ABSTRACT
Mentorship in doctoral publication plays an important role in the training and career development of novice researchers, and constitutes part of the expected responsibilities of PhD supervisors. Although a sizable body of research has examined mentorship in scholarly publication generally, we still know little about perspectives on and approaches to mentorship in doctoral publication in situated contexts. This study seeks to address this gap by examining a PhD supervisor’s approaches to mentoring her students into scholarly publication, and the perceptions of the supervisor and her supervisees concerning the mentorship. Data were collected from a qualitative longitudinal study that examined the scholarly publishing practices and experiences of a group of nursing doctoral students at a university in mainland China. Drawing on the notions of mentorship and apprenticeship, the study found that whereas they converged on their perceptions of scholarly publishing as a reasonable expectation and an important way to socialize students into the academic community, the supervisor and the doctoral students diverged on how they approached scholarly publishing and which communities they aspired to join or be associated with. These findings point to the need for doctoral candidates and supervisors to discuss and align their expectations about and approaches to mentorship in scholarly publication.
