Nancy Kerr,
Professor of Education

My approach to graduate students can be characterized by a familiar analogy: each year our Division of Psychology in Education is presented with a small number of new graduate students, a handful of seeds that may some day grow into trees. Some of the "seeds" have been sent by former students and by colleagues, so I know a little about their early development. The histories of others, however, are largely unknown to me.

On first observation, some appear sturdier than others, but I have learned by experience that I cannot predict accurately which will grow tall and strong, which will yield nourishing fruit, which will develop an extensive root system, which will survive the elements, which will evolve in new and useful ways — or which will fail to thrive. My task, therefore, is to provide the optimal environment, nutrition, stimulation, and protection that will foster the fullest development of each, despite differing needs during the growth period and differing configurations at maturity. The combination of external variables that I try to understand and apply differs from student to student, but in some ways the process is the same for all.

Establishing the Relationship

As a first step in the mentoring process, I try to identify individuals who may share, or who may be attracted to, my interest in theory (Lewinian field theory, Skinnerian behaviorism, and physique-behavior relationships), method (single-organism research design), and/or population (developmentally, physically, or sensorially impaired children and adults).

It doesn't matter whether these individuals aspire to careers in research, in teaching, in administration, or in service. Good people are needed in all of these occupations. A student's surface characteristics also cannot predict whether our relationship will succeed or fail. Of course, it is a delight to discover a bright student — highly motivated, well organized, and well shaped to the academic enterprise by earlier teachers. Mentoring such students is easy: a suggestion here, or a comment there, and the student is off and running. Such a student, who quickly becomes a junior colleague and grows rapidly under the stimulation of "real world" activities, is a joy to all.

More challenging are the students who have yet to find themselves: those who are bright but relatively uneducated; the unfocussed or unmotivated; the late bloomers, who may be induced to flower; and the seemingly "average" students who depths may not yet have been tapped. The right word, the right task, or an optimal environment at the right time can act as a catalyst for growth far beyond a mentor's most optimistic expectations.

Identifying the Student's Research Interests

The process of making these possibilities operational requires more than advising a student about requirements that must be met for graduation. Of course, we do this. For a quarter century, Lee Meyerson, Department of Psychology, and I have co-mentored students in rehabilitation psychology. We also encourage students to explore topics and fields of knowledge that they may not previously have considered — particularly in courses offered by brilliant professors whose interests and theoretical persuasions differ from our own.

One approach has proven to be remarkably effective in identifying a student's inclinations and abilities. We start the student on a scholarly or applied project that is related to his or her general education but is not specifically required in a course. Often that project involves taking responsibility for obtaining and/or analyzing data for research that we ourselves are engaged in. With that investment, the student becomes a fully participating member of the research group when that project is discussed, reported at a meeting, or prepared for publication. From there, it is but a short step to developing an ability to generate a researchable question whose answer the student personally wishes to discover (and then designing a procedure for obtaining that answer).

Over the years, we have organized the results of these first, guided research projects into programs of student presentations at state and regional scientific meetings. For most, it is the first scholarly or professional presentation the student has ever made. Occasionally, we encourage a student who has performed exceedingly well to enter a competition for presentation at a national meeting, and many are successful.

Professional Preparation

We attempt to ensure that students have the opportunity, and the encouragement, to participate in every professional activity that we are engaged in (or sometimes in work that our colleagues are pursuing, if that research is of central interest to a student). If we are reviewing manuscripts for a journal, evaluating research proposals for a funding organization, editing a journal, conducting workshops, writing for publication, presenting papers at conventions, or participating in the work of a professional organization, students invariably work alongside us. Sometimes they work for pay, if we have funding; sometimes they work for academic credit, if it is appropriate; most frequently, they volunteer to work because the endeavor is interesting and instructive.

Informal Settings for Discussion

Finally, and equally important, we provide quasi-social environments on campus, in coffee shops, and in our homes, where we discuss how to ask and answer relevant questions about important problems, and how to link theory to practice "pure" and applied research. We debate controversial ideas — some new, some old. We explore the literature on problems of interest, or we try to design the critical experiment that may settle an issue. Above all, students teach and test each other.

For example, one evening a group of students was discussing their activities in a field setting for retarded youngsters, when a dispute arose about the role of sound localization in the development of speech discrimination. Quickly they decided that the problem was a researchable question: two students volunteered to collect data and several months later they won second prize in a student paper competition sponsored by a division of the American Psychological Association. First prize in this competition was awarded for a research report that cast light on how help is obtained from strangers. This study, too, began in a similar discussion among students in our program. One of the students in the second group went on to continue this line of investigation with her own students.

A series of research studies on discrimination learning in developmentally disabled youngsters (which continues today in theses, dissertations, and publications) was begun at an informal brain-storming session that followed a frustrating day in a school where the children were not learning what we were trying to teach them. In addition to Meyerson and me, the five co-authors of the initial monograph and eight of the people mentioned in the acknowledgements were ASU students at that time.