Abstract
BackgroundMany 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.ResultsPost-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.ConclusionsThis 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.
Highlights
Many university students are becoming involved in mentoring programs, yet few studies describe the impact of mentoring on the mentor
In the first research question, we asked, “In what ways does an after-school outreach mentoring program for middle school students affect UG mentors in terms of personal development?” In the postmentoring surveys administered to all mentors at the end of the mentoring experience, a total of 94.2% of respondents indicated the experience was “beneficial to their education” (Table 4)
We proposed that the mentors would experience NE STEM 4U as a benefit to their education, fostering an increased sense of organization, STEM content knowledge, preparedness, dependability, and engagement
Summary
Many university students are becoming involved in mentoring programs, yet few studies describe the impact of mentoring on the mentor. By serving as tutors to younger students, the UG mentors act as “the more knowledgeable other” that is required for the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1934; Vygotsky 1986). They must decide on the scaffolds they need to use to help the younger students understand the material (Hmelo-Silver et al 2007). How UGs reflect on their mentoring experiences, and the content they taught, can inform the design of mentoring programs, the reflective components of those programs, in order to ensure academic benefit for the UGs as well as the students they are mentoring In this way, prompts for reflection after teaching according to Lin et al (1999) will promote “active monitoring, evaluating and modifying (of ) one’s thinking” Promoting selfevaluation after mentoring can encourage the UGs to consider both their own content knowledge and how to best support younger students in life science lessons (Phillips & Bond 2004)
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