An evaluation of the mentoring component in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program: a national sample

Date

2002-08

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the mentoring program within the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program using a national sample. Participants included 104 students who were McNair Scholars during the past year. McNair Scholars from several TRIO programs across the nation were asked to participate. It was hypothesized that Kram's (1983, 1985) mentoring functions would positively contribute to the effectiveness of the McNair mentoring program. The measures of effectiveness were based on the goals and objectives of the McNair program and included intention to attain a doctoral degree, awareness of the graduate school experience, knowledge of research, and knowledge of professional organizations and conferences. Canonical correlations were used to test this hypothesis. In addition, exploratory analyses (MANCOV As) were conducted to examine gender and ethnic differences, and to examine cross-sex/ethnicity versus same-sex/ethnicity differences, in mentoring effectiveness and mentoring functions. Results indicated that (1) psychosocial and career mentoring fiinctions were associated with increased mentoring effectiveness in terms of knowledge of graduate school, research, and professional organizations and conferences, (2) no gender differences were found in perceptions of mentoring fianctions, (3) no gender differences were found in the level of mentoring effectiveness, (4) no differences were found in mentoring functions in cross-sex versus same-sex mentoring relationships, (5) no differences were found in effectiveness of faculty mentoring in cross-sex versus same-sex mentoring relationships, (6) no ethnic differences were found in perceptions of mentoring fixnctions, (7) no ethnic differences were found in the level of effectiveness, (8) McNair Scholars who were ethnically different from their faculty mentors perceived more psychosocial mentoring ftinctions compared to McNair Scholars who shared the same ethnic background with their mentor, and (9) no differences were found in the effectiveness of faculty mentoring in cross-ethnicity versus same-ethnicity mentoring relationships.

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Keywords

Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program -- Evaluation, Career development, Mentoring -- Evaluation, Mentoring in education -- United States

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