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Education doctoral (EdD) students (mentees) typically hold full-time leadership positions in education-related fields while completing their degree. The types of support these scholar-practitioners need is unique because of their focus on balancing full-time work, academic, and personal needs. This study aims to explore mentor support systems for mentees in their first and second year of the EdD program through a group mentoring program, which is designed to provide resources and access to mentors to promote successful degree completion in five years or less.

Mentors participated in monthly presentations and discussions with mentees throughout the 2018–2019 academic year, which were video recorded. At the end of the academic year, mentors partook in an interview or focus group meeting.

Themes emerged related to mentors’ focus on the dissertation process; emphasis on outreach for support; discussions and work/life balance; selection of presentation topics; perceptions of networking opportunities with mentees; desire to build stronger connections with mentees; and concerns/opinions about the mentoring format.

The design of a mentoring program for EdD mentees varies throughout the doctorate degree pathway. Mentors support mentees in their doctoral journey through presentations and discussions about relevant topics during their first two years in the doctoral program. Additional studies are needed regarding EdD mentoring programs for students in the third year to the completion of the degree.

Few studies exist related to mentoring programs for scholar-practitioners in EdD programs. Results from this research provide EdD faculty and advisors insights to group mentoring and discussion topics for first and second year EdD students, based on the mentors’ perspectives.

The purpose of this paper is to discover peer mentors’ perspectives of an education doctoral (Doctorate of Education) peer mentoring program implemented in a mid-sized public institution.

Data from one focus group and an interview collected from peer mentors as part of a larger case study of mentors and mentees in a peer mentoring program for education doctoral students are presented. Four (n=4) peer mentors participated in a focus group (n=3) and an interview (n=1). Participants were asked about their perceptions of the program and their experiences as mentors.

Four themes were discovered within the data: mentors relate to social, emotional and academic life balances of mentees, mentors provide support and reassurance to mentees, mentors guide mentees to focus on the future, and mentors gain personal and professional growth from the peer mentoring program. Results indicated that mentors believed that the program was helpful for their mentees and beneficial to their own personal and professional development.

Limitations of this study include the small sample size (n=4) and the short period of time in which participants were asked to be a part of the mentoring program and reflect in focus groups and interview (one academic year). Implications of this study include the benefits of peer mentoring for both mentors and mentees alike.

In contrast to many other studies of peer mentoring programs, this peer mentoring program targeted scholar-practitioner students who were balancing full-time careers with their coursework and family lives. Thus, peer mentors focused more on career and work-life balance with mentees than mentors may in other programs, as well as finding benefit to their own professional development.

This paper aims to describe how a Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate-guided EdD program has fostered the development of leadership and research skills and strong identities as learners, leaders and researching professionals (RPs) among its graduates. In doing so, the researchers explored students’ identities as learners, leaders and RPs and examined the development of those identities over a three-year period.

A mixed method approach was used, including pre- and post-program surveys and interviews.

The results showed students enhanced or developed these identities over time. In particular, there was substantial growth and change in the “RP” identity as compared to development of the “learner” and “leader” identities.

The possible-selves theory and the provisional-selves framework (P/PS) were helpful in accounting for these changes as the program requirements fostered students’ efforts in elaborating and developing their identity roles. Further, examination of P/PS and their influence on identity development is warranted. For example, examining outcomes about more explicit use of P/PS and reflections on P/PS is warranted. See next section.

There are implications for teaching of EdD students such as faculty members making more explicit the concept of P/PS during instruction and in the work required of students. Additionally, students could be required to engage in reflection on P/PS to make this process more concrete for them.

Using P/PS provides a way to understand and foster processes underlying doctoral students’ identity development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate mentors' and mentees' perspectives of the mentor role within an education doctoral mentoring program at a mid-sized public institution.

Data from individual interviews with mentors and mentees were collected as part of a larger case study of a doctoral mentoring program. Mentees were doctor of education (EdD) students in their first and second years of the program. Mentors were identified as individuals who graduated from or are further along in the doctoral program. Five (N = 5) mentees and seven (N = 7) mentors participated in interviews, which were then transcribed and coded to identify emergent themes, along with transcripts of presentations given by the mentors.

Four themes emerged within the data: differentiating support roles, mentoring as a way to identify gaps in doctoral student needs, mentoring as support for doctoral student success and ways to provide suggestions for mentoring program improvement. Results indicated that mentors and mentees viewed the mentor role as being unique from the roles of faculty advisor and dissertation chair. Mentors and mentees alike responded positively to virtual mentoring.

Participation by mentors and mentees was limited to first- and second-year doctoral students; thus, dissertation-stage students' perceptions of mentoring could not be determined. Implications include the value of mentoring in filling the gaps of support for doctoral students and the capability of mentoring programs to be adapted to unexpected circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study targets scholar-practitioner students in an EdD program, who are often overlooked by mentoring literature, and distinguishes research between faculty mentoring and mentoring performed by other students/recent graduates. Additionally, the pandemic gave the authors an opportunity to explore adapting mentoring to virtual formats.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following assertions: first, the Laboratories of Practice (LoP) promotes professional growth. Second, the LoP enhances understanding of program design and delivery. Finally, the LoP has a financial value both to the organization where the LoP took place and to the university. The paper examines the responses of program candidates from two cohorts and the community partners they served to a survey focussed on the LoPs.

In summer 2012, Cohort 1 students and their mentors completed a survey, a milestone paper, and reflective papers. LoP mentors (critical friends (CF)) were invited to give feedback on the LoP and the program candidate. In summer 2013, data were gathered via online surveys, milestone paper, and reflection papers from two program cohorts who experienced a LoP. In total, 48 students participated in the research.

In relation to assertion no. 1, both the community partners’ and the students’ experiences with respect to the LoP made clear that the fieldwork has yielded positive outcomes. Students have found that they were able to draw from the classroom learnings to address the problems of practice in the real world setting. They reflected on lessons learned about themselves as well as the process itself, which sometimes resulted in redefining the problem at hand. Finally, the goals that were accomplished by the students during the LoP experience provided them with immense satisfaction, next steps, and, in some cases, the affirmation of their choice to participate in a professional practice doctorate. In relation to assertion no. 2, LoP data have been used by faculty to refine and improve the program and the LoP experience itself. In relation to assertion no. 3, while field mentors (CF) indicate that the services provided by the students during their LoP were invaluable and provided significant insights and improvements in their workplace, it was a challenge to assign a specific financial value to the LoP.

In terms of the internal validity of the study, it is possible that the findings are weakened due to the reliance on doctoral candidates and their mentors from one professional practice doctorate, and the potential for recall bias. In the future, a longitudinal or multiple source research study would have a much stronger internal validity. In terms of external validity, the study can only be reasonably generalized to doctoral students in professional practice doctorates grounded by CPED principles.

While each LoP is highly individual, the process does require the candidates to reflect on their professional practice and their professional growth. CF facilitate reflection and conceptual thought, thereby developing professional practice. LoPs appear to be of value both to the individual and to their organizational context.

Students’ and LoP employers’ survey responses, established and/or furthered excellent relationships with many community partners, and provided quantifiable evidence of accomplishments.

Many professional practice doctorates are struggling with what a LoP in the field should and could look like and the benefits of a LoP. This is an innovative paper as it explains the development and learning from one program that is becoming identified with its LoP. It is likely that university faculty will be interested in the design of the LoP and the value of the LoP as indicated by the survey results to the student, mentor, faculty, and program.

Professional practice doctorate programs’ purpose is to prepare practitioners in the industry to lead and solve current and future complex problems with the application of research. The authors aim to argue that leadership, critical friends, and engagement of the education community together have the potential to assist in enhancing professional practice doctorate graduates’ outcomes.

From three case studies of redesign and implementations of Ed. D. programs associated with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, the authors discuss how distributed leadership and implementation of contemporary motivational concepts within a university empowers and incentivizes faculty to develop and enhance effectiveness of professional practice doctorates.

The concept of critical friends, those who are not invested in a specific situation, can provide objective and fresh insight and is applied as a reform strategy. Engaging the industry, that is, the education community, to further in‐context experiences for both faculty and graduate students provides not only venues for research and continual updates in the field, but also access to data, participants, and information needed for both doctoral dissertations in practice, but also faculty research. The authors conclude that the three concepts support enhancement of effectiveness of professional practice doctorate programs and accountability for graduates’ impact in the workplace.

The authors’ analyses of two professional doctorate programs generated three themes as important contributors to the (re)design, implementation, and evaluation of the Ed.D.: leaders, critical friends, and the education community. By considering the roles of leaders, critical friends, and the education, a conceptual model can be developed to support success.

Customised executive education, designed for and delivered to individual client companies by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), differs in important ways from award-bearing courses. One area in which these differences are surprisingly extensive is in the use of technology. We explore the impact of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) on course design, delivery and evaluation of customised executive education. In doing so, we contrast this form of learning with MOOCs, which use TEL in a different way, for a different audience.

We begin with the ‘two-client’ problem. In customised executive programmes, course design is done collaboratively between the HEI and the corporate client, reflecting the particular learning needs of the selected participants as perceived by the commissioning client. We find that the level of TEL in any programme will reflect the learning needs, and also the level of TEL sophistication, of both client and academics.

We then consider the successful integration of TEL into customised executive education. TEL can enrich a course great, but will also mean a loss of academic control, as a significant amount of the learning will be peer-to-peer, and much of the information-gathering can take place outside the classroom.

We conclude with the outcomes and success measures of customised executive education. The institutional disruption of TEL to the HEI is considerable, as their traditional business model is based on rewarding academics for research and for classroom-hours. This needs to be rethought where the classroom element is reduced, but there is constant online interaction with participants.

Higher education has been faced with some of the same problems that have triggered widescale lay‐offs in industry. This article is an account of how one university engaged in organisational development interventions to retrain and reassign 58 dislocated faculty members and set up a humane outplacement programme for another 110 faculty. Tracking of faculty who participated in outplacement efforts indicated a 94 per cent success rate, defined as securing employment in another position which was enjoyed as much as or more than employment at the university.