How Mentor Support Interacts With Mother and Teacher Support in Predicting Youth Academic Adjustment: An Investigation Among Youth Exposed to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada Programs

Abstract

This study examines three potential contributions (i.e., additive only, hierarchical compensatory, and hierarchical conditional) of mentor support to youth academic adjustment, taking into account interactions with support from mothers and teachers. We derived data from a larger study of the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) of Canada community mentoring program. The sample included 427 youth (average age 9.8 years; 64% girls, 56% White) who received one-to-one community-based mentoring for at least three months. We assessed perceptions of support from mothers and teachers before the match and assessed perceptions of support from mentors five times throughout the mentoring experience. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that mentor support predicted positive changes in youth academic adjustment (i.e., school attitude, academic self-efficacy, assistance seeking, and problem solving) mainly when mentees already reported high support from their mother. This finding clearly supports the conditional model and invites researchers to question the assumption that mentoring constitutes a corrective experience for young people (i.e., the compensatory model). BBBS agencies are strongly encouraged to involve parents in the mentoring process and to view them as experts, assets, and allies in their effort to meet the youth's needs.

Unpacking Community-Based Youth Mentoring Relationships: An Integrative Review

“…American mentees with better preexisting adult relationships and stronger family ties and school bonds established higher-quality relationships with their mentors in a short-term mentoring program [ 54 ]. Finally, mentors’ support predicted positive changes in the mentees’ academic adjustment following their participation in BBBS Canada, primarily when the mentees had already reported considerable support from their mothers [ 155 ]. These findings should encourage researchers to question the assumption that mentoring constitutes a corrective experience for mentees (i.e., the compensatory model) and underscore the need to involve parents in the mentoring process.…”

Shyness and Learning Adjustment in Senior High School Students: Mediating Roles of Goal Orientation and Academic Help Seeking

“…and micro-environment (family, teachers, peers, etc.). In the literature, identified factors that affect learning adjustment among high school students include environmental factors (e.g., family socioeconomic status, parenting style, teacher support, peer friendship, and social environment) (Hair and Graziano, 2003; Verner-Filion and Gaudreau, 2010; Butler, 2011; Garg et al, 2016) and individual factors (e.g., personality, intelligence, achievement motivation, and academic self-efficacy) (Powers et al, 2005; Gunnoe, 2013; Shin and Ryan, 2014; Larose et al, 2018). In all personal variables, researchers have found that shyness as a personality trait affected individuals’ learning adjustment (Chen et al, 1995; Liu et al, 2012; Yang et al, 2015; Coplan et al, 2017).…”

Empathy, cognitive functioning, and prosocial behavior in mentored children

“…Empathy is difficult to measure with questionnaires (Wieck & Kunzmann, 2015). A wide range of other social aspects have been investigated using self‐reports, like coping behavior (DeWit et al., 2016; Larose et al., 2018), relationships with parents (Grossman & Rhodes, 2002), or social support (Larose et al., 2018). Theoretical considerations and findings for related constructs would suggest that youth mentoring improves the prosocial behavior and empathy in children.…”

“…Youth mentoring programs are becoming more and more common around the globe. As meta‐analyses confirmed their effectiveness over a wide range of domains (DuBois et al., 2002; DuBois et al., 2011; Durlak et al., 2011; Raposa et al., 2019), youth mentoring programs have been established all over the world, for example, in Rwanda (Brown et al., 2009), New Zealand (Farruggia et al., 2011), or Canada (Larose et al., 2018). The majority of studies evaluating mentoring effects rely mostly or solely on self‐reports of mentors and mentees (Pryce et al., 2020; Raposa et al., 2019).…”