Randomized evaluation of a single semester transitional mentoring program for first year middle school students: a cautionary result for brief, school-based mentoring programs

Abstract

School-based youth mentoring is popular in the United States. There are reasons to believe that school-based mentoring might be beneficial, but research has found primarily small effects and some negative effects. This study describes a formal evaluation of a single semester mentoring program that was implemented within the context of a school-university-community partnership. Middle school students were randomly assigned to a school-based mentoring program (n=60) or a control group (n=60) during the first semester of middle school. Results suggest that random assignment to the mentoring program designed to ease the transition to middle school was associated with statistically significant decreases in reading grades and null effects on other measures, including school and teacher connectedness. These results reinforce the need to evaluate mentoring programs on a case-by-case basis and continue to innovate in the area of school-based mentoring until robust, replicable evidence-based procedures are identified. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.