Students as Protégés

Abstract

This study provides insight into the factors that influence satisfaction with an Internet-based practitioner-student mentoring relationship that is part of an undergraduate business school curriculum. Practitioner mentors are especially important because they can help student protégés learn the skills needed for their professional development, encourage the formation of professional networks, and enhance the protégés' satisfaction with their education. In this study, we examine a number of factors that can potentially influence satisfaction with the mentoring relationship, including the protégé's networking to find a mentor, protégé trust in the mentor, protégé self-disclosure, the level of protégé understanding of the mentoring program's objectives, and how effectively the mentor serves as a role model. Hypotheses were tested through a structural equation model. The results showed that mentoring relationship satisfaction was positively associated with networking to find a mentor, trust in the mentor, protégé self-disclosure, protégé understanding of the objectives of the mentoring program, and the degree to which the protégé viewed the mentor as a role model. In addition, mentor trust was positively associated with the level of protégé self-disclosure. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and recommendations on how to strengthen satisfaction with practitioner-student mentoring relationships are provided.

Improving Mentoring in Higher Education in Undergraduate Education and Exploring Implications for Online Learning

“…How to select the most effective mentor is disputed. Some research showed a higher degree of satisfaction with the mentoring relationship from students who found their own mentors, as opposed to being assigned a mentor (Bear & Jones, 2017). However, without help from mentoring program matching, students may lack information on how to find a mentor or may be complacent in finding a mentor on their own.…”

“…Online mentoring provides benefits to students who may not otherwise have had access to mentors, but it also creates mentoring challenges. Only interacting online can make it more difficult to develop an effective mentoring relationship between mentors and students (Bear & Jones, 2017;Purcell, 2004). Without face-to-face, in-person communication between mentors and students, the mentor relationship may seem impersonal and other tools may need to be used to keep the mentor/student relationship progressing forward (Purcell, 2004;Rees Lewis, Harburg, Gerber, & Easterday, 2015;Sanyal & Rigby, 2017).…”

“…The role of mentor and how it is applied was another most frequently cited mentoring characteristic in this literature review. A mentor's responsibilities and impact or lack of impact on students is shaped by a variety of factors, including mentoring program objectives and constraints, how he or she defines her role, mentor knowledge or expertise, the amount of time spent mentoring a student and for what duration, perceived quality of mentorship, and how a mentor connects with student mentoring goals (Bear & Jones, 2017;Bowser et al, 2014;Hernandez et al, 2017;Kramer-Simpson, 2018). Healy, Lancaster, Liddell, and Stewart (2012) argued that mentors do not need to know everything or answer all student questions.…”

“…Mentors often provided social and emotional support for undergraduate students who may have been new to college experiences, entering young adulthood, living on their own and away from home and their support network for the first time, and dealing with the increased academic pressures of higher education (Baier et al, 2016;Barbuto et al, 2011;Hu & Ma, 2010;Letkiewicz et al, 2014). The need for mentor student support increased when the student demographic expanded (Bear & Jones, 2017;Hernandez et al, 2017;Mondisa & McComb, 2018). Mentors needed to provide additional support to students in different demographics, including students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, economically disadvantaged students, and older students beginning school for the first time or returning to school after an absence.…”

“…behavior that [provides] guidance to students" (Healy et al, 2012, p. 89). Most mentoring programs expected some degree of role modeling by mentors for their student proteges (Bear & Jones, 2017;Bowser et al, 2014;Healy et al, 2012;Poor & Brown, 2013). How explicitly this expectation is stated or reinforced varied by program.…”