University Mentors Research Articles

Students supporting students on the PhD journey: An evaluation of a mentoring scheme for international doctoral students

This qualitative study presents findings from the evaluation of a pilot mentoring scheme developed in Liverpool Business School. The majority of studies on university mentoring schemes have focussed on undergraduate or taught postgraduate students, less attention has been given to doctoral students. The purpose of this scheme was to enhance peer support mechanisms for a group of international doctoral students to enable them to adapt to a new cultural, educational and social environment. Data obtained from two focus groups demonstrated that the scheme was broadly successful and provided benefits to both mentors and mentees. The evaluation raised some general issues concerning cultural integration and the way in which higher education institutions support doctoral students and international doctoral students in particular.

大学创业教育支持与导师制度对大学生创业意图影响关系中 : 自我效能感的中介效果研究

大学创业教育支持与导师制度对大学生创业意图影响关系中 : 自我效能感的中介效果研究

"The Big Sister Model in Educational Training” The Art of Mentoring and fellow Mentoring" (BSM)

In an ongoing search for new models to streamline college training and mentoring, a different training model was developed called the "Big Sister Model". This model was experienced for five years in the kindergarten-training program at the Kay College of education in Israel. Within this model, two female students are trained in each kindergarten: one in the third college year and the other in the second. Together with kindergarten staff, the two students plan the class curriculum and activities. A third-year student, who possess additional one year experience in practicing (veteran), has the opportunity to mentor a 2nd year student who also has the opportunity to observe the training of the third year and get more experience. This process provides a good staff relationship and develops interpersonal relations based on social and psychological elements, which points to a huge positive change in behavior, interpersonal relations and its motivations. In peer mentoring, the mentor accompanies, analyzes, supports, instructs, empowers and provides necessary knowledge in the mentoring process. It undergoes a process of empowerment, leadership, and success (Power et Al, 2011). This study is a continuous action research that aims at examining the effectiveness of the “Big sister” training model. When a third-year student mentors a second-year student, her personality will be accordingly empowered. Moreover, she is exposed to another year of the second year training program, once when she receives guidance in the second year and once more as a 3rd year student mentor. The second-year student enjoys continuous training throughout the day with a close colleague in addition to the training teacher and pedagogical mentor. In addition, she reveals the contents and skills of the third year allowing her ongoing internalization over time all third-year program. In the effectiveness of the training, we also sought to deeply examine the areas that this model promotes and strengthens as well as, how much the students perceive it as a training benefactor compared to the regular model in a control group.

The influence of mentoring on the academic trajectory of a 17-year-old Black male college sophomore from the United Kingdom: a single case study

There has been a national- and state-level call for colleges and universities to develop targeted mentoring programs for Black males. However, there is limited published scholarship that has investigated the experiences of non-U.S.-born Black males in these college mentoring programs generally, and at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) specifically. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the experiences of a 17-year-old Black male college sophomore from the United Kingdom who enrolled in a HBCU male-focused mentoring program. Findings reveal that he benefited from pre-college mentoring as he developed strategies to respond to racist encounters during his K–12 schooling in the United Kingdom. In the university mentoring program, he benefited most from one-on-one mentoring opportunities with university officials. Implications for universities and future research are discussed.

Effects of Ketogenic Diet in Young Adult and Old Rats

Ketogenic diets (KD) have been promoted extensively for weight loss and health. However, their effects in aged skeletal muscle are not well‐defined. In this study, we tested the effect of a ketogenic diet in young adult (YA; 5 month old) and old (O; 28 month old) male Fisher 344 rats (n = 4–6/group). Rats were assigned to either standard chow (STD; Evigo Teklad Rodent Diet, 8604; 32% protein, 14% fat, 54% carbohydrate) or ketogenic diet (KETO; Envigo Teklad Custom Diet, TD.10911; 22.4% protein, 77.1% fat, 0.5% carbohydrate) for 4 weeks, and weighed weekly. KETO rats were pair fed isocalorically with STD chow rats within each age group with the YA rats eating 0.132 kcal/g body weigh/day, and O rats eating 0.109 kcal/g body weight/day. After 24 or 25 days glucose tolerance testing was performed by fasting the rats for 6 hours followed by an injection of 1 mg glucose/g BW. Blood glucose concentration was measured from tail blood immediately before and 15, 30, 60 and 120 minutes after the glucose injection. Ketones were also measured from tail blood immediately before the glucose injection. After the 4‐week treatment period, rats were euthanized and gastrocnemius muscle was collected for determination of mitochondrial respiration and AMP‐activated protein kinase (AMPK; an important stimulator of glucose and fatty acid metabolism) phosphorylation. We found that KETO feeding increased blood ketone levels, albeit non‐significantly (p=0.065), in YA but not O rats. KETO resulted in significant weight loss within 2 weeks in both YA and O rats. Glucose tolerance was impaired in O‐STD vs. YA‐STD rats, while KETO impaired glucose tolerance in YA, but not O rats. KETO increased mitochondrial respiration in YA, but not O rats. AMPK phosphorylation was decreased by KETO vs. STD diet in YA, but not O rats. We conclude that a KETO diet induces a significant drop in body weight and enhanced mitochondrial respiration, but impaired glucose tolerance in YA rats, suggesting a shift from glycolytic to oxidative metabolism. Somewhat surprisingly, these KETO‐induced changes in YA rats are associated with decreased AMPK activation. O rats are resistant to all of these effects of KETO diet except for weight loss, suggesting impaired metabolic plasticity with old age. Further study will be required to elucidate the exact molecular pathways underlying these shifts.Support or Funding InformationThis research was supported by Brigham Young University Mentoring Environment Grants (MEG) and Gerontology Research Grants.

The Association of Temperament and Character of Mentors/Mentees with Satisfying Formal Mentoring of First-Year Medical Students

Background: There are limited data regarding personality matching of mentors and mentees in medical academic settings. Objectives: The current study aimed at investigating the relationships between satisfaction of 1st-year medical students with the mentoring program and the mentor/mentee characteristics of temperament and character. Methods: In this prospective study, 99 first-year medical students (59.6% female) were enrolled as a part of formal university mentoring program during the 2012 - 2013 academic year. The mentees and mentors were gender-matched. Participation in the program and the study was voluntarily. Results: Overall, by employing the temperament and character inventory it was possible to correctly predict the satisfaction of a mentoring relationship within the range 65% to 84% through linear, logistic, and non-linear models. Mentees’ cooperativeness and mentors’ novelty-seeking were the significant predictors of total satisfaction scores (R2 = 0.131; P < 0.05). With an excellent prediction accuracy (Pseudo R2 = 0.648, P < 0.05); the higher scores of mentors’ novelty-seeking, mentees’ self-directedness and self-transcendence were the significant predictors of the highest quartile of satisfaction. In contrast, higher scores of mentors’ harm avoidance predicted the lowest quartile of satisfaction. Non-similar harm avoidance, higher novelty-seeking of mentors than mentees, and higher self-transcendence scores of mentees than mentors were significant predictors of mentees’ satisfaction. Conclusions: The current study results revealed that personality dissimilarities between mentors and mentees considerably influenced the satisfaction of mentees, which should be confirmed in prospective interventional studies.

Application of mentor-mentee two-way evaluation in the academic ethics trainings for post graduate students

Academic ethics is closely related to the construction of the world class disciplines, the academic ethics of university mentors and their graduate students are especially important to the development of disciplines and Universities. This article was based on a survey which used two-way evaluation conducted at Peking University Health Science Center, investigated the cognition, current status, misconduct and possible causes, as well as related trainings of academic ethics between mentors and mentees, furthermore, this article also analyzed the application of mentor-mentee two-way evaluation in the academic ethics trainings for post graduate students. Key words: Two-way evaluation; Post graduate student; Academic norms

Interactive online physics labs increase high school students’ interest

Here we describe the incorporation of a web-based application focusing on circuits for the physics high school classroom as part of an outreach program. The program involves college mentors creating and implementing science lessons in collaboration with the classroom teacher. Focusing on the challenge of understanding circuit design, a technology rich module is employed to improve learning and motivation of the students. The students’ conceptual understanding as well as interest in circuits was increased, the college mentors earned valuable teaching and mentoring experience and the teacher enjoyed more one-on-one time as well as assistance with students.

Constructing meaning in a community of learners: the ‘star’ pattern of talk

We present findings from an in-depth study on a school-based multi-disciplinary learning community in the context of practice teaching in university pre-service education. We elaborate on one of the three predominant patterns of talk identified, the ‘star’ pattern, and show how it created particular power relations in the discourse which eventually triggered occasions for learning in community. The community of learners consisted of 11 student teachers and a university mentor who functioned as a tutor responsible for facilitating the group discussion. The group met on a weekly basis throughout an entire academic year (23 meetings). Data collection included recordings of all meetings and semi-structured interviews with all participants including the mentor (altogether 25 interviews). Findings suggest that the ‘star’ pattern of talk constitutes a powerful channel for promoting learning in the context of a community of learners.

From Reluctant Online Contributor to Mentor: Facilitating Student Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Online

From Reluctant Online Contributor to Mentor: Facilitating Student Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Online

Dietary Nitrate (NO3−)‐Induced Increases in Skeletal Muscle Contractile Function: High vs. Low Responders

We have recently reported that acute ingestion of dietary NO3−, an important source of nitric oxide (NO) via the enterosalivary pathway, increases the maximal speed and power of skeletal muscle in healthy individuals, in athletes, and in patients with systolic heart failure. This ergogenic effect is hypothesized to be the result of NO‐mediated stimulation of soluble guanyl cyclase and hence production of cyclic GMP. However, consistent with studies of the effects of dietary NO3− on blood pressure or aerobic exercise performance, not all of the subjects we studied previously demonstrated comparable improvements in muscle speed and/or power. In the present investigation we sought to identify factors contributing to this interindividual variability. Eighteen healthy subjects (12 men and 6 women) ranging in age from 22 to 79 (mean 48±20) y were studied used a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, crossover design. On one occasion, subjects were tested 2 h after ingesting a concentrated beetroot juice (BRJ) supplement containing 11.2 mmol NO3−. On another, they were tested 2 h after ingesting BRJ depleted of NO3− (placebo). Breath NO was measured periodically as an indicator of NO bioavailability, and muscle contractility was assessed using isokinetic dynamometry. For all subjects combined, dietary NO3− increased (P&lt;0.05) peak knee extensor torque, and hence power, at 6.28 rad/s (~½maximal velocity; Vmax) from 6.38±2.16 to 6.53±2.33 W/kg, or by 2.4%. Individual changes, however, ranged from −21.5 to +26.8%, with 14 of 18 subjects being positive “responders”. This interindividual variability was not significantly correlated with age (i.e., r=−0.19; P=0.45), with in vivo indicators of muscle fiber type distribution, i.e., baseline Vmax (i.e., r=0.10; P=0.68) or fatigability (i.e., r=−0.14; P=0.58), or with the increase in breath NO in either absolute (i.e., r=−0.21; P=0.41) or relative (i.e., r=−0.18; P=0.46) terms. In contrast, significant positive correlations were observed between the magnitude of the dietary nitrate NO3− ‐induced increase in power and female sex (i.e., r=0.53; P=0.02) and dose of NO3−/kg of body mass (i.e., r=0.47; P=0.05). However, the latter correlation appears to have simply been the result of the women being lighter on average, as there was no correlation between the relative improvement in muscle power and dose of NO3−/kg of body mass when the men (i.e., r=0.14; P=0.66) or women (i.e., r=0.26; P=0.62) were analyzed separately. We conclude that the magnitude of the dietary NO3− ‐induced increase in muscle power is independent of age, baseline muscle function, or increase in whole‐body NO bioavailability, but that women generally benefit more than men. The effect of NO3− dose on muscle speed and power, on the other hand, awaits further study.Support or Funding InformationResearch reported in this publication was supported by the Barnes‐Jewish Hospital Foundation, the Washington University Mentors in Medicine and C‐STAR programs, and Washington University Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences grant UL1 TR000448 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NIH.

Specialty preferences and motivating factors: A national survey on medical students from five uae medical schools.

Workforce planning is critical for being able to deliver appropriate health service and thus is relevant to medical education. It is, therefore, important to understand medical students' future specialty choices and the factors that influence them. This study was conducted to identify, explore, and analyze the factors influencing specialty preferences among medical students of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A multiyear, multicenter survey of medical student career choice was conducted with all five UAE medical schools. The questionnaire consisted of five sections. Chi-squared tests, regression analysis, and stepwise logistic regression were performed. The overall response rate was 46% (956/2079). Factors that students reported to be extremely important when considering their future career preferences were intellectual satisfaction (87%), work-life balance (71%), having the required talent (70%), and having a stable and secure future (69%). The majority of students (60%) preferred internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, or family Medicine. The most common reason given for choosing a particular specialty was personal interest (21%), followed by flexibility of working hours (17%). The data show that a variety of factors inspires medical students in the UAE in their choice of a future medical specialty. These factors can be used by health policymakers, university mentors, and directors of residency training programs to motivate students to choose specialties that are scarce in the UAE and therefore better serve the health-care system and the national community.

'We are history in the making and we are walking together to change things for the better': Exploring the flows and ripples of learning in a mentoring programme for indigenous young people

This article explores the unique mentoring model that the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) has established to assist Australian Indigenous young people succeed educationally. AIME can be described as a structured educational mentoring programme, which recruits university students to mentor Indigenous high school students. The success of the programme is unequivocal, with the AIME Indigenous mentees completing high school and the transition to further education and employment at higher rates than their non-AIME Indigenous counterparts. This article reports on a study that sought to deeply explore the particular approach to mentoring that AIME adopts. The study drew upon interviews, observations and surveys with AIME staff, mentees and mentors and the focus in this article is on the surveys completed by the university mentors involved in the programme. Overall, there seems to be a discernible mutual reciprocity inherent in the learning outcomes of this mentoring programme; the mentors are learning along with the mentees. The article seeks to consider how AIME mentors reflect upon their learning in this programme and also how this pedagogic potential has been facilitated.

The effects of high-quality student mentoring

This paper evaluates the impact of a university mentoring program for first semester economics and management students on academic performance. For identification, I use a difference-in-differences approach with students in a similar degree program as control group. The mentoring program decreases failure rates by 15.4 percentage points. These large effects can be explained by quality features of the mentoring program, including graduate mentors, a low mentor-to-mentee ratio and compulsory, pre-scheduled, face-to-face appointments.

Challenges and Benefits in Designing and Implementing a Team-Based Research Mentorship Experience in Translational Research.

Translational research seeks to build bridges between research and practice to address public health issues efficiently and effectively. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate a newly formed Institute that provided graduate students and adolescent behavioral health community professionals with a translational research service-learning opportunity through the creation of a community-university mentoring partnership. Goals of the team-based research mentorship approach included: 1) providing students the skills for implementing translational research; 2) providing research opportunities for community agencies to enhance operations and to encourage ongoing research involvement; and 3) developing relationships between university faculty and community agency professionals for further research collaborations. The Institute used the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Mentoring Mosaic to select a diverse group of Community and Academic Mentors. The research mentorship experience of the initial cohort was evaluated based upon the Research Mentorship Conceptual Framework and Self-Assessment Tool. As a direct result of the research mentorship, outcomes for the Academic and Community Mentors and Scholars (i.e., those seeking a graduate certificate) included improved working relationships/networking and research experience. Through experiential learning, Scholars also discovered career trajectory clarity, the need for community collaboration in research, opportunities for continuing professional development, a greater understanding of public health competencies and how they align with community-based research, and skill development in best practices for translational research. The team mentoring approach is a form of pedagogy that holds promise to enhance translational research and community-based research efforts while developing public health competencies.

Mentoring in Academe

We analyzed the mentoring narratives of women of color in faculty in engineering using feminist poststructural narratological lenses. We found that university mentoring systems were designed to align with master narratives of mentoring but did not coincide with women faculty’s own mentoring stories. Specifically, women engineers regarded their mentee experiences and cultures of mentoring with varying levels of suspicion, ambiguity, vulnerability, and dis/enchantment that became embodied in alternative subject positions, emplotments, and agency. We contribute to greater understandings of mentoring processes as well as difference and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) academic workplaces.

The Role of Mentors in Developing and Implementing High-Quality Field-Based Placements

Teacher preparation programs (TPP) rely on school-based mentor teachers and university mentors to assist their teacher candidates with bridging the information presented in courses to the “real world” of teaching. Given the important role that the clinical components of teacher preparation provide in terms of candidate development, the variation across TPPs in terms of support provided for mentor teachers (from minimal to extensive) is pronounced. This article describes how one university delivered comprehensive training for mentors that reflects research-recommended practices in mentoring and delivery of special education practices. Outcomes from mentors, faculty, and teacher candidates are presented to illustrate how other TPPs can increase the level of support provided for mentor teachers and university mentors.

Meeting the Needs of a Latino English Language Learner through Teacher Research

Over the years, Ms. Lane’s third grade mathematics classroom had become increasingly diverse. Challenged by the growing population of English Language Learners (ELL) and he r need to change her teaching practice to meet their needs, Ms. Lane selected to study how best to teach one of her greatest challenges, Ana, a Latino ELL who also had a learning disability. Ms. Lane and her two university mentors found that using a collaborative action research model provided a structure for researching, designing, and implementing strategies that helped Ana improve her mathematics performance. The university mentors found that they, too, benefited from working together as critical partners while assisting Ms. Lane in this collaborative action rese arch.

Using Movie Scenes as Conceptual Framing Exemplars to Guide School Leaders in Thinking Reflectively about Organizational Change

This article describes the use of conceptual framing exemplars as an instructional tool to enhance the university graduate-level teaching and mentoring of education leaders (teachers, principals, instructional coaches, curriculum/special program directors, superintendents) interested in further developing their professional knowledge and skills in designing and implementing effective school improvement initiatives in elementary and secondary school settings. The article includes a discussion of selected organizational change leadership concepts that often pose learning challenges to school leadership graduate students, along with some specific examples of classic and popular movie scene conceptual framing exemplars that the author has employed in university graduate teaching seminars to assist leadership students in reflecting on the challenges and opportunities associated with enacting meaningful change leadership in schools. Some current, real-world school case situations are highlighted to illustrate how graduate students can apply reflective insights gleaned from their study of organizational change leadership conceptual framing exemplars to directly inform their own practical efforts in developing and implementing creative action strategies to improve teaching and learning effectiveness in their school communities.

An Analysis on Expand Methods of a Mentoring Program at Specialized High School

The purpose of this study is to establish expansion methods of mentoring program at specialized high schools. The results are as follows. First, teachers who have positive recognition on the mentoring program should promote it to students. Students want to be employed after graduation at specialized high schools, they should be provided with the program for seeking the career, getting certificates, and improving special ability. Third, there should be cooperation between specialized high schools and universities so that high school mentees and University mentors with the same major can be matched.