Roles,Risks, and Benefits of Peer Mentoring Relationships in Higher Education

Successful peer mentoring in university settings is the result of relationships among students, mentors, and instructors. Findings from this study indicate that even in programs where training is ongoing and established, assumptions cannot be made about the understanding of the roles, risks, and benefits involved in such relationships. This study demonstrates that students, instructors, and mentors all have different perspectives about a mentor’s role and how that role should be enacted. Connecting link, peer leader, learning coach, student advocate, and trusted friend were identified as predominant roles enacted by mentors. Also described are risks and benefits for being or having a peer mentor.     

Mentoring,Undergraduate Research,and Identity Development: A Conceptual Review and Research Agenda

Mentored undergraduate research has been identified as a high-impact practice that enhances teaching and learning in higher education. It is reported to influence students’ academic, affective, and behavioral outcomes. However, there is only an emerging literature related to student outcomes associated with identity development, specifically students’ personal and professional identities. This integrative literature review examines the intersections and interrelationship across mentoring, undergraduate research, and student identity development. Its results uncover the complexity of the constructs, and their dynamic interrelationship, especially when viewed through the lenses of the sociocultural perspective grounded in the notion of mediated action. Two assumptions undergird this perspective: first, that all investigation takes place at the intersection of these constructs with mediated action, not individuals in isolation, as a unit of analysis; and, second, that any study of identity must focus on an understanding of identity as multiple, dynamic, and situated in personal and cultural contexts (institutional, disciplinary, and external community culture and values). Thus, the sociocultural perspective and its underlying assumptions shape the proposed research agenda. This research agenda has the potential to advance current knowledge related to mentored undergraduate research and the confluence of elements that contribute to student personal and cultural identities (academic, disciplinary, and professional). Findings from this work will inform our understanding of learning and knowledge construction in sociocultural context, and the trajectory of identity development of students engaged in high-impact learning experiences.     

Undergraduate Research Mentoring: Obstacles and Opportunities

Researchers and policy-makers in higher education increasingly espouse the view that undergraduate students should have the opportunity to learn about scholarship and research in the context of faculty-mentored research experiences. There is mounting consensus that mentored undergraduate research should be standard pedagogical practice in all undergraduate disciplines. Although high-impact, mentored undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative work (URSCW) requires significant resources, with faculty time and energy foremost among them. This article addresses the current gap between aspiration and effective execution of well-mentored URSCW, including the most prevalent obstacles (e.g. institutional, departmental, individual) to undergraduate mentoring. This article is written for academic leaders and institutional officers. It concludes with several specific recommendations for increasing the frequency of mentored URSCW experiences for undergraduates.     

Characteristics and Correlates of Supportive Peer Mentoring: A Mixed Methods Study

In this mixed methods study, we employed thematic analysis (TA) to examine peer mentors’ perceptions of benefits, challenges, and roles they experienced as mentors, as well as benefits and challenges experienced by first-year college students. We also utilized quantitative student ratings to classify mentors as highly, moderately, or minimally supportive in order to determine whether any subthemes from the TA appeared more or less frequently across the three groups. Highly supportive mentors reported greater camaraderie among their seminar students and fewer unmotivated students, but also fewer opportunities to provide support to students. Moreover, mentors’ and students’ perceptions in the minimally supportive group were discrepant; mentors in this group consistently reported providing more support than was perceived by mentees.     

The Development of a Scale on Assessing Peer Mentoring at the College Level

The purpose of my study was to develop and validate a scale to assess peer mentoring practices that aim to enhance learning. In the development process, 4 focus group interviews were conducted with 10 mentors and 12 mentees who participated in 8 weeks of peer mentoring. In addition to the literature, the findings from interviews were used to develop items. The 11-item form was administered to 126 college students. After the confirmatory factor analysis, the scale took on its final form with 10 items in 3 factors as Contribution to Mentee, Mentor Characteristics, and Peer Relationships. The results of confirmatory analysis were: GFI .92, CFI .99, NNFI .98, RMSEA .080, and Cronbach α coefficient was found to be .954.     

Near-peer Mentor Model: Synergy within Mentoring

The near-peer mentor model provides undergraduates and recent post-baccalaureates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields with an internship in two related disciplines, STEM research and STEM education. The near-peer mentor is both a mentored research intern and a mentor to pre-college students. During the 2013 summer, 43 near-peer mentors from seven sites reported on the benefits, challenges, and personal development they experienced during the internship. In addition, 1,328 pre-college students reported their perceptions of near-peer mentors. In this qualitative study, we indicate that learning by being mentored, while simultaneously acquiring the abilities to mentor and teach, is an effective model for promoting career advancement and the psychosocial support associated with the acquisition of professional behaviors.     

Teach Me and I May Remember,Involve Me and I Learn: Four Approaches to Peer Mentoring in Sport Psychology

ABSTRACT

Many students experience difficulties during their graduate education. Scholars have proposed mentoring as one potential strategy to support them. While often assumed to be the sole responsibility of faculty, graduate students are also in a position to provide meaningful mentorship to their peers. Thus, the purpose of the current article is to focus on the relationship between peer mentor and mentee and provide those interested in becoming peer mentors during their graduate training with a guide to deliberately structure their interactions and relationships with mentees. More specifically, the approaches of four former peer mentors are presented. These are all grounded in theory and have been labeled: (a) autonomy-supportive mentoring, (b) mentoring with resonance, (c) community-based mentoring, and (d) self-concept-based mentoring.     

Year-Long Peer Mentoring Activity to Enhance the Retention of Freshmen STEM Students in a NSF Scholarship Program

The last year of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded scholarship program was used to provide pseudo-formal peer mentoring activities to engineering, mathematics, and science undergraduates. A one-credit class was used to afford time for peer mentors and mentees to interact. During the fall semester, seniors augmented each week’s topics with personal experiences as to how they used the skill/topic that they had learned in their freshmen class in a future sophomore, junior or senior level course or on their co-op assignment. The last 10 min of every class were used for the seniors and freshmen to have an informal discussion. During the spring semester, the seniors served as an additional technical resource for the freshmen as they completed their class project. All participants found the one-credit class, project and peer mentoring activities beneficial to their education and would highly recommend the experience to incoming students.     

Mentoring Student Participation in Undergraduate Research: A Case Study of Twists and Turns from Two Perspectives

Abstract

Undergraduate research experiences provide excellent examples of high-impact practices. They rely on inquiry-based learning to provide important capstone experiences for the students. However, they are time-intensive for mentor faculty. In an attempt to scale up our faculty’s ability to offer such experiences, we combined a number of projects into one class: the Biomathematics Workshop. This article chronicles the experiences of one student from that class interspersed with comments from his mentor. Our goal is to illustrate some of the twists and turns in his journey and the unexpected but valuable lessons the student (and the mentoring team) learned.     

新建本科院校科研管理路径研究

近几年，我国高等教育事业有了较大发展，一批专科院校合并后建成 了本科高等院校。而新建本科院校在科学研究及科研管理工作上与老牌本科院校相比存在相当的差距，缩小差距，弥补不足，发挥优势，是高校科研管理工作者应当着重研究和解决的问题。     

Ten Salient Practices of Undergraduate Research Mentors: A Review of the Literature

This paper identifies salient practices of faculty mentors of undergraduate research (UR) as indicated in the extensive literature of the past two decades on UR. The well-established benefits for students involved in UR are dependent, first and foremost, on high-quality mentoring. Mentorship is a defining feature of UR. As more and different types of colleges and universities strive to meet student demand for authentic scholarly experiences, it is imperative to identify what effective UR mentors do in order to ensure student engagement, quality enhancement, retention, and degree-completion. We offer an original analysis of the literature on UR mentoring in which we identify 10 significant “lessons learned,” or evidence-based practices of effective UR mentors that apply broadly across disciplines, students, institutions, and mentoring approaches.     

Weaving Together Undergraduate Research, Mentoring of Junior Faculty, and Assessment: The Case of an Interdisciplinary Program

Scholars in teaching and learning value student research and program assessment as strategies to promote excellence in undergraduate education. Yet, in practice, each can be complex and difficult to sustain. This case study demonstrates how undergraduate research, mentoring of junior faculty, and assessment can be integrated in ways that enrich the educational experiences of students and the professional development of faculty and improve research on teaching and learning. The authors describe a lively undergraduate research project that became tied to the mentoring of assistant professors and then to program assessment. We conclude with recommendations for implementing such a project in other academic settings. Elizabeth Thomas is Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and teaches courses on inquiry in the social sciences, community psychology, and psychology and the arts. Her research examines sociocultural contexts for learning and development with a particular focus on the role of the arts and the potential of participatory action research strategies. Diane Gillespie is Professor and Associate Director of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (IAS) at The University of Washington, Bothell, received her Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln in Cultural and Psychological Studies in Education. She teaches multicultural social science courses and qualitative research. Her recent publications explore the importance of narrative for reflective teaching and learning, learning in small groups, and the role of human rights in nonformal education.     

The Impending Revolution in Undergraduate Science Education

There is substantial evidence that scientific teaching in the sciences, i.e. teaching that employs instructional strategies that encourage undergraduates to become actively engaged in their own learning, can produce levels of understanding, retention and transfer of knowledge that are greater than those resulting from traditional lecture/lab classes. But widespread acceptance by university faculty of new pedagogies and curricular materials still lies in the future. In this essay we review recent literature that sheds light on the following questions:

• What has evidence from education research and the cognitive sciences told us about undergraduate instruction and student learning in the sciences?
• What role can undergraduate student research play in a science curriculum?
• What benefits does information technology have to offer?
• What changes are needed in institutions of higher learning to improve science teaching?

We conclude that widespread promotion and adoption of the elements of scientific teaching by university science departments could have profound effects in promoting a scientifically literate society and a reinvigorated research enterprise.     

研究型大学专业学院本科生导师制实证研究

本科生导师制是目前高等教育教学改革中一种重要的人才培养模式。文章以北京航空航天大学仪器科学与光电工程学院为个案,针对为推进完全学分制和两校区办学模式实施的本科生导师制,通过问卷调查,分析关键环节,总结存在问题,提出改进建议,为进一步落实导师制积累经验。     

Latina Faculty Transcending Barriers: Peer Mentoring in a Hispanic-serving Institution

In this article, the authors conducted a research metasynthesis of publications by a group of Latina tenure-track faculty participating in a peer mentoring group, the Research for the Educational Advancement of Latin@s (REAL) collaborative, housed in one Hispanic Serving Institution. Due to the small representation of Latinas in the academy, the significance of non-hierarchical peer-mentoring structures is observed as empowering Latina faculty to develop personal and/or professional transformation. We asked, “What peer mentoring strategies can Latina faculty employ to navigate academia?” These faculty members’ experiences in building a scholarly community pose a counter-narrative to the historical isolation of underrepresented faculty in academia and suggest possibilities for women faculty of color to construct a personal and professional community in the academy.     

Peer Mentoring: A Citizenship Entitlement at Tanfield School

This paper describes the experience and benefits of peer led education at Tanfield School and how this led to the development of a peer mentoring scheme in the school, which was linked to citizenship education. The project aimed to strengthen existing links and ease the transition of pupils from feeder primary schools to the secondary school. The second aim was to improve the key skills of the mentors and have an impact on their learning. The project involved year 10 older students mentoring pupils in year 7. The findings of the evaluation are reported and it is argued that the aims were met.     

美国研究型大学本科生科研的模式

本科生科研活动是美国研究型大学本科教育的一个重要方面。根据美国本科生科研的预期目标和方式,可以将其大体划分为四种主要模式:降低辍学率的模式、科学职业发展的模式、研究学徒的模式和基于研究的学习的模式。     

Peer Mentoring: A Citizenship Entitlement at Tanfield School

This paper describes the experience and benefits of peer led education at Tanfield School and how this led to the development of a peer mentoring scheme in the school, which was linked to citizenship education. The project aimed to strengthen existing links and ease the transition of pupils from feeder primary schools to the secondary school. The second aim was to improve the key skills of the mentors and have an impact on their learning. The project involved year 10 older students mentoring pupils in year 7. The findings of the evaluation are reported and it is argued that the aims were met.     

大学生朋辈心理辅导的实践与探讨

当前大学生心理健康问题日益突出,而且大学生心理健康教育中存在方法单一和相关的软硬件不足等问题。朋辈心理辅导是高校开展心理健康教育的一种新形式,也是心理健康教育非常有效的方法之一。多年的大学生朋辈心理辅导的实践表明:大学生朋辈心理辅导的特点突出,实施方式多样,实践效果非常明显。大学生心理健康教育必须倡导朋辈心理辅导,并将其和思想政治教育有机结合起来,这对大学生形成客观的自我意识、培养积极的个性品质,使其向健康、文明的方向发展有重要意义。