This second publication of the Better Mentorship, Better Student Experience series is intended to serve as a resource for mentors who are seeking tips and support as they work with mentees in ...academia and beyond. This publication describes the role of the mentor and provides practical tips that can be applied in any setting. Written by Debra M. Barry, Heather Nesbitt, and Heather McAuslane, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural Education and Communication, May 2024.
Mentoring is suffering from a shortage of trained mentors which compromise the efficacy of novice mentoring or mentoring between a senior clinician and a junior clinician. E-mentoring is proposed as ...a means of supplementing this dominant form of mentoring in medicine by providing accessible, timely and longitudinal support for mentees. However, with little is known about e-mentoring nor its role in a blended mentoring approach, a systematic scoping review is proposed to evaluate these gaps in understanding in order to better understand e-mentoring and assess the viability of employing e-mentoring practice to support novice mentoring. Using Arksey and O’Malley’s (Int J Soc Res Methodol 8(1):19–32,
2005
) approach, 5 reviewers carried out independent literature reviews of e-mentoring as an adjuvant to novice mentoring in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Google Scholar, Scopus, GreyLit, OpenGrey, and Web of Science databases. Braun and Clarke’s (Qual Res Psychol 3(2):77–101,
2006
) thematic analysis approach was used to thematically analyse accounts of e-mentoring across different settings. 6557 abstracts were identified, 109 full text articles were reviewed, and 18 articles were included and thematically analysed. The themes identified include definitions, role, stages, processes, platforms, evaluation, and relationships in e-mentoring. The themes identified provide a clinically relevant definition of e-mentoring, and in highlighting the similarities in the phases of novice and e-mentoring reaffirms the validity of a blended approach as a means of addressing shortfalls in mentoring in medicine.
To examine associations between White mentors’ beliefs regarding the presence of discrimination towards Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) individuals and mentoring relationship outcomes, ...mentors’ beliefs about racial/ethnic discrimination were assessed before random mentee assignment and at the end of 9 months of mentoring. White mentors matched with BIPOC youth showed greater increases in beliefs that discrimination limits opportunities for Black Americans. Stronger endorsement of the impacts of discrimination for Hispanic Americans resulted in less youth relationship anxiety when White mentors were matched with White mentees, but not when they were matched with BIPOC mentees. Last, greater increases in beliefs that discrimination limits opportunities for Black Americans resulted in less relationship anxiety for White mentors matched with White mentees, but more relationship anxiety for those matched with BIPOC mentees. Programs should assess and address mentors’ racial biases to minimize harm and augment the impact of mentoring programs for all youth.
Highlights
White mentors may enter programs without understanding the discrimination their BIPOC mentees face.
White mentors’ racial biases shift over time, and can predict mentoring relationship quality.
Mentoring programs should assess mentors’ racial biases to minimize harm for BIPOC youth.
Mentoring provides mentees and mentors with holistic support and research opportunities. Yet, the quality of this support has been called into question amidst suggestions that mentoring is prone to ...bullying and professional lapses. These concerns jeopardise mentoring's role in medical schools and demand closer scrutiny.
To better understand prevailing concerns, a novel approach to systematic scoping reviews (SSR) s is proposed to map prevailing ethical issues in mentoring in an accountable and reproducible manner. Ten members of the research team carried out systematic and independent searches of PubMed, Embase, ERIC, ScienceDirect, Scopus, OpenGrey and Mednar databases. The individual researchers employed 'negotiated consensual validation' to determine the final list of articles to be analysed. The reviewers worked in three independent teams. One team summarised the included articles. The other teams employed independent thematic and content analysis respectively. The findings of the three approaches were compared. The themes from non-evidence based and grey literature were also compared with themes from research driven data.
Four thousand six titles were reviewed and 51 full text articles were included. Findings from thematic and content analyses were similar and reflected the tabulated summaries. The themes/categories identified were ethical concerns, predisposing factors and possible solutions at the mentor and mentee, mentoring relationship and/or host organisation level. Ethical concerns were found to stem from issues such as power differentials and lack of motivation whilst predisposing factors comprised of the mentor's lack of experience and personality conflicts. Possible solutions include better program oversight and the fostering of an effective mentoring environment.
This structured SSR found that ethical issues in mentoring occur as a result of inconducive mentoring environments. As such, further studies and systematic reviews of mentoring structures, cultures and remediation must follow so as to guide host organisations in their endeavour to improve mentoring in medical schools.
The study of mentoring has generally been conducted within disciplinary silos with a specific type of mentoring relationship as a focus. The purpose of this article is to quantitatively review the ...three major areas of mentoring research (youth, academic, workplace) to determine the overall effect size associated with mentoring outcomes for protégés. We also explored whether the relationship between mentoring and protégé outcomes varied by the type of mentoring relationship (youth, academic, workplace). Results demonstrate that mentoring is associated with a wide range of favorable behavioral, attitudinal, health-related, relational, motivational, and career outcomes, although the effect size is generally small. Some differences were also found across type of mentoring. Generally, larger effect sizes were detected for academic and workplace mentoring compared to youth mentoring. Implications for future research, theory, and applied practice are provided.
This study focuses on mentoring as a vehicle for in-service science teachers' support in implementing innovative science teaching modules. Qualitative methods of analysis were used to examine ...mentors’ roles during the mentoring conversations and how these roles were altered. Our findings indicate that mentors tend to determine the focus of the mentoring conversations and to address the arisen issues using directive practices. In the same time they tend to shift their mentoring style towards more non-directive skills as the mentoring relationship progresses and when mentees have substantial background knowledge regarding the discussed topics.
•Mentors tend to employ mainly directive practices and imperative roles.•Mentors use less directive skills over the course of time.•Mentors shift their style according to the mentees' expertise on each topic.•Mentors adapt their focus and style to the needs of their mentees.•Mentoring may support experienced in-service teachers apply educational innovations.
The value of mentoring is growing substantially as organizations take a renewed interest in employee development to better survive in the dynamic and competitive market today. In the wake of this ...renewed interest, this meta-analysis was conducted to quantitatively review the multi-level antecedents (e.g., individual, relational, and structural/organizational) of different kinds of mentoring support (e.g., career, psychosocial, role modeling) in organizational settings and to revisit the theoretical underpinnings of each antecedent. Results indicated some key antecedents of mentoring support at individual (e.g., protégé's proactivity, protégé's learning goal orientation, mentor's transformational leadership), relational (e.g., affect based trust, perceived similarity), and structural/organizational levels (e.g., organizational support for mentoring, supervisory mentoring). Recommendations for future research and organizational practice of mentoring are presented.
•Multilevel antecedents of mentoring support were quantitatively reviewed in this meta-analysis.•Protégé's proactivity, learning goal orientation, and mentor's transformational leadership were key antecedents at the individual level.•Affect based trust and perceived similarity were key antecedents at the relational level.•Organizational support and supervisory mentoring were key antecedents at the structural level.
Research on youth mentoring highlights the importance of the relationship quality between mentor and mentee; mentoring results in more positive outcomes when the mentee perceives the relationship as ...satisfying and trustworthy. Research on relationship quality shows that social skills are important for constructing new relationships. However, whereas improved social skills are often one of the main goals of youth mentoring, little is known about the importance of social skills for relationship quality in youth mentoring relations. In this study, we examined whether mentee's pre‐intervention social skills were related to mentor–mentee relationship quality as perceived by the mentee, and in turn, if relationship quality was associated with post‐intervention social skills. We additionally examined possible gender and age differences in these associations. Data were used from a two‐wave study that assessed relationship quality and social skills before and after one semester of mentoring of 390 secondary school students in a school‐based mentoring program. Results indicated that relationship quality was positively associated with post‐intervention social skills. However, only for young mentees pre‐intervention social skills were associated with better relationship quality. Moreover, only for young mentees, relationship quality mediated the association between pre‐ and post‐intervention social skills.
Highlights
Mentees’ perceived relationship quality is positively associated to social skill outcomes.
Young mentees’ pre‐social skills are positively associated to mentor‐mentee relationship quality.
Relationship quality only mediates young mentees’ pre and post‐social skills.
Relationship quality is equally important for boys and girls in changes in social skills.
PDF
