Mentoring Characteristics in Doctoral Education: Perspectives of Doctoral Students and Supervisors

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of English Language, Faculty of Humanities, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran

10.22111/ijals.2026.54559.2586

Abstract

The benefits of mentoring relationships between postgraduate students and their supervisors have been reported in the literature. However, despite research on mentors’ characteristics, there is a notable lack of ELT studies that give voice to both mentees and mentors. Few studies have explored the features of doctoral mentoring from both perspectives. For this reason, 55 ELT doctoral students and 18 doctoral supervisors responded to an open-ended question as part of a large-scale project. In addition, nine doctoral students and five supervisors volunteered for a follow-up semi-structured interview. Conventional content analysis of the responses to the open-ended question and the interviews demonstrated that, in the opinions of doctoral students and supervisors, a doctoral mentor should be supportive, knowledgeable, humanitarian, and available. Using directed content analysis, the identified mentoring characteristics were categorized into psychosocial, personal, and professional attributes. According to the findings, both doctoral students and supervisors prioritize psychosocial attributes, followed by personal and professional attributes, because the stressful conditions of doctoral education demand social and emotional support from doctoral mentors. This study also addresses implications for doctoral education, including how supervisors and their graduate students can effectively fulfill their respective roles.

Keywords

References

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Iranian Journal of Applied Language Studies
Volume 18, Issue 1
July 2026
Pages 1-18

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