Fostering students’ reflection and employability competences through a mentoring programme in higher education

Abstract

Making sure that students are well prepared for their first job means that higher education put more emphasis on the development of their employability competences and reflective abilities. Mentoring programmes are considered viable learning methods to support students’ reflection and competence development and can be seen as boundary crossing practice. This chapter discusses a mixed-method study that explored the relation between mentoring, reflection and employability competences of students at a Dutch university, involved in a mentoring programme with an academic and professional mentor. The data consist of quantitative pre- (n = 71) and post-test (n = 54) data and qualitative focus group data (n = 27). Correlation analyses, an analysis of variance (ANOVA), and thematic analysis were conducted. The quantitative results show that mentored students scored significantly better for a selection of reflection dimensions and employability competences. The qualitative data highlighted the importance of mentoring meetings to structure the mentoring process in which a mentor establishes an open relationship and offers psychosocial and career-related support. Moreover, the contributions from professional mentors is highly valued because of their knowledge of the labour market and the external perspective taken. The findings support the relevance of mentoring as an educational intervention and leads to concrete suggestions for designing mentoring programmes.