Category: Research about mentoring

Naida Silverthorn, David L. DuBois, Kendra M. Lewis, Amanda Reed, Niloofar Bavarian, Joseph Day, Peter Ji, Alan C. Acock, Samuel Vuchinich, and Brian R. Flay

This study evaluated effects of Positive Action (PA), a school-based social-emotional and character development program, on self-esteem levels and processes among minority, low-income, urban youth.

The result shows that students in PA schools had more favorable change and endpoint scores on indices of self-esteem in the domains of peer and school and use of both adaptive and (to a lesser extent) maladaptive processes for developing and maintaining self-esteem.  Read more click here.

Motivation by Positive or Negative Role Models: Regulatory Focus Determines Who Will Best Inspire Us

By Penelope Lockwood, University of Toronto
and Christian H. Jordan and Ziva Kunda, University of Waterloo

These researcher demonstrated that individuals aremotivated by role models who encourage their own/different concerns.
Promotion-focused individuals, who favor a strategy of pursuing desirable outcomes and where participants’ academic motivation was increased by goal matching role models but decreased by goal congruent role models.
Read more here.

Interesting article about the effect of mentoring

Professor Jean Rhodes, (University of Massachusetts,Boston)  one leading experts on mentoring sais: if you talk to successful people about what made a difference in your lives, “it often comes down to the involvement of a caring adult over time and during critical moments,”, Mentoring sometimes involves helping you “figure out what you want to do with your life … who are the people who will help you get there … and how do you connect with them.”Rhodes has worked with a team of other psychologists and social scientists on a meta-analysis of 73 mentoring programs aimed at children and adolescents across the Canada. Read more about it here.

A new  book about mentoring called “Critical mentoring”.
 Click here to read more.

An Ecological Perspective Of Mentor Satisfaction With Their Youth Mentoring Relationsships
By Todd, & Sanchez 2016

Abstract:
Research shows the benefits of mentoring in promoting positive youth development. Yet less is known about mentors and what predicts mentor satisfaction. Such knowledge is vital to understanding how to recruit and retain adult mentors for youth. Thus, in the current study, we examine mentors as embedded in a social ecology of relationships, such as relationships with their mentee, mentee’s family, and mentoring organization they volunteer with. We use data from 247 mentors to test how each of these relationships (mentor with the mentee, mentee’s family, and mentoring organization) independently and interactively predict mentor satisfaction. Findings indicate that all relationships are unique predictors of mentor satisfaction, and that relationships with the mentee’s family and mentors’ mentoring organization interact in predicting mentor satisfaction. Overall, considering multiple relationships shows how various dimensions of the social ecology uniquely and interactively predict mentor satisfaction. Limitations and implications for mentoring practice are discussed.

Read more here

In 2013 a study was made called “The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles,” who examined mentoring program relationships, experiences and benefits for higher-risk youth.

Among the findings there are some positive results.

• The strongest program benefit, and most consistent across risk groups, was a reduction in depressive symptoms — a particularly noteworthy finding given that almost one in four youth reported worrisome levels of these symptoms at baseline.
• Findings also suggested gains in social acceptance, academic attitudes and grades.
• In addition to benefits in specific domains, mentored youth also experienced gains in a greater number of outcomes than youth in the comparison group.

The study also confirmed that mentoring programs could be beneficial for youth with a broad range of backgrounds and characteristics. If training and support was tailored it has the potential to produce an even stronger benefits.

The study involved more than 1,300 youth, drawn from seven mentoring programs in USA.

Click here to view the full study

Please download a new research paper by Karen Zilberstein entitled Breaking Bad here.

ABSTRACT
This paper consist of mentoring relationship closures and consider how the rich empirical and theoretical literature on attachment can inform mentoring programme practice and possibly help to prevent premature and poorly relationship endings. It is also about endings in youth mentoring relationships, articulate an attachment perspective on mentoring relationships and their endings and offer recommendations informed by these literatures for how mentoring programmes can promote positive closure when relationships come to an end.

Examining commitment and relational maintenance in formal youth  mentoring relationships

This study by Patricia E. Gettings and Steven R. Wilson from Purdue University, USA utilizes a social exchange perspective to examine mentors’ reported commitment and relational maintenance in formal youth mentoring relationships. One
hundred and forty-five adult mentors from four mentoring programs completed surveys about aspects of their current youth mentoring relationship.

Mentoring- An invisible gift
Above you will find a very interesting paper “Researching the Impact of Student Mentoring in the Community” by Alethea Melling, Ridwanah Gurjee. It explores the impact of mentoring relationships on student mentors at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK and looks at student experiences, personal and professional development from mentoring over one academic year. As such the results of this study are also valuable to us.

It includes both qualitative and quantitative methods in order to draw comparisons and detailed insight into the interactions of all parties involved in the mentoring programme, including mentors, mentees and the community organization.

The findings is that mentors receive an ‘invisible gift’ that is not formally acknowledged. The ‘gift’ is manifested as key skills for lifelong learning and employability. Also, the findings highlighted that mentoring has a significant impact on the mentee regarding enhancing confidence, self esteem, skill development and engagement in pro-social behavior; thus, identifying ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ outcomes.
This research also concludes that the mentoring process should utilize a ‘mentee-centered approach.’ A balance of both ‘instrumental and ‘expressive’ processes in order to support, encourage and guide mentees to achieve their full potential.

Read more here

What’s in a Relationship?

An Examination of Social Capital, Race, and Class in Mentoring Relationships
by S. Michael Gaddis, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina

This research examines data from youths and mentors in several chapters of Big Brothers/Big Sisters to assess the importance of different mentoring relationship characteristics increasing positive outcomes among youths.
The literature on social capital suggests that key characteristics are: (1) the amount of time spent between individuals, (2) racial similarity,(3) level of trust, (4) social class difference, and (5) intergenerational closure.
Michael Gaddis examine the effects of these social capital measures on both academic and deviant behavioral outcomes and run estimations using propensity score weighting to address selection bias.
The results indicate that both the amount of time spent in a relationship and the level of trust consistently have positive effects for youths.

Click here to load down the paper

New research on benefits of mentoring in 2014

A new research in USA (with more than 73 independent mentoring programs): “Mentoring Effect: Young People’s Perspectives on the Outcomes and Availability of Mentoring” showssignificant positive outcomes for those who had a mentor. They were more likely to aspire to attend and to enroll in college, more likely to report participating in sports and other extracurricular activities in their communities.

The report describes a series of paths forward that would lead to a society where all young people have access to a quality mentoring relationship and the support they need to succeed in school, work and life. The recommendations include strategies to:

• Utilize mentoring to address national challenges.
• Ensure that young people most in need have a quality mentoring relationship.
• Expand local, state and federal public policies that advance quality mentoring.
• Ensure all structured mentoring is quality mentoring.
• Support and increase private sector engagement in mentoring.
• Facilitate connections between research and practice.
• Explore innovations to close the mentoring gap.

Read more about it here.

An evaluation results of a youth mentoring program (“Baloo and You”) in Germany by Prof. em. Dr. H. Mueller-Kohlenberg, University of Osnabrueck.

The contribution has just been published in: “Mentoring: Practices, Potential Challenges and Benefits”. Ed. Michael F. Shaughnessy, NOVA Publishers, 2013.

Download research pdf here.

Below is a link to  an article evaluating by Balu und Du by Sibylle Drexler, Brigitte Borrman and Prof. em. Dr. Hildegard Müller-­‐Kohlenberg (Professor emeritus of University Osnabrück, Germany).

Dr. Müller-­‐Kohlenberg is the co-­founder and initiator of the successful mentoring program “Balu und Du” in Germany and the member of the leaders board, responsible for concept development, etc. She was recently a guest speaker at The Third International Nightingale Network Conference on 25th of October 2012 in Vienna.
In her lecture she spoke about: “How to measure a child´s smile? How to evaluate a mentor´s key-­ competencies”. It was a presentation of the impacts on children and students and a field report about the cooperation with schools and parents in the programme.

The full title of the article, linked below, is “Learning life skills strengthening basic competencies and health-related quality of life od socially disadvantaged elementary school children through the mentoring program “Balu und Du” (“Baloo and you”) and is written by Sibylle Drexler, Brigitte Borrman, Hildegard Müller-Kohlenberg.

Download the article as a PDF here.