Understanding the role of the mentor in developing research competency among undergraduate researchers

Undergraduate research and creative activities are established high-impact practices that provide students with both advanced knowledge of their academic disciplines and the ability to apply that knowledge to creatively answer questions. At the center of these experiences, is the close relationship between a student researcher and a mentor. Using survey data from 69 recent undergraduate researchers at one university, we investigated the characteristics and impact of these mentor–mentee relationships. We found that active mentoring practices were a significant influence on how competent students perceived themselves as scholars. These practices were more influential than practical aspects of mentoring. Our findings reflect the complicated nature of mentoring in higher education and identify key characteristics of successful mentoring relationships. With greater understanding of this essential component of undergraduate research, we are equipped to make more informed decisions regarding faculty and administrative support for future undergraduate research and creative activities.     

Collaborative co-mentored dissertations spanning institutions: influences on student development

The Graduate Partnerships Program (GPP), established in 2000, links universities with National Institutes of Health (NIH) laboratories for predoctoral training. Several partnerships required that students create collaborative dissertations between at least one NIH and one university research mentor. More than 60 students have entered into these co-mentored research collaborations, and many others established them even though not required. Much was learned about the experiences of these and other GPP students by using structured interviews as part of a formal self-study of the GPP in 2005. Complications of trying to work with two mentors are managed through careful program design and mentor selection. In the collaborative model, students develop a complex set of scientific and interpersonal skills. They lead their own independent research projects, drawing on the expertise of multiple mentors and acquiring skills at negotiating everyone's interests. They develop high levels of independence, maturity, flexibility, and the ability to see research questions from different perspectives. No evidence was found that co-mentoring diminishes the normally expected accomplishments of a student during the Ph.D. Multi-mentored dissertations require skills not all graduate students may possess this early in training, but for those who do, they can promote rapid and extensive development of skills needed for collaborative, interdisciplinary research.     

A teacher education program in elementary science that connects content,methods, practicum,and student teaching

Conclusion To educate teachers who have adequate content knowledge, possess the necessary skills to implement effective teaching strategies, and are confident and have positive attitudes toward science and the teaching of science, alternative teaching models are necessary. The University of Wyoming model provides such an alternative. Based on observations and interviews of students and the mentor teachers, it is apparent that it has created a very positive response in prospective teachers who have participated in it. The Wyoming model provided an effective process to train future elementary teachers. Even though it focused on science, the basis is general enough that it could be successfully extended to other disciplines with only minor modifications; however, all of the major components of the Wyoming model are vital to its success. Content courses designed specifically for prospective teachers have been successful in giving the students the content knowledge and providing opportunities for effective modeling. The seminars provide strong mechanisms to connect content to methodology and make the content relevant to teaching and to children. Because of their modeling, peer coaching, and sharing their time and students, the mentor teachers are essential partners in helping the university educate future teachers. Finally, the cooperation of all partners—district administrators, teachers, science content and science education university faculty, and students—is necessary to provide early and continuous experiences to prospective teachers. This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. TTE-8851105). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF.     

Mentoring and Student Persistence in College: A Study of the Washington State Achievers Program

Using survey data on the third cohort of scholarship recipients in the Washington State Achievers (WSA) program, this study first examined how the assignment of college mentor and student engagement in mentoring vary based on student and institutional characteristics and then examined the relationship between mentor assignment and different mentoring aspects of the WSA program and student persistence in college. The results from this project indicated that Asian American students were more likely to have an assigned college mentor and that Hispanic students were more likely than White students to turn to their college mentors for support and encouragement and had a higher level of perceived importance of their overall experiences with mentors. Among all WSA recipients, having an assigned college mentor was positively related to the probability of persisting in college; among those who had an assigned college mentor, the probability of persisting was positively associated with the extent to which the recipients turn to mentors for support and encouragement and with their perceived importance of experiences with mentors.     

Graduate student/faculty mentoring relationships: Who gets mentored,how it happens,and to what end

Given the importance of mentoring in the academic context, this study proposed five objectives. Analyses of surveys from 145 students across 12 universities and diverse disciplines, revealed first of all, a demographic profile of the typical graduate student protégé and faculty mentor. Second, ten diverse communication strategies emerged that demonstrate how students initiate a mentoring relationship. Third, protégé evaluations of their initiation attempts revealed their efforts to be somewhat ineffective and unduly difficult. Fourth, students reported their mentors to provide primarily psychosocial, rather than career support. And fifth, proteges characterized their mentoring relationships as extremely positive and satisfying. Results throughout are, for the most part, independent of both protégé and mentor demographics (including ethnicity).     

MENTORING IN GERONTOLOGY EDUCATION: NEW GRADUATE STUDENT PERSPECTIVES

Involvement in a mentor-student relationship is an invaluable experience for new graduate students. These students frequently have opportunities and experiences provided to them by their mentor that may be otherwise unattainable. Mentoring can help new graduate students develop academically, personally, and professionally. This article describes mentoring in gerontology education from the perspectives and personal experiences of new graduate students in sociology and gerontology. Discussed in this article are types and phases of mentoring, the need for a mentor in gerontology education, selection a mentor, and issues related to mentoring and career advancement.     

Mentoring the mentors: student teachers' contributions to the middle school classroom

This study presents three case studies of teacher candidates in a Masters in Teaching (MIT) Program who interned in a well‐established middle school Professional Development School (PDS) in Washington State. Each of the three portraits reveals how student teachers can positively influence the learning outcomes of middle school students by bringing intellectual excitement and teaching renewal into the literacy classrooms of mentor teachers. Teacher interviews, teacher candidate reflections, and observations document the strengths brought to the classroom by teacher candidates, as well as the challenges they and their mentor teachers faced. The researchers conclude that flexibility and openness to learning on the part of mentor teachers are conditions that provide optimal support to teacher candidates and increase the opportunities for learning to occur for both mentor and mentee. This study also investigates outcomes for mentor teachers involved in collaborative inquiry with student teachers during an internship within the larger context of a partnership with education faculty at a university. The intention was to extend preliminary research by exploring more deeply the potential benefits of collaborative inquiry for the mentor teachers involved in partnership with a university.     

Faculty Motivation to Mentor Students Through Undergraduate Research Programs: A Study of Enabling and Constraining Factors

Undergraduate research experiences are a “high impact” educational practice that confer benefits to students. However, little attention has been paid to understanding faculty motivation to mentor undergraduate students through research training programs, even as the number of programs has grown, requiring increasing numbers of faculty mentors. To address this, we introduce a conceptual model for understanding faculty motivation to mentor and test it by using empirical data to identify factors that enable and constrain faculty engagement in an undergraduate research program. Using cross-sectional survey data collected in 2013, we employed generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 536 faculty across 13 research institutions to examine how expected costs/benefits, dispositional factors, situational factors, previous experience, and demographic factors predicted faculty motivation to mentor. Results show that faculty who placed greater value on the opportunity to increase diversity in the academy through mentorship of underrepresented minorities were more likely to be interested in serving as mentors. Faculty who agreed more strongly that mentoring undergraduate students was time consuming and their institution’s reward structures were at odds with mentoring, or who had more constrained access to undergraduate students were less likely to be interested in serving as mentors. Mid-career faculty were more likely than late-career faculty to be interested in serving as mentors. Findings have implications for improving undergraduate research experiences, since the success of training programs hinges on engaging highly motivated faculty members as mentors.     

Socialization to interdisciplinarity: faculty and student perspectives

Socialization has become a common framework through which to understand the doctoral student experience; however, the framework has predominately been used as a lens through which to understand traditional, single-discipline doctoral student experiences. Interdisciplinary doctoral programs are becoming increasingly common in both the United States and elsewhere but relatively little empirical research exists about this distinct experience. Through multiple interviews with 18 doctoral students and their 35 faculty members, we discuss differences in the socialization process for these students in regard to knowledge acquisition, investment, and involvement. Implications for practice and future research are included.     

A phenomenological study of teamwork in online and face-to-face student teams

Team-based projects are widely used in both traditional face-to-face and online programs in higher education. To date, the teamwork experiences of students in each modality have been documented primarily through evaluative research conducted over short spans of time and limited by a priori frameworks. The literature also reflects a lack of agreement about what constitutes the phenomenon of teamwork in each modality. In order to address these limitations, we conducted a phenomenological study examining the lived experiences of teamwork among students in both face-to-face and online MBA programs in Iran. Our analysis revealed striking commonalities in the experiences of both groups, including a shared desire for effective leadership to alleviate the problem of free riders, as well as substantial time and effort invested in retaining reliable teammates from one team project to another. In other respects, face-to-face and online students’ experience differed strongly. For example, while face-to-face participants pursued teammates with similar beliefs about how teamwork should be accomplished, online participants found themselves pre-occupied with staying connected with their teammates and struggled to establish common communication channels with each and every team member. Overall, our findings suggest that while training and support for student teamwork can partly build on the shared needs among students in both modalities, the nature of the experience in each modality may be so different in vital respects that engaging in one mode of teamwork does not necessarily prepare students to participate well in the other mode. Other implications and limitations of the research are discussed.     

Listening to student voices: student researchers exploring undergraduate experiences of university transition

This exploratory study presents a different approach to studying transition by involving students as researchers. The aim was to investigate how students talked about their experiences of transition in university. Nineteen first and second year undergraduate psychology students participated in focus groups and semi-structured interviews, conducted by student researchers, to provide in-depth accounts of their transition experiences. Findings showed that students held internal images about university, shaped through cultural experience, which were used to form expectations and interpret experiences. Social relationships were crucial, with the formation of groups facilitating adjustment in an unfamiliar environment. Students also described how negotiating transition contributed to personal changes. The research emphasises the salience of sociocultural factors in transition, and the relationship between transition and identity. Additionally, the value of including students as researchers to provide authentic access to student voices is highlighted.     

The problematic context of mentoring: evidence from an English language teaching department at a Turkish university

‘Mentoring’ has become the central issue of the ‘restructuring programme’ in education faculties in Turkey since 1998. This study aims to explore the participants’ perceptions and experiences about the concepts of ‘mentor’ and ‘mentoring’. A mentor and six English Language Teaching Department (ELT) students, who were in the final year of their training programme, participated in the study. A qualitative case study methodology was employed and data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with faculty students and mentors, semi‐structured journals kept only by the faculty students and debriefing notes kept only by the researcher. The findings demonstrate important issues about the nature, functions, benefits, and problems of the mentoring experienced by the faculty students at the particular department such as the need for developing selection criteria and training programmes for mentors and organising regular meetings and seminars about the partnership programme for mutual understanding and sharing opinions. Drawing on the data, recommendations and implications are suggested.     

A phenomenological study of community college students’ experiences with mentor teachers*

The aims of our current study were to (1) explore how community college science and mathematics majors made meaning of their experiences with mentor teachers as part of an early field experience and (2) understand the ways students’ experiences with mentors influenced their interest in teaching. Using interviews and written reflection activities, a qualitative phenomenological approach was used to understand and describe the meaning of the lived mentoring experiences of 17 community college science and mathematics majors. Five themes were identified to describe community college students’ experiences with mentor teachers in elementary, middle and high schools in a high-needs school district: (a) role modeling, (b) mutual respect and honesty, (c) responsiveness and guidance, (d) approachability and relatedness, and (e) broadening and shifting perspectives. Findings point to the potential of early relationships with mentor teachers as a means to shape community college students’ interest in teaching science or mathematics.     

Becoming and being a talented undergraduate student

This article reports on a case study of one New Zealand university faculty involved in the second phase of a three-phase study investigating the experiences of talented undergraduate students. Talented undergraduate students are a largely forgotten group in research. The current study sought to investigate who the talented students were, and then what their lived experiences as talented undergraduate students were. The study involved 128 undergraduate students who provided information about their experiences as high achieving students in an undergraduate degree program. Approximately 10% of all students enrolled across five different undergraduate degree programs in the faculty were defined as talented undergraduate students. These students were ethnically diverse and largely older than we had anticipated. The majority had not previously been identified as talented and many had been largely unsuccessful educationally, prior to embarking on their undergraduate studies. Several students experienced challenging personal circumstances, such as financial hardship and extensive family responsibilities. The grit or resilience demonstrated by these students seemed to explain the essence of the phenomenon of being a talented undergraduate student in this faculty.     

First year expectations and experiences: student and teacher perspectives

Transitioning from high-school to university can be difficult, and many university teachers feel students are often ill-prepared for the change. To investigate this 233 Humanities and Science students at the University of Adelaide were surveyed 6 months into their first year regarding experiences of teaching and learning at university. 189 students were also surveyed 18 months after commencement, to gain retrospective views of their transition year, as were lecturers and tutors of both groups. Results were compared to similar Orientation Week questionnaires that focused on expectations. Questions included reasons for selecting degrees, quality of teacher feedback and perceived impact of outside commitments. Even though student expectations, student experience, and teacher views differed, remarkable similarities emerged across the two degree programs (Science and Humanities). Our findings thus highlight a call for non-specialised transition programs to meet the needs of first year students and facilitate the transition from secondary to tertiary education. All authors contributed equally to this work.     

Peer mentoring for first‐year teacher education students: the mentors’ experience

Universities worldwide are developing peer mentoring programmes to assist first‐year students’ transition into university life. Awareness of the mentees’ experiences in the mentoring programme – the successes and challenges – contributes to ongoing planning for successful transition for first‐year students. Also, understanding the mentors’ experiences can contribute to the success of the programme and, more importantly, can lead to strong self efficacy for the mentors. This qualitative study appraises a mentoring programme for first‐year undergraduate students from the mentors’ perspective. The mentors’ experiences, both positive and negative, are discussed and a relational model of mentoring is presented. The results of this inquiry have implications for the development of future mentoring programmes, particularly in terms of mentor recruitment and preparation, if first‐year students are to be effectively oriented and supported in their transition to university study.     

Metaphors and maps in evaluation

This paper considers efforts made in evaluating a distance‐learning course, which was intended to prepare students for working on an undergraduate dissertation in business and economic areas. Course delivery had stressed a tutorial approach with an emphasis on individual mentor–student exchanges. Given the nature of the learning approach and the backgrounds of the students, an attempt was made to open the evaluation process to participants and allow them to articulate their learning experiences. In seeking this end, the evaluation employed both metaphor and mapping techniques to chart the experiences that had been provoked by the learning encounters.     

Photovoice as an evaluation tool for student learning on a field trip

Background: Photovoice is one method that enables an educator to view an experience from a student’s perspective. This study examined how teachers might use photovoice during an informal learning experience to understand the students’ experiences and experiential gain.

Design and methods: Participants in this study consisted of six students, three male and three female, ranging from ninth through twelfth grade at a rural Ohio high school, who attended a field trip to a biological field station for a four-day immersive science experience. Students were provided cameras to photograph what they believed was important, interesting, or significant during an immersive four-day science trip to a biological field station, individualizing their observations in ways meaningful to them, and enabling them to assimilate or accommodate the experiences to their schema.

Results: Analysis identified five positive benefits to use photovoice as an evaluation tool: teachers were provided qualitative evidence to evaluate student interaction on the field trip; teachers could evaluate the students’ photographs and captions to determine if the field trip met the learning objectives; students were empowered to approach the goals and objectives of the field trip by making the field trip personally relevant; students assimilated and accommodated the new observations and experiences to their own schema; students automatically reflected upon the learning experience as they captioned the photos.

Conclusions: Through photovoice, the teachers were enabled to qualitatively assess each student’s experience and learning from the field trip by illustrating what the students experienced and thought was significant; providing the teachers a method to evaluate all participating students, including those who are secretive or do not normally contribute to class discussions.     

Mentoring african american educational media and technology students

Summary Mentoring appears to help African-American students taking educational media and technology classes to have more confidence in their abilities to integrate technology. It has also provided them with an opportunity to express their concern about their lack of technology skills and anxiety about teaching. Furthermore, they were able to speak to someone who cares about them and who has also had similar concerns and anxieties. The fact that we were all African American facilitated communication and trust between each of my students and me. However, since there is typically a scarcity of African-American faculties to mentor them it is problematic to have same-race mentoring relationships for most African-American students at predominately White academic institutions. Research suggests however, that African-American students feel that having an African-American mentor is less important to them than having a mentor in their career field. With appropriate attitudes and the belief that cultural diversity is an asset and not a deficit, faculty of other races can effectively mentor African-American students. With this in mind coupled with the fact that research indicates that mentoring supports retention particularly for African-American students, all faculties should consider mentoring African-American and other minority students. Mentoring enables faculty to MEET their minority students where they are and move them forward. Remember to Model use of technology in the classroom, Engage students in dialogue in and out of class, Embrace their anxiety and point our their successes, and Team students with partners. Her research interest focuses on factors that support or inhibit preservice and professional teachers from integrating technology.