The goal of this session is to help advisors and students more deeply understand the concept of psychological safety, how it forms in advising relationships, and how it impacts graduate student experiences. Psychological safety refers to people feeling safe to be themselves and express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas without fear of negative consequences, rejection, or humiliation (Edmondson, 1999). Research shows that leaders play a crucial role in building psychologically safe environments (Edmondson & Bransby, 2022). In graduate programs, doctoral students often rely on leadership from advisors as they navigate coursework, milestones, and assistantships, making it important for advisors to foster psychologically safe environments. The presence of psychological safety is positively correlated with creativity, innovation, and the ability to cope with stress, which can reduce burnout (Edmondson & Bransby, 2022; Edwards et al., 2021). These skills are vital to the doctoral student experience, underscoring the importance of building psychologically safe advising relationships.
We collected data through a survey and interviews with doctoral engineering students to further understand their experiences with their doctoral advisors, their feelings of psychological safety, and their personal and professional outcomes. Using one set of interviews, we have developed composite narratives that tell the story of PhD students navigating their program and their relationship with their advisor. These narratives provide a personal, tangible example of how doctoral students are impacted by their feelings of psychological safety with their advisors, and serve as an important teaching tool for faculty, staff, administrators, and students alike. In this session, participants will be presented with these narratives generated from real PhD students’ experiences. They will be asked to use these narratives to reflect on their own mentoring experiences and think more deeply about how psychological safety forms in mentoring relationships, as well as what steps both students and advisors can take to foster psychological safety. At the end of the session, faculty, staff, and administrator attendees will have a better understanding of psychological safety and how to foster it in their own advising relationships. Student attendees will have a framework to better advocate for themselves and understand the roles of their mentors. Attendees will also understand the critical role of psychological safety in advising relationships and how psychological safety impacts student outcomes.
Trigger warning: The stories shared in the student narratives contain information that may be distressing for some participants. Topics include, but are not limited to: bullying, micromanagement, unresponsiveness, unpredictable behavior, professional shame, emotional distress, yelling, immigration fears and concerns, funding uncertainty, threats, and academic rejection.
