Deriving international consensus on mentorship in doctoral education

Abstract

Global collaboration to address issues in nursing is essential in the twenty-first century. Given the importance of doctoral education in the development of nursing as a discipline, understanding mentoring in doctoral education is significant. The International Network for Doctoral Education in Nursing appointed a taskforce to define and describe the complex process of mentoring and to develop a position paper on mentoring in doctoral education. This paper describes this collaborative global project with the following aims: 1) to develop an international consensus paper on the complex process of mentoring to improve doctoral education worldwide and 2) to explicate activities that can enhance collaboration globally. Effective collaborative activities include the taskforce and the conference work, as well as the survey data collection. Collaborative activities were distributed across global regions. Multiple strategies of communication were used; however, face-to-face appears to be key. A high level of agreement was noted on the qualifications, responsibilities and expectations of a mentor. Some differences were found between countries in the area of a mentor’s role in accessing resources for students. Concluding recommendations are made for additional strategies to enhance the global participation in the final stages of the project and to assure that differences among countries are put into perspective