‘I don’t feel so lonely anymore!’: Emerging and established researchers share their experiences of team supervision within a mentoring programme

Abstract

This study reports on an online transdisciplinary institutional mentoring initiative, the Sisonke Supervision Mentoring Programme. In 2024, a team of three established supervisors mentored a cohort of seven emerging supervisors over a period of 12 weeks. Employing an interpretivist paradigm, we inductively and deductively analysed transcripts using the Community of Inquiry framework. The aim was to ascertain how social, cognitive and teaching presences shaped the mentoring experience. Our results indicate that the mentees progressed from feeling alone and intimidated to realising that a safe, open space had been created where all communication and feedback were valued. Transdisciplinary Contribution: This study makes a novel contribution by highlighting the benefits of moving from the ‘lonely scholar’ model of supervision to a transdisciplinary research culture in which established and emerging supervisors interact with each other. The non-hierarchical environment of the mentoring group produced a safe and encouraging space in which a diversity of perspectives was valued by both mentors and mentees.