Training for a Marathon: Doctoral Student Socialization in an Online Environment
Abstract: Whereas socialization is viewed as important to student performance, success, and satisfaction within doctoral programs, it differs in online education as compared to traditional education. Although the goal of all doctoral programs is to produce independent scholars, doing so in online environments can be difficult, given the limited opportunities for students to interact with each other and faculty members. Online universities might implement training procedures to help online doctoral mentors to overcome the unique challenges and capitalize on the unique opportunities in online doctoral education. Institutions might improve the credibility of their online doctoral programs by attending to socialization. This roundtable discussion will focus on the socialization training provided to dissertation chairs at an online university that primarily awards graduate degrees. Information about and potential strategies for improving socialization experiences in an online environment will be offered.