Mentoring APA Doctoral Students and Choosing a PhD program

What's New in Adapted Physical Education

As explained in an earlier post, "The journey of choosing to pursue, and actually pursuing doctorate are very difficult and individual". Somewhat in a continuation of the recent podcast episode focused on how PhD students choose and navigate a PhD program in the area of adapted physical activity (APA), for this episode we interviewed a panel of APA doctoral advisers that are a part of a newly formulated APA Consortium. More specifically, this episode included the well-known scholars: Dr. Martin Block (University of Virginia), Dr. Deborah Shapiro (Georgia State University), Dr. Sean Healy (University of Delaware), and Dr. Samantha Ross (West Virginia University). Within the episode we specifically discuss their research interests, how to navigate the PhD journey, and the qualities of a good PhD mentor. In addition, we discuss how the APA Consortium is beginning to train 28 high quality and competent scholars at the doctoral degree level at nine universities across the country, to serve as higher education faculty, and train pre-service physical education teachers and related service professionals to appropriately educate youth with disabilities. This training will occur through coursework, practicum, a consortium-wide enrichment program, community-based service-learning programs, and research engagement. This consortium includes East Carolina University, Georgia State University, Ohio State University, Old Dominion University, Oregon State University, Texas Women’s University, University of Delaware, University of Virginia, and West Virginia University.