Textual comparison of role model and mentor profiles developed to increase participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM

Abstract

This research work-in-progress paper is part of a larger project that aims to develop personal values-based matching of role models, mentors, and coaches with the populations they serve. In previous work, we developed a process for generating profiles of role models that reflected the values of the population the role models were serving (underrepresented minority students in STEM). In short, we performed qualitative emergent thematic analysis on focus group data from underrepresented minorities in STEM to identify the qualities this population valued in role models. These qualities were used to develop a survey for potential role models (STEM alumni of the same institution) and the survey was subsequently used to develop profiles for the role model candidates. These profiles were well received by our original focus group participants. We have since run an analogous study at another institution using nearly the same survey to develop profiles of potential mentors. Here the mentors are upperclassmen, and the population they are serving includes all students in introductory STEM courses, though we remain particularly interested in underrepresented minorities. In this paper we present a simple textual comparison of the two sets of profiles as a first step in a comparative analysis of these profiles. The results will inform future work as we seek to further differentiate between role models, mentors, and coaches, and develop a robust method for increasing access to/successful matching of these important support structures and the students who need them.