Evaluating a formalised peer mentoring programme: student voice and impact audit

Over the past 10 years, mentoring of children and young people has become an increasingly important feature of social policy in the United Kingdom. This is evidenced in the rapid growth in the number of mentoring schemes operating in a range of educational settings. In 2006 the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation was contracted by the Department for Education and Skills to pilot nationally a formal and sustainable peer mentoring scheme in 180 secondary schools in England, generating 3600 matched pairs. The evaluators, appointed by the Department for Education and Skills, had the overarching aim of supporting the development of evidence‐based peer mentoring and enhancing the capacity of those involved to engage in evaluation practice. This article reports the methodology and main findings of the evaluation of the programme. It was evident that schools engaged positively and productively with the project and with this structured form of mentoring. Qualitative interview evidence, self‐report data from the ‘About Me’ scale, and the teacher and mentee and mentor ‘voice’ attested to benefits, but impact data (attendance, attainment, behaviour) did not provide corroborative evidence of a positive effect.     

Specialization by university presses

Just as scholars now specialize, so do university presses. This article explains why university presses designate publishing lists, discusses how they determine their list-building areas, and analyzes the listbuilding designations of eighty leading American university presses. Listbuilding at university presses is heavily weighted toward the humanities and social sciences, with less emphasis on the natural sciences. Paul Parsons is R.M. Seaton Professor in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Kansas State University and author ofGetting Published: The Acquisition Process at University Press (University of Tennessee Press, 1989).     

The academically ‘at risk’ student: a pilot intervention programme and its observed effects on learning outcome

Previous research has indicated that there is a strong relationship between the approaches to studying adopted by individual students and their qualitative perceptions of the context in which learning takes place. This study identified students who were considered to be academically at risk and involved them in an intervention programme whose aim was to produce a qualitative change in perceptions of certain key elements of the learning context.The intervention programme consisted of five forty-five minute sessions in which the focus was on three elements of the learning context, namely, the teacher/student relationship, perceptions of textbooks and notes, and the nature and role of tests and examinations.Subsequent interviews indicated that most of the participating students had experienced a qualitative improvement in their perceptions of these contextual elements and that they perceived an attendant improvement in the quality of their learning. Quantitative analysis of the relative class positions before and after the intervention suggests that these changes were accompanied by improved performance. The implications of these findings for teaching practice in higher education are discussed.