Salient Experiences in Student Development: Impact of an Undergraduate STEM Teacher Preparation Program

The need for a comprehensive, high-quality pipeline for the development of undergraduate pre-service teachers, especially those that represent a diverse student body, within STEM disciplines is acute. Here, we studied the NoyceSCIENCE program to determine the most impactful experiences offered to undergraduates through the lens of student development theory. We used qualitative coding to analyze data collected from journals (n = 29) written by students of varying backgrounds, and at varying levels within the program (i.e., the Scholar and Intern level) over a 3-year program running period. We observed that faculty mentorship, the ability of undergraduates to mentor others, volunteer experiences, and learning directly from experts had the greatest influence on student development overall. For Scholars that participate for more than 1 year in the program, access to undergraduate mentoring and volunteering experiences contributed most to student development. We posit that these findings are broadly applicable to other science learning communities and STEM content-focused teacher preparation programs as they are program components that can be integrated in isolation or in their entirety.

University Freshman Mentoring Effectiveness and Scale Enhancement

Graduate unemployment has worsened following the global crisis caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has created increased pressures on universities to enhance their graduates’ employability. Past studies have indicated that mentoring programs can positively impact student soft skills development and employability. While undergraduate mentoring programs have mushroomed, research on undergraduate mentoring has not kept pace. This study used a mixed methods approach to examine the effectiveness of a public university’s initiative in mentoring new undergraduates. Using the College Student Mentoring Scale (CSMS), this study found that the university’s undergraduate mentoring initiative is moderately effective. The CSMS assessed four mentoring dimensions, namely academic subject knowledge support, degree and career support, psychological and emotional support as well as role modelling. The results of this study highlighted the mentoring functions that are considered as least effective so that informed and targeted efforts can be undertaken to enhance university freshman mentoring. Findings from this study suggest that a new dimension namely mentor-mentee compatibility, competencies and expectations could be added to the College Student Mentoring Scale (CSMS) to enhance concept operationalization. A limitation of this study is that it is based on mentees’ perspectives only. Future research could include the perspectives of mentors as well. Keywords: Graduate employability, Mentoring effectiveness, Mentoring scale, University education, University freshman

Mentoring Undergraduate Students: Perception of Medical and Dental Faculties on Undergraduate Mentoring Program

Background: Mentoring is key to a successful career in medicine. Mentoring is the goal of developing nurturing relationships between elder adult who is dependable and someone who is younger needs consistent support or an intervention. Mentoring has shown to be essential for the acquisition of clinical and research skills, as well as career development. A good mentor maintains sight of the overall goal of the relationship and hold the focus for mentees personnel and professional growth overtime. Objectives: The objectives of study were to explore how faculties of medical and dental programme understand their role as mentors and to identify the perceptions of faculties regarding mentoring medical and dental students. Methodology: Cross sectional study was conducted at Melaka Manipal Medical College and lecturers from medical and dental faculties were participated in the study. The data were analysed by using SPSS. Results: There were total 48 faculties (38 medical and 10 dental faculties) participated in this study. Majority (39.58%) of faculties defined mentor as counsellor, (22.91%) career guide, (16.6%) role model while (8.3%) defined as research guide. Regarding perception of faculties on the mentorship program, (81.2%) of faculties perceived that mentors have positive influence on choosing future specialties options of the mentees, (75%) of the faculties were willing to discuss with the mentees regarding personal, financial issues as well as academic performance individually, (77%) perceived that time constraint is the barrier for successful programme and (62.5%) of faculties perceived that there should have a formal training prior to appointment as mentor. Conclusion: It was concluded that the roles, tasks and communication of mentor and mentees should be standardized. Mentors should have a formal training prior to appoint as mentor.

Faculty and undergraduate student perceptions of an integrated mentoring approach

The role of an academic mentor is typically diverse, discipline specific and institutionally heterogeneous. Mentoring relationships are commonplace, yet the experience and delivery of mentoring in universities reflect a broad spectrum of approaches and execution. This article reflects on the pedagogic evolution of mentoring, examining the student response to systematic changes in undergraduate mentoring. Much has been written on mentoring, but this research focuses on student experiences when pastoral, professional and curriculum-based mentoring models are integrated and applied together, rather than adopted as separate, distinct approaches. The research employs a mixed methodology, adopting qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques to investigate how mentoring relationships evolved following the implementation of an updated contemporary mentoring system. Initially, faculty responses to the changing mentoring system were related through semi-structured interviews. Student experiences were then collected in a pilot study via questionnaires disseminated across all undergraduate levels and subsequently analysed. Key findings suggest that by adopting multifaceted approaches to mentoring which blend the modern and traditional, institutions can effectively add significant ‘value’ to the student experience. Typically (but not exclusively), the undergraduate students’ personal and academic development is enhanced when a system which integrates the pastoral, professional and curriculum-based models is applied.