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How do undergraduate STEM mentors reflect upon their mentoring experiences in an outreach program engaging K-8 youth?

ABSTRACT: Background:Many university students are becoming involved in mentoring programs, yet few studies describe the impact of mentoring on the mentor. Additionally, many studies report that students graduating from college are not prepared to enter the workforce in terms of key career skills and/or content knowledge. Herein, we examine the impact of our program, NE STEM 4U (Nebraska Science, Technology, Engineering and Math for You), in which undergraduate (UG) mentors engage K-8 youth in after-school STEM experiments. The UGs reflected upon their experiences using post-mentoring evaluations, 12- and 24-week interviews, and exit surveys. Many of the questions asked of the mentors related directly to their own professional development, such as self-evaluation of communication, organization, and problem-solving skills, while other questions related to content knowledge and reflection. Results:Post-mentoring, UGs reflected on the delivery/teaching significantly more (p???0.001 for each) than other variables (i.e., their own content knowledge gains, the students' content knowledge gains, scaffolding the lessons, or overall professional growth). By analyzing the evaluations and interviews together, some significant, self-reported gains emerged. For example, 94.15% of the UG reported that the experience was beneficial to their education. Additionally, UG mentors self-reported significant gains (p???0.01 for each) moving from 12- to 24-weeks in the program in the categories of organization, STEM content knowledge, preparedness to teach, and engagement in the program. However, UG did not report significant gains in dependability. Importantly, when mentors ranked themselves at 24-weeks, they were blinded to (unaware of) the ranking they gave themselves at 12-weeks. Conclusions:This study helps to fill a gap in the literature by providing insight into the gains UG mentors report attaining after mentoring to K-8 students. These data suggest that participation by UGs in this program promoted self-reflection as well as self-reported gains related to career preparedness and STEM content knowledge.

SUBMITTER: Nelson K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6404414 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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How do undergraduate STEM mentors reflect upon their mentoring experiences in an outreach program engaging K-8 youth?

Nelson Kari K Sabel Jaime J Forbes Cory C Grandgenett Neal N Tapprich William W Cutucache Christine C

International journal of STEM education 20170210 1

<h4>Background</h4>Many university students are becoming involved in mentoring programs, yet few studies describe the impact of mentoring on the mentor. Additionally, many studies report that students graduating from college are not prepared to enter the workforce in terms of key career skills and/or content knowledge. Herein, we examine the impact of our program, NE STEM 4U (Nebraska Science, Technology, Engineering and Math for You), in which undergraduate (UG) mentors engage K-8 youth in afte ...[more]

PMID: 30931241

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Mentoring programs (ie, programs that connect youths with adult volunteers) have been shown to improve outcomes across the behavioral, social, and academic domains of youth development. As in other European countries, mentoring programs have few traditions in Norway, where interventions for multicultural youths are usually profession driven and publicly funded. Faced with the risk of disparities in education and health, there is a need to better understand this group's experiences and requirements relative to mentoring. This would also serve as a basis for designing and implementing digital support. OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study was to gain insight into multicultural youth mentees' and adult mentors' experiences and needs in the context of an ongoing mentoring program, how digital support (electronic mentoring) might address these needs, and how such support could be designed and implemented. METHODS:The study used a qualitative approach, with data from 28 respondents (21 mentees and 7 mentors). In total, 4 workshops with mentees as well as semistructured interviews with mentees and mentors were conducted. The sessions were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed thematically. RESULTS:In total, 3 main themes were identified from the experiences and needs reported by the mentees and mentors. These included a need for connection, help in achieving goals, and the need for security and control. Subthemes encompassed a desire to socialize with others, balancing the nature of the relationship, paying it forward, building trust, sharing insights and information with peers, goal-oriented mentees and mentors wanting to assist with goal achievement, and the fundamental need for privacy and anonymity in the digital platform. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of this study are supported by the literature on traditional mentoring, while also offering suggestions for the design of digital solutions to supplement the in-person mentoring of multicultural youth. Suggestions include digital support for managing the mentee-mentor relationships, fostering social capital, and ways of ensuring security and control. Features of existing electronic health apps can be readily adapted to a mentoring program context, potentially boosting the reach and benefits of mentoring.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:Outcome-based approaches to education and the inherent emphasis on programmatic assessment in particular, require models of mentoring in which mentors fulfil dual roles: coach and assessor. Fulfilling multiple roles could result in role confusion or even role conflicts, both of which may affect mentoring processes and outcomes. In this study, we explored how mentors conceptualise and enact their role in a multiple-role mentoring system and to what extent they experience role conflicts. METHODS:We conducted a constructivist grounded theory study at one undergraduate medical school. A purposive sample of 12 physician-mentors active in a programmatic assessment system was interviewed. Data analysis followed stages of open, axial and selective coding through which themes were constructed. RESULTS:Three predominant mentoring approaches were constructed: (i) empowering (a reflective and holistic approach to student development); (ii) checking (an observant approach to check whether formal requirements are met), and (iii) directing (an authoritative approach to guide students' professional development). Each approach encompassed a corresponding type of mentor-mentee relationship: (i) partnership; (ii) instrumental, and (iii) faculty-centred. Furthermore, mentors' strategies, focus, agency provided to students and perception of the assessment system characterised mentoring approaches and relationships. Role conflicts were mainly experienced by mentors with a directing mentoring approach. They used various coping mechanisms, including deviation from assessment guidelines. CONCLUSIONS:In multiple-role mentoring in the context of programmatic assessment, mentors adopted certain predominant mentoring approaches, which were characterised by different strategies for mentoring and resulted in different mentor-mentee relationships. Multiple-role mentoring does not necessarily result in role conflict. Mentors who do experience role conflict seem to favour the directing approach, which is most at odds with key principles of competency-based education and programmatic assessment. These findings build upon existing mentoring literature and offer practical suggestions for faculty development regarding approaches to mentoring in programmatic assessment systems.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Mentoring plays a pivotal role in workplace-based learning, especially in the medical realm. Organising a formal mentoring programme can be labor and time intensive and generally impractical in resource constrained medical schools with limited numbers of mentors. Hence, informal mentoring offers a valuable alternative, but will be more likely to be effective when mentors and protégés share similar views. It is therefore important to gain more insight into factors influencing perceptions of informal mentoring. This study aims to explore mentors and protégés' perceptions of informal mentoring and how these vary (or not) with gender, age and the duration of the relationship. METHOD:We administered an Informal Mentor Role Instrument (IMRI) to medical practitioners and academics from Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire was developed for the study from other validated instruments. It contained 39 items grouped into 7 domains: acceptance, counselling, friendship, parenting, psychological support, role modelling and sociability. RESULTS:A total of 103 mentors and 91 protégés completed the IMRI. Mentors had a better appreciation for the interpersonal aspects of informal mentoring than protégés, especially regarding acceptance, counselling and friendship. Moreover, being older and engaged in a longer mentoring relationship contributed to more positive perceptions of interpersonal aspects of mentoring, regardless of one's role (mentor or protégé). CONCLUSION:It can be concluded that the expectations of mentors and protégés differed regarding the content and aim of the interpersonal characteristics of their mentoring relationship. We recommend mentors and protégés to more explicitly exchange their expectations of the informal mentoring relationship, as typically practiced in formal mentoring. Additionally, in our study, seniority and lasting relationships seem crucial for good informal mentoring. It appears beneficial to foster lasting informal mentoring relationships and to give more guidance to younger mentors.

Project description:The growing application of social network-based theories and methods (Burt et al., 2013) in scholarship on mentoring illustrates that mentoring goes beyond dyadic relationships comprising a senior mentor and a junior protégé (Higgins & Kram, 2001). However, limited data exist on the state of developmental networks of university faculty. This study examines developmental network characteristics among mentors and mentees participating in an ongoing intervention that aims to enhance career success through improved mentoring. Cross-sectional data come from 81 faculty mentors and mentees at three universities in the Southwestern United States. Using the online Modified Mentoring Network Questionnaire (MNQ), participants provided information on relationships with developers, who are people that have taken concerted action, and provided professional and/or personal guidance to help participants advance in their careers. An individual's developmental network comprises relationships with developers. We conducted exploratory analyses examining key characteristics of mentors' and mentees' developmental networks. Participants received psychosocial and career support from an average of 4.9 developers (4.8 and 5.1 for mentors and mentees respectively) from 2.3 arenas (2.2 and 2.4 arenas for mentors and mentees, respectively). While the most common arena was the respondents' current job/position (62%, 64% and 59% for all participants, mentors, and mentees respectively), developers were from graduate school (11%, 6% and 17%); prior jobs/positions (13%, 16% and 9%) and family (8%, 5% and 11%). Our preliminary findings suggest that developers are important for university faculty and that methods and insights from social network analysis can be applied to examine their support networks. As our study is part of an ongoing longitudinal intervention, these findings will inform future analyses that will examine changes in developmental network characteristics and its impact on participants' careers.

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How do undergraduate STEM mentors reflect upon their mentoring experiences in an outreach program engaging K-8 youth?

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How do undergraduate STEM mentors reflect upon their mentoring experiences in an outreach program engaging K-8 youth?

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