The advisory working alliance and research training: Test of a relational efficacy model.

Abstract

Relatively little research attention has been devoted to understanding the mechanisms through which the advising relationship functions as a medium for fostering doctoral students' development as researchers. Adapting Lent and Lopez's (2002) model of relational efficacy, we examined three types of efficacy beliefs (self-efficacy, other-efficacy, and relation-inferred self-efficacy) in relation to the advisory working alliance and the prediction of doctoral students' research interest and productivity. Gelso's (1993) concept of the research training environment was also included in model testing to capture a view of the advisory relationship as existing within a larger program training context. Participants were 274 doctoral students in a variety of academic fields. The results suggested that a slightly revised version of the hypothesized model produced good fit to the data. In particular, controlling for year in the graduate program, we found the advisory working alliance was linked to students' research self-efficacy indirectly via relation-inferred self-efficacy (i.e., students' beliefs about how their advisors viewed their research capabilities). Students' self-efficacy was, in turn, predictive of their interest in and productivity at research. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and the practice of advising and research training.

Advisory Relationship as a Moderator Between Research Self‐Efficacy, Motivation, and Productivity Among Counselor Education Doctoral Students

“…Positive self‐efficacy regarding certain tasks may encourage individuals to persist at these tasks because they believe that they can succeed, thus contributing to greater achievement (Bandura, ). Research self‐efficacy is one's beliefs about one's ability to conduct research (Morrison & Lent, ), which may be positively related to greater scholarly output. Various quantitative studies with doctoral students from different professions (e.g., Morrison & Lent, ) suggest that students with higher levels of research self‐efficacy also tend to have higher research productivity.…”

“…Research self‐efficacy is one's beliefs about one's ability to conduct research (Morrison & Lent, ), which may be positively related to greater scholarly output. Various quantitative studies with doctoral students from different professions (e.g., Morrison & Lent, ) suggest that students with higher levels of research self‐efficacy also tend to have higher research productivity. Studies with CE students also corroborate these findings.…”

“…Various quantitative studies suggest that intrinsic motivation is associated with higher levels of scholarly activity (Kahn & Schlosser, ; Morrison & Lent, ). Intrinsic interest in research may encourage students to pursue more research opportunities, leading to additional research publications (Morrison & Lent, ).…”

“…Furthermore, these studies do not comprehensively examine how different types of research motivation and advisory relationships predict research productivity or how student and external factors interact together to predict research productivity. The lack of focus on advisory relationships is particularly surprising, given that the advisory relationship is an important factor in researcher development across other mental health professions (Kahn, ; Kahn & Schlosser, ) and graduate programs (Morrison & Lent, ). Such oversights in examining factors relating to research productivity can negatively affect research training and programming for CE doctoral students.…”

“…Such oversights in examining factors relating to research productivity can negatively affect research training and programming for CE doctoral students. Thus, to increase the readiness of counselor educators to teach and mentor doctoral students into strong researchers, we drew from previous research (Espino, ; Hoskins & Goldberg, ; Kahn, ; Kahn & Schlosser, ; Lambie et al, ; Lambie & Vaccaro, ; Morrison & Lent, ; Protivnak & Foss, ; Zhou, ) to examine how the student factors of research self‐efficacy and motivation, and the external variable of advisory relationship, relate to the research productivity of CE doctoral students.…”