How Do Engineering Graduate Mentors Conduct Process Academic Guidance?

The Procedural Academic Guidance in the context of China refers to that the engineering mentors focus on the whole process of graduate training and provide guidance with different contents and emphases at each stage of graduate learning and research,which is consistent with the requirements of strengthening graduate procedural management that we emphasize at present.Taking the Western Dynamic Supervision Concept as the point-cut and the interview method as the main research method,the author selects the engineering mentors with certain guidance experience and some graduate students in T University in China as the research object to explore how the engineering mentors in China carry out Procedural Academic Guidance,further develop and improve the Dynamic Supervision Concept in combination with the chinese context.The interview results show that engineering mentors roughly divide graduate students’ learning and research into four stages: scientific research start,determination of topics,experimental research and research results display,and provide academic guidance with different contents in the four stages.Specifically,in the initial stage of scientific research,mentors mainly clarify the degree of "dependence" of graduate students through student selection and "preschool literacy",and take the degree of "dependence" as the general basis for formulating postgraduates’ training plan and follow-up guidance.In the project determination stage,engineering mentors usually guide graduate students to determine the project direction independently based on their comprehensive engineering projects and interests,gather the strength of literature and peers to help graduate students determine specific topics,and guide their research plans and ideas on this basis.In the experimental research stage,the mentors mainly provide experimental guidance to seek tension between "neglect" and "control".On the one hand,they encourage postgraduates to explore independently,on the other hand,they also have close supervision and appropriate control,with the goal of cultivating graduate students’ comprehensive research ability.In the research achievement display stage,the mentors mainly help the graduate students finally complete their graduation thesis through the promotion from the outline to the draft and then to the defense.In addition,most engineering mentors also pay more attention to the follow-up development of postgraduates,providing postgraduates with career selection suggestions,overseas study and employment recommendations,post employment help,etc.,and some postgraduates will also give back to mentors and research groups after they have certain abilities,so as to form a benign mutual assistance situation between mentors and students.Overall,the Procedural Academic Guidance of engineering presents three characteristics: the guidance process presents the engineering characteristics of "turning around the project",the complementary large-scale and group meetings run through the process guidance,and the academic guidance is based on rules and regulations and "home" culture.There are differences in the degree of autonomy and theoretical depth of topic selection,the leniency and strictness of experimental process and achievement requirements,and the formality and strictness of node assessment.In addition,this study further improves and develops the Dynamic Supervision Concept combined with the Chinese situation,which is specifically reflected in clarifying the four-stage theory of graduate learning and research applicable to the Chinese situation,localizing the Dynamic Supervision Concept combined with empirical research,and expanding the dynamic supervision of mentors to graduate career guidance.Finally,it reflects on the process academic guidance of engineering mentors and puts forward some suggestions: combined with the characteristics of engineering,it aims to promote the development of postgraduates;Focus on key nodes and pay attention to the whole process of postgraduate training;Attach importance to academic guidance and provide non academic support.