The end of semester has been extremely busy with our bi-annual learning and teaching conference and wrapping up activities for the year.  The PhD has taken a back seat as a result, although I have managed few days over the last couple of weeks on the literature review which feels like progress.  The literature review does feel like walking through sand though, heavy and slow, it takes me at least a few hours to get back into a reading mindset where the words hold actual meaning and don’t just float off the page.  I then hyperfocus for a few hours and if I have a break can’t get back into it – I hope I am not alone in this!  On a positive note, I am learning lots and I know I wouldn’t ‘find’ the time to read at this depth unless I was studying/researching which was one of my motivations to starting the PhD.  I am also thinking of how what I am reading will influence the questions that I ask and topics that I will explore, who knew there was so much to consider and explore about professionalism as a concept and what that means to staff who teach and how that then relates to professional standards.  I am still excited and motivated but needing to let go of self-doubt and a little of the guilt (a healthy amount turns procrastination into action I think).

I thought that I might share something a little different but touched on in my first blog post about the research I did on my MEd led which to me starting a PhD.  I have been thinking about this lately because we run an annual mentoring residential with the next one scheduled for August. I always planned to write up my research and findings into a paper which hasn’t quite happened so I will share a little here.

In 2017 I was asked to coordinate the UHI Mentoring Scheme, bringing together different strands of mentoring and adding additional strands offering one to one mentoring, and sometimes group mentoring covering learning and teaching enhancement, scholarship, research and professional recognition.  I had set up and implemented mentoring for Advance HE Fellowships (then HEA) for our experiential route.  I knew that I wanted to develop my knowledge, so I did an ILM mentoring and coaching qualification. I was mentoring colleagues and watching the wonderful transformative experiences that both mentees and mentors were experiencing through the scheme.  I decided to focus my MEd dissertation on the experiences of mentors and mentees on the UHI Mentoring Scheme engaged in mentoring for achieving Advance HE Fellowships on the experiential route, the dissertation was titled:

A phenomenographic research study of the Professional Recognition strand of the University Mentoring Scheme at the University of the Highlands and Islands (2021/2)

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The literature review highlights

The review focused on mentoring in tertiary and higher education institutions, experiences of mentoring and the power dimension, mentoring schemes and support, online and technology-enabled mentoring (important in the context of the UHI Mentoring Scheme which is a geographically distributed mentoring scheme offering mentoring across the Highlands and Islands) and mentoring for professional recognition.

A summary 

The role of the mentor is both skills based and psychosocial, being both able to provide professional development support, facilitate goal setting, career guidance and offering encouragement, and listening support (Allen et al. 2004: 128; Tan 2013: 130; Kumar and Johnson 2019: 66). Formal mentoring programmes can offer clear expectations, workshops and guidance that can mitigate from partnerships failing (Hardwick 2005: 25; Nyanjom 2020) although Pleschová and McAlpine observe through a literature review that it can be debated whether formal schemes resulted in more positive outcomes than informal mentoring (2015:117).

Mentoring that operates outside of reporting and appraisal systems, and which focuses on the development of individuals rather than on a specific organisations training aims, “generates freedom for both professional and psychosocial development to occur” (Cureton, Green and Meakin 2010: 86). Within HE the challenges of career progression could influence the perceived benefit of mentoring, which should be situated within a wider framework of professional development provision (Kent, Green and Kochan 2013, Morley 2013 Treef 2013; Castanheira 2016)  Furthermore, the power dynamics of both mentor and mentee pairing and within HE should be acknowledged, which empowers the mentee and develops an understanding of what constrains development or learning for the mentee (Darwin 2000, Guccione and Hutchinson 2021, Orland-Barak and Yinon 2005; Brockbank and McGill 2006) .  Holding a leadership position can lead to over confidence leading to personal barriers to mentoring competency (Nyanjom 2020, Langdon et al 2016).

A number of papers explored the benefits for mentees included negotiating the HE environment and familiarisation of institutional structures, development of knowledge, pedagogic effectiveness, critical thinking, and increased confidence (Pleschová and McAlpine 2015; Castanheira 2016; Allen et al. 2004; De Janasz and Sullivan 2004).  Many of the research studies also identified that through mentoring staff were connected with a wider community of peers which increases job satisfaction and mitigates against feelings of isolation (Thomas, Lunsford and Rodrigues 2015).  The increased use of technology in mentoring, and of virtual or online mentoring further connects participants across geographical contexts and in the studies explored even facilitated deeper reflection and connectivity in the mentoring partnerships (Campbell 2016; Owen 2015; Walker 2020; Homitz and Berge 2008).

The benefits or impact of gaining HEA Fellowship on practice and in relation to student satisfaction was also explored through four papers.  All papers highlighted that engagement with the process of achieving fellowship developed an awareness of quality enhancement and assurance, as well as evaluation processes and that in reengaged participants with scholarship and pedagogic approaches (van der  Sluis, Penny and Huet 2017; van der Sluis 2021; Cathcart et al. 2021).  However, some participants in the studies found the enhancement of teaching practice was limited, although others felt it had impacted on practice to some extent, and others stated that it had increased confidence and validated their experience and position with peers (van der Sluis 2021).  One study did highlight that National Student Survey results did not show a negative or positive difference in the years that increased Fellowships have been sought across the UK HE sector, although acknowledged that NSS is considered contentious thorough the research that was carried out (van der Sluis 2021).

At the time of my research in 2021 the literature review highlighted a gap in research around the impact or influence that mentoring has on participants successfully achieving HEA Fellowships, which supports the need for more research in this area.  One paper that was identified showed that mentoring for Fellowships could support and facilitate mentees’ reflection, pedagogic approaches and knowledge and help them to reconnect with scholarship (Botham 2018:171-72).  However, if dissatisfied with the mentoring pairing some participants sought support from colleagues also seeking Fellowship as critical friends. Finally, the Botham 2018 study highlighted that being paired with a mentor in a different subject area could be beneficial in focusing the support on pedagogic approaches and knowledge of the UKPSF. A research study carried out by Beckmann (2017) exploring distributed leadership through a university UKPSF recognition scheme in Australia found that distributed leadership within their scheme was effective in nurturing collaboration and leadership capabilities across staff engaged in learning and teaching.

The research question and methodology

To what extent is participation in the Professional Recognition strand of the University of the Highlands and Islands Mentoring Scheme perceived to support professional recognition of mentees and continued professional development of mentors? 

Phenomenography (in very brief)

Phenomenography was originally developed in the 1970’s, at the University of Gothenburg, to understand the student experience of learning, through a study that would come to define surface and deep learning and through subsequent research on various other dimensions of student learning (Entwistle 1997: 127).  Phenomenography has become a means of establishing and understanding the qualitatively different ways the same phenomena is experienced. Marton (1981) describes phenomenography as “research which aims at description, analysis, and understanding of experiences; that is, research which is directed towards experiential description” (as cited by Barnard, McCosker and Gerber 1999: 213).   

Phenomenographic research has been used extensively for analysing student experiences in HE (Yates, Partridge and Bruce 2012; Reed 2006) and in the last two decades phenomenographic research has increasingly been used to successfully understand various aspects of educators’ experiences (Akerlind 2004; Young 2006; Smyth et al. 2020)   

My research

In keeping with established phenomenographic conventions the data collection for my study was conducted through semi-structured individual interviews using open ended questions with mentors (n 8) and mentees (n 9) who have been engaged through the Professional Recognition strand, achieving HEA Fellowship through the UHI institutional scheme ALPINE by submitting experiential applications.  Variations of experiences were analysed across the data.  Codes were grouped and regrouped until there were variations of experiences of the same phenomenon (engagement in the UHI Mentoring Scheme) which were defined by descriptive categories and then organised hierarchically from less complex to more complex. The final stage saw an Outcome Space created, which captures and gives a holistic overview of the range of ways the phenomena was approached, understood, or experienced.

The outcome space

The Outcome Space in phenomenographic research is the final output of a phenomenographic analysis and captures a holistic understanding of the variations of experiences of the research participants as articulated in the Categories of Description.  For my research study one Outcome Space is presented and contains motivation to engage for both mentors and mentees, in addition to dimensions pertaining to perceptions and experiences of mentoring that emerged as common dimensions for both mentors and mentees.

Motivations to engage 

Mentors
Intrinsic	Mentoring skills development; professional development; supporting colleagues’ development; own reflection and supporting reflection of others; communities of practice including confidence building, encouraging sharing good practice, institutional awareness, and ongoing collaborations, building a mentoring culture and community cross academic partnership.
Extrinsic	SFHEA evidence; supporting HE recognition.
Mentees
Intrinsic	Reflection; professional development; practice enhancement; HE development; role development; confidence; pedagogical development; formal mentoring experience; sounding board; mentor expertise; mentor to listen; communities of practice including institutional awareness; ongoing professional development and collaborations.
Extrinsic	Sector standards and HE recognition; external benchmark; accolade; promotion; job progression to other university.

Walker, A. (2022)​

 Perceptions and experiences of mentoring 

Support provided for mentoring	Enabling factors
Clarity of documentation and process	Documentation and criteria (fellowship); mentoring code of practice (mentoring role responsibilities).
Managing pairing and expectations	Pairing mentors and mentees; outlining expectations and timelines.
Mentoring agreement/contract	Mentoring agreement contract and expectations; timelines and structure.
Effectiveness of technology enabled mentoring	Enabling factors
Role modelling	Learning technologies; staff digital literacy.
Multi-modality	Document and link sharing; multiple technology options to engage.
Communities of practice	Enabling factors
Collaboration and connectivity	Cross academic partnership collaboration and support; mitigation against isolation; identifying strengths and confidence building.
Extrinsic support to engage	Enabling factors
Colleagues	Encouragement to engage; peer support and motivation.
Mentor relationship	Listening; reflecting; sounding board and advice; psychological support e.g., confidence building and motivation; institutional structures and awareness raising; rapport building and confidentiality.
Intrinsic challenges pertaining to engagement to mentoring	Challenges to engage
Workload and/or time commitment	Additional commitment beyond role in relation to both mentoring and application writing.
Confidence	Role; expertise and knowledge; career stage; professional and personal identity.
Extrinsic challenges pertaining to engagement to mentoring	Priorities and value
Academic partner and or university	College priorities FE focused; lack of value of HE recognition; lack of recognition/celebration of mentoring role and/or fellowship; lack of awareness and promotion of the scheme.
Technology enabled collaborations	Collaboration
Shared online spaces	Utilising technology for real time working/sharing; synchronous tools e.g. chat space; sharing documents and resources.
Mentoring development	Future enablers
Mentoring skills	Giving feedback; rationale and increased understanding the mentoring contract; transitional support mentee to mentor.
Marketing and promotion	Visibility
Awareness raising	Positive testimonials; senior level promotion of the scheme and increased marketing; utilising online spaces to market the scheme.
Managing expectations	Promoting expectations in relation to time commitment.
Support to engage	Value
Academic Partner	Academic partner/line manager encouragement to engage; timetabling; recognition of achievement; increased acknowledgement of mentoring as recognised as cross-partnership benefit.
University	Increased acknowledgement of HEA Fellowships as HE benchmark – sectorial; Promoting student confidence in quality of provision; providing sector confidence in UHI quality of provision; celebration.

Walker, A. (2022)​

DISCUSSION

The Outcome Space outlines a number of enabling factors that support the success and mitigate against the failure of mentoring partnerships.  Through doing this, the Outcome Space could be of potential interest to others running or considering setting up mentoring schemes for professional development and recognition. 

Less prominent through the literature, and of potential benefit in the move to online and hybrid approaches to professional development and recognition, were the identification of factors around technology enabled approaches and the use of institutional learning and teaching technology in mentoring.  Sector education institutions/teams could potentially use the Outcome Space to consider how to design effective approaches to online professional development and mentoring through technology that encourage role-modelling and harnesses multi-modality. This could be of potential benefit to the increased digital skills of staff who might then use these skills in learning and teaching practice with students. Furthermore, consideration of the ways in which technology role-modelling can be incorporated into programmes of study that develop pedagogic approaches to learning and teaching, such as formal teacher education programmes, could be of potential value to programme design.

There are currently few studies on professional recognition mentoring for HEA Fellowships, particularly in federated, tertiary and geographically distributed institutions.  Therefore, the Outcome Space and associated research could help with considerations around the perceptions and value placed on HE recognition in institutions with conflicting priorities, and how this can influence the confidence of staff engaged in HE practices and recognition.  Related to this, the way in which HEA Fellowship and mentoring for professional development and recognition is seen to be valued and promoted.

Colleagues seeking to evaluate or undertake research into mentoring for professional recognition might use the Outcome Space to make decisions about what they might seek to research and evaluate to enhance mentoring programmes, including around the support to engage; the value placed on mentoring and recognition; technology enabled approaches; confidence dimensions in relation to professional role and mentoring competencies; and benefits of mentoring and recognition. 

Concluding thoughts

I still hope that I might find time to formally write some of the research up but hope this blog might be useful.

This academic year a priority for myself and the team has been to align the mentoring scheme and developmental opportunities with the SEDA-PDF so that we can offer colleagues the opportunity to apply for and be awarded the SEDA Mentoring and Coaching Award.  We found out last month the accreditation had been successful with no recommendations and are delighted to be able to offer the award from semester one next year!  The knowledge I have gained through study and research meant that I had the confidence to design a learning pathway for mentors on the scheme even before we began the accreditation process.  This meant we had an established and evidence-based pathway that we could formally align to SEDA-PDF. Having done my research study and engaged with phenomenography for the first time means that going into the PhD this method feels familiar, although I still have so much to learn and understand.  

It is interesting how our own developmental journeys weave and wander through different aspects of our practice and it’s a moment of reflection and joy to think about what has come from tentatively completing one module to a whole MEd and starting the PhD, though the UHI Mentoring Scheme, SEDA accreditation and Advance HE Fellowship mentoring.

References

Akerlind, G. (2018) ‘What Future for Phenomengraphic Research? On Continuity and Development in the Phenomongraphy and Variation Theory Research Tradition’. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 62(2), 949-958. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2017.1324899.

Barnard, A., McCosker, H., Gerber, R. (1999) ‘Phenomenography: A Qualitative Research Approach for Exploring Understanding in Health Care’. Qualitative Health Research 9(2), 212-226. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/104973299129121794.

Botham, K. (2018) ‘The perceived impact on academics’ teaching practice of engaging with a higher education institution’s CPD scheme’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 55(2), 164-175. doi:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2017.1371056.

Brockbank, A., McGill, I. (2006) Facilitating Reflective Learning through Mentoring & Coaching. Great Britain and United States: Kogan Page Limited

Bryman, A. (2016) Social Research Methods 5th edition. United States of America: Oxford University Press

Campbell, A. (2016) ‘Talking Point – Flexible Targeted Online Staff Development that Works’. Journal of Interactive Media in Education 1(3), 1–10. doi: http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.395.

Entwistle, N. (1997) ‘Introduction: Phenomenography in Higher Education’. Higher Education Research & Development 16(2), 127-134. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0729436970160202.

Guccione, K., Hutchinson, S. (2021) ‘Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development’. Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited 

Homitz, D.J., Berge, Z.L. (2008) ‘Using e-mentoring to sustain distance training and education’. The Learning Organization 15(4), 326-355. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/09696470810879574. 

Owen, H. D. (2015) ‘Making the most of mobility: virtual mentoring and education practitioner professional development’. Research in Learning Technology 23. doi:https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v23.25566.

Reed, B. (2006) ‘Phenomenography as a way to research the understanding by students of technical concepts’.  Technological Innovation and Sustainability 1-11.

Sluis, van der, H. (2021) ‘Frankly, as far as I can see, it has very little to do with teaching’. Exploring academics’ perceptions of the HEA Fellowships’. Professional Development in Education’, 1- 14. doi:   https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2021.1876153

Sluis, van der, H., Burden, P., Huet, I. (2017) ‘Retrospection and reflection: The emerging influence of an institutional professional recognition scheme on professional development and academic practice in a UK university’. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 54(2), 126-134. doi:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1273790

Smyth, K., Rennie, F., Davies, G., Tobgay, S., (2020) ‘Transnational collaboration in building educational research capacity in a new university: An applied phenomenographic investigation’.  Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 8(2), 39-49.

Walker, A. (2020) Establishing collaborative ways of mentoring: Digitally enabled and transnational approaches within distributed universities. In: Rennie, F. (ed.) Bhutan: Ways of Learning and Teaching. eTIPS. 45-73.

Yates, C., Partridge, H., Bruce, C. (2012) ‘Exploring information experiences through phenomenography’. Library and Information Research 36(112), 96-119.doi: doi: https://doi.org/10.29173/lirg496. 

Young, P. (2006) ‘Out of balance: lecturers’ perceptions of differential status and rewards in relation to teaching and research’. Teaching in Higher Education 11(2), 191-202. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510500527727.