Relationships Among Mentoring Support and Student Success in a Chinese First-Year Experience Program

Abstract

China’s higher education reform led to the rise of private universities leading to a surge in the number of private universities, which have lacked funds and resources compared to their public peers. While private universities have allowed for expanded access to higher education, quite a few students have not been well prepared for study at this level. Therefore, private colleges in China need to provide more resources for students to help them succeed. Western countries, with more robust histories of private higher education, adopted the strategy of peer mentoring to solve the problem of first-year students’ retention, which guided significance to solve the dilemma in Chinese private universities. Because of their short history, there have been few quantitative studies on peer mentoring in private colleges in China. To fill this gap, 1,153 undergraduate students from a private college in China were recruited for this quantitative research study on peer mentoring. Through factor analysis, the College Student Mentoring Scale (CSMS) was validated in a private college in Mainland China. Furthermore, the correlation between mentoring support and college integration and academic success was examined for all first-year students, female students, first-generation students, and different major groups. The results showed only Psychological and Emotional Support (PES) and Academic Knowledge subject Support (AKS) were validated in CSMS of four constructs. Pearson correlations were used, and significant positive correlations between mentoring support and student integration were found for all first-year students, female students, first-generation students, and different major groups. Spearman correlations were used, and significant positive correlations between mentoring support and academic success were found for female students, business major group students. Significant positive correlations between AKS and academic success were also found for first-generation students. This study has some limitations in the generality of results, such as cross-sectional survey and self-reported data. But it does provide an important validation tool for the CSMS in Mandarin and within a Chinese setting for the first time. In future studies, it is recommended that CSMS can be used in different public and private institutions in Mainland China.