UROP Project
Power, Capital, and Agency in Doctoral Advising Relationships
advising; survey research; student agency; mentoring; power
Research Mentor: Charlotte M. Hayes, she/her/hers
Department, College, Affiliation: Educational Leadership and Poloicy Studies, Education, Health, and Human Sciences
Contact Email: cmh18cw@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:
Department, College, Affiliation: Educational Leadership and Poloicy Studies, Education, Health, and Human Sciences
Contact Email: cmh18cw@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:
Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors. This research would be especially relevant to education, sociology, psychology, or other social science majors, but I am happy to work with any student who is interested in the scope of this work.
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-8, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors. This research would be especially relevant to education, sociology, psychology, or other social science majors, but I am happy to work with any student who is interested in the scope of this work.
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-8, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:
- Day: Monday, August 31
Start Time: 3:30
End Time: 4:30
Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/cmh18cw - Day: Tuesday, September 1
Start Time: 12:00
End Time: 1:00
Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/cmh18cw - Day: Wednesday, September 2
Start Time: 12:30
End Time: 1:30
Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/cmh18cw - Day: Thursday, September 3
Start Time: 1:30
End Time: 2:30
Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/cmh18cw - Day: Friday, September 4
Start Time: 3:00
End Time: 4:00
Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/cmh18cw
Project Description
This dissertation project examines power, capital, and agency in doctoral advising relationship within education related PhD programs. Drawing on theories of capital and power, this study creates two complimentary surveys - one for doctoral students, one for faculty advisors - to explore self perceptions of cultural, economic, social, and symbolic capital and how these perceptions are connected to advising relationships, agency, and responses to professional interactions. The full project will include three related papers: the first paper will focus on doctoral student survey responses, the second paper will focus on faculty advisor survey responses, and the third paper will examine connections across and between the student and faculty surveys to better understand how advising relationships are experienced.The undergraduate research assistant will help support the early stages of this project by helping develop the foundation for survey recruitment and survey design. One major component of this stage of the project involves building a faculty contact database from publicly available education related PhD program websites. Another major component will involve identifying and summarizing existing survey based research on cultural capital, economic capital, social capital, symbolic capital, student agency, mentoring, and advising relationships. Through this work, the undergraduate research assistant will gain experience with literature searches, survey development, sampling strategies, research organization, and the process of building a dissertation study from the ground up.
This project would be a good fit for students interested in higher education, graduate education, mentoring, sociology, student success, survey research, or social science research more broadly.
Research Tasks: The undergraduate research assistant will help with the following tasks:
1. Building a faculty contact database from publicly available education related PhD program websites to include faculty names, titles, emails, program affiliations, URLs, and relevant notes.
2. Conducting literature searches for published survey studies on cultural, economic, social, and symbolic capital.
3. Identifying existing survey measures related to student agency, advisor/advisee relationships, power, comfort raising concerns, help seeking, and advising/mentoring relationships.
4. Creating a survey measures metric that summarizes relevant scales, survey items, response options, sample populations, and reliability information when available.
5. Across all tasks: maintaining organized documentation of search strategies, sources reviewed, and decisions made during contact collection and literature review.
Skills that research assistant(s) may need: - Detail oriented and able to enter information accurately (required)
- Able to communicate clearly when questions or problems arise (required)
- Ability to work independently with guidance (recommended)
- Comfort using Excel (recommended)
- Ability to search academic databases or willingness to learn database search strategies (recommended)
- Interest in higher education, graduate education, mentoring, survey research, or social science research (recommended)
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Mentoring Philosophy
I see undergraduate research assistants as emerging scholars and collaborators. My goal is to provide structured guidance while helping the student develop transferable research skills in literature searches, survey development, data organization, research ethics, and scholarly communication. I aim to create a mentoring relationship grounded in care, transparency, reciprocity, and active listening. I want students to understand how each task contributes to the larger research process and to see themselves as meaningful contributors to knowledge production.My mentoring approach recognizes that students bring valuable lived experiences, questions, and strengths to the research process. I hope to create a space for students to ask questions, name areas they want to grow, and connect the project to their own academic and professional interests. I believe mentoring should include clear expectations, regular communication, and scaffolded opportunities for independence. I will provide training and examples at the beginning of each major task, offer feedback throughout the year, and encourage the student to reflect on what they are learning.
Through this project, I hope the student gains confidence navigating academic literature, organizing research materials, thinking critically about survey design, and understanding how research projects are developed. My goal is for the student to leave with stronger research skills, a clear sense of their own scholarly interests, and greater confidence in their ability to contribute to academic research.