Diseño, desarrollo, implementación y evaluación del programa “E-Mentoring en programas de prácticas académicas”

Abstract

Mentoring is a practice that supports learning, experimentation and helps students in Higher Education to develop their potential. A mentoring relationship is one in which both the mentor and mentee, recognize the need for professional and personal development.participating academic programs. For such process, two parts have been developed, firstly, a pilot study for the validation of the e-mentoring program generated, in a Colombian university with students of academic internship of a Marketing program. After the results achieved in this first study, the program is adapted and an experimental study is implemented, in which three academic programs from three universities (two Colombian and one American) are integrated, the same Marketing program, a Bachelor's degree program in technology and Computer Science from a Faculty of Education and a Medical program, respectively. As this was a pretest-posttest study, a competency evaluation rubric was used to assess the skills, dispositions and competency domains of the participants and a satisfaction survey designed to measure the impact of the program.After the data analysis implemented in both studies, it is highlighted that the competency levels of each participant sample improved after having implemented the mentoring program. A competency improvement is recognized in the post-test study and a positive recognition by the mentors of these improvements. Likewise, the level of satisfaction with the program is high, recognizing the implementation of the program, the resources used and the adequate training of the mentors.At the end of the study, it is considered relevant to highlight a series of recommendations. On the one hand, a replication study of this research to control to what extent the improvement in competencies is conducted by the mentoring program or by the practice process, with the inclusion of a control group that does not participate in the mentoring effect. On the other hand, other recommendations, at a more formative level, invite to explore the creation of formal mentoring programs that allow students of academic internships to participate in their own personal and professional development; at the level of process development, it is important to encourage and maintain mentoring in Higher Education institutions, informing of its professional and academic value.

E-Mentoring Pilot Program in Academic Internships: Effectiveness in Improving Participants’ Competencies

“…The particular results between the competencies by both participant groups in the pilot revealed positive results, especially in four distinctive competencies (project management, problem-solving, autonomous work, and teamwork), showing in each one, progressive improvement of their strength and quality, and it established improvements between the connection of the participants. These data are insufficient to prove that there is a trend in the ratings given by mentors and mentees, we found that there is no agreement between mentee and mentor scores, except for the problem-solving competency [32].…”

“…Mentoring seeks to build individual strengths, therefore, the philosophy of the program is dedicated to empowering participants to acquire professional competencies; this aspect is reflected in all elements designed for the pilot program, including its objectives; program materials and communications; orientation and training; and the interactions between program participants, program coordinator, mentors, and mentees [5]. Thus, the mentoring program is developed with the same objective as programs of this same nature, which, are delimited in playing a positive role in the initiation and retention of students in learning processes at the higher education level [9,19,32,41].…”

“…The rubric contained four essential features: the competencies selected, the criteria that must be recognized by the mentees to complete the task (indicators of each competency), the levels of competency mastery (the rating scales), and the scoring [19,20,[31][32][33][34]. Criteria were used to determine the level at which the students' work meets expectations.…”

“…Mentees had the possibility of consciously recognizing their self-learning process and identifying available opportunities and the ability to overcome obstacles to successful learning. Recognizing that individual improvement and understanding by students of this competence meant obtaining, processing, and assimilating new knowledge and skills, as well as seeking and making use of guidance, in this case, acquired by the e-mentoring program [32,34].…”

“…The teamwork competency was related to an enhanced ability to work effectively in the context of the academic internship and asserted that mentees must attend to both the work climate within their group and the process by which they performed their tasks in practice [32,39]. Although mentees may acquire many of the skills through informal social interactions in their internship, a slight positive mastery gained in this competency was noted, possibly because mentees were able to improve their teamwork skills, as well learning to regularly accept feedback on how they were doing through comments by their mentors and/or reflective group discussions and/or peer evaluation and self-reflection.…”