This is a Small Grant for Exploratory Research award to MentorNet research students' perceptions of the value and need for mentors as they progress through their academic studies in engineering and science. Intellectual Merit: In focusing on student perceptions about mentoring, this project represents preliminary work on untested ideas that are novel in being outside the mainstream of research in engineering education in focusing on student perceptions of a co-curricular activity related to their academic studies and career plans. We propose to work with an advisory group of other researchers on this project to shape and implement a study which will provide information useful for both understanding student perceptions and communicating to students effectively information about opportunities available to them to meet their needs.
Mentoring has been identified as a very important component of students' learning experiences, and in many cases, essential to retention, particularly for women and students of color, but is not part of the usual focus of curricular design, and classroom learning. To confound efforts to understand the role and potential effectiveness of mentoring, in an effort to tap into its benefits to student learning and retention, the term is frequently left undefined in context. So to prescribe mentoring as a solution for a problem leaves educators uncertain about what aspects of a mentoring relationship are important to replicate in order to gain its positive benefits for retention. Thus, through this exploratory research project, we will to learn more about students' perceptions of the value and need for mentors, and particularly how these perceptions might vary depending upon the student's year in school, or other factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, type of institution, etc.
