provides insight into the challenges of Ph.D. student mentoring which mainly stem from students’ professional competences, personal characteristics and characteristics of the mentoring process. Mentor and student competences, mentoring style and some of the characteristics of the research process are recognised as specific challenges when mentoring Ph.D. students who have chosen to apply qualitative methodology in their research. Subsequently, personal experiences with regard to the challenges faced in mentoring qualitative research Ph.D. students are presented. Furthermore, the presented personal mentoring experiences are used as illustrative since they are in line with the main literature findings.
Keywords
mentoring; characteristics of Ph.D. student mentoring; qualitative methodology
Hrčak ID:
134769
URI
Publication date:
14.1.2015.
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