About

Benita Barnes is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the College of Education. Her research areas include graduate education, student development theory, research methods, and historically Black colleges and universities. Her work focuses on understanding and improving graduate education and student development within these contexts.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• History

Selected publications

• A Look Back and a Look Ahead

  Routledge eBooks · 2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • History
  • Computer Science

  In traditional ethnography, the researcher inserts himself or herself in the field and studies 'the other'. At the same time, and in direct tension, it is the goal of the traditional ethnographer 'to remove the researcher's influence from the study and the presentation'. Autoethnography is an extension of ethnography in which the focus is on the researcher's experience. In autoethnographic research, the purpose of the study is to explore a social phenomenon present in the researcher's own group using his or her personal experience with that phenomenon. So it was also in their honor and in their memory that they donned the ring and was prepared to move full speed ahead. Mentoring in the context of graduate education has been described as 'a process that provides individuals with support and protection during their graduate training'.

  PublisherDOI

• Doctoral Student Satisfaction: An Examination of Disciplinary, Enrollment, and Institutional Differences

  Research in Higher Education · 2011-03-10 · 106 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Dissecting doctoral advising: a comparison of students’ experiences across disciplines

  Journal of Further and Higher Education · 2011-11-01 · 61 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The relationship a doctoral student develops with his/her advisor is a crucial aspect of doctoral training across disciplines; but research suggests that many such relationships fall short of a successful apprenticeship or mentoring ideal. Because disciplinary cultures and structures vary considerably, what makes for a successful advising experience within one discipline may not hold within another. This study explores the advising experiences of 870 US doctoral students within four disciplinary clusters at a large research university in order to identify possible differences in advising experiences across disciplines. Findings suggest that factors influencing advisor selection do differ across disciplinary clusters, but that students’ assessments of advisor quality along three different role dimensions, as well as their overall satisfaction with their advising relationship, are similar across all four clusters.

  PublisherDOI

• Guest Editors’ Introduction

  Equity & Excellence in Education · 2011-02-10

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• An Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Graduate Advising Survey for Doctoral Students

  International journal of doctoral studies · 2011-01-01 · 16 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  An international association advancing the multidisciplinary study of informing systems. Founded in 1998, the Informing Science Institute (ISI) is a global community of academics shaping the future of informing science.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Characteristics That Matter Most: Doctoral Students' Perceptions of Positive and Negative Advisor Attributes

  NACADA Journal · 2010-01-01 · 127 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The relationship doctoral students develop with their advisor is reputed to be one of the most important of their graduate education. Research shows that advisors play a critical role in many aspects of the doctoral degree process. However, the literature is sparse regarding doctoral students' perceptions of the positive and negative attributes of their advisors. We address that gap by identifying several recurring themes that emerged from a qualitative content analysis of open-ended survey responses from doctoral students regarding their advising experiences. Students spoke most positively about advisors who were accessible and helpful as well as socializing and caring. Conversely, they identified being inaccessible, unhelpful, and uninterested as negative attributes of advisors. We offer implications for advisors and advisees.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Differential Item Functional Analysis by Gender and Race of the National Doctoral Program Survey

  International journal of doctoral studies · 2009-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  An international association advancing the multidisciplinary study of informing systems. Founded in 1998, the Informing Science Institute (ISI) is a global community of academics shaping the future of informing science.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Nature of Exemplary Doctoral Advisors' Expectations and the Ways They May Influence Doctoral Persistence

  Journal of College Student Retention Research Theory & Practice · 2009-11-01 · 74 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The high attrition rate from doctoral programs has been called a “hidden crisis” in graduate education (Lovitts & Nelson, 2000). Previous research has identified a constellation of factors that may contribute to doctoral attrition. However, the literature suggests that one of the most powerful influences on doctoral persistence is the relationship doctoral students develop with their advisors (Berg & Ferber, 1983; Ferrer de Valero, 2001; Girves & Wemmerus, 1988). Although there is a growing body of literature that has explored the advisor-advisee relationship with respect to persistence, little attention has been given to the examination of the expectations that advisors have of their advisees and how these expectations might impact degree completion. Therefore, this exploratory qualitative study examined the expectations that 25 exemplary advisors have of their doctoral advisees. Findings revealed 5 specific expectations advisors hold that, if met, could lead to improved doctoral student retention.

  PublisherDOI

• The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century (review)

  Review of higher education/˜The œreview of higher education · 2009-06-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Reviewed by: The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century Benita J. Barnes George E. Walker, Chris M. Golde, Laura Jones, Andrew Conklin Bueschel, and Pat Hutchings. The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. 232 pp. Cloth: $40.00 ISBN: 978-04-470-19743-1. Just as Ernest Boyer has been largely credited with providing us with a new paradigm for thinking about what constitutes scholarship in academe based on his Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (1990), I have a hunch that Walker, Golde, Jones, Bueschel, and Hutchings, will be credited with providing us with a new paradigm for thinking about how to educate doctoral students based on their book The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century. More specifically, based on the ideas advanced in this book, these authors will be credited with providing a paradigm that shifts our thinking about doctoral education as the training of doctoral students to thinking about doctoral education as the formation of scholars who are prepared to be stewards of their disciplines for the 21st century. According to the authors, fully formed scholars are capable of generating and evaluating new knowledge, they are capable of conserving the most important ideas that are the legacy of past and current work, and they are capable of understand the ways in which knowledge transforms the world in which we live. In essence, fully formed scholars are capable of becoming stewards of their disciplines. The Formation of Scholars is the culminating product that came out of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s five-year project—the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID)—and is intended to help us rethink how we do doctoral education in the United States. The CID included 84 PhD-granting departments from six different fields representing 44 different institutions. The book, consisting of seven chapters, is a distinctive amalgamation of research, theory, and practice. In the first chapter, the authors introduce four major concepts: scholarly formation, integration, intellectual community, and stewardship. These concepts are threads that bind together this notion of the formation of scholars. Woven throughout the remainder of the book, they become the fabric from which a new form of doctoral education emerges in the 21st century. In Chapter 2, the authors provide a brief but thorough review of doctoral education in America identifying four distinct stages of development: establishment, expansion and funded research, retrenchment and innovation, and diversification and fragmentation. In the discussion of each stage, they highlight the major impact and influences that each period has had on the development of doctoral education. They conclude this chapter with a discussion of some of the major reform efforts in doctoral education, then look toward the future of doctoral education. The focus of Chapter 3 is reflecting on and identifying the purpose of doctoral education. In this chapter, the authors use three metaphors to aid in the process: mirrors, lenses, and windows. According to the authors, “Mirrors allow us to see ourselves, . . . lenses enhance [our] ability to see by sharpening focus and magnifying details, . . . [and] windows provide the opportunity to gaze at the work done by our neighbors” (p. 43). The chapter‘s primary thesis is that, in order for doctoral programs to improve, the faculty has to [End Page 537] be willing to honestly look at and reflect on what they are doing (mirrors), use various forms of evidence to determine if what they are doing is working (lenses), and be willing to share their effective practices with other departments as well as learning about effective practices from other departments (windows). Chapters 4 and 5 could be considered the focal chapters of the book as they address specific issues pertaining to the training of doctoral students or (better yet) the formation of scholars. The authors begin Chapter 4 by acknowledging the changing nature of the qualifications needed for newly minted PhDs interested in entering the professoriate. From there they turn the discussion toward some of the most salient experiences students need to have during their formation as well as some of the skills they will need upon completion...

  PublisherDOI

• The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century

  Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) · 2008-01-08 · 252 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  537-538

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Elizabeth A. Williams

  University of Sheffield

  3 shared

• Martha L. A. Stassen

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  3 shared

• Shuli Arieh Archer

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  2 shared

• Craig S. Wells

  1 shared

• John M. Dirkx

  1 shared

• Jennifer Randall

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  1 shared

• Linda Chard

  Children’s Village

  1 shared

• Susan K. Gardner

  1 shared