Researching Mentoring for Career Development: Challenging Orthodoxies

This paper explores some problematic research methodology issues which have emerged through research into mentoring for career development. Through an examination of existing literature on mentoring, it addresses questions about how best to capture the mentoring experience and outcomes. Specifically, it provides an overview of this literature in terms of the definitions of mentoring that have guided research, the research methods used to evaluate the mentoring experience and define the outcomes of mentoring. It also examines the focus of mentoring research in terms of individual and organisational benefit and the capacity of existing research into mentoring to capture the experiences of each individual within a mentoring relationship. Following this examination, some gaps in mentoring literature are identified and recommendations in respect of appropriate research methods are made