Peer mentoring is a form of mentorship that usually takes place between a person who has lived through a specific experience (peer mentor) and a person who is new to that experience (the peer mentee). An example would be an experienced student being a peer mentor to a new student, the peer mentee, in a particular subject, or in a new school. Peer mentors are also used for health and lifestyle changes. For example, clients, or patients, with support from peers, may have one-on-one sessions that meet regularly to help them recover or rehabilitate. Peer mentoring provides individuals who have had a specific life experience the chance to learn from those who have recovered, or rehabilitated, following such an experience. Peer mentors provide education, recreation and support opportunities to individuals. The peer mentor may challenge the mentee with new ideas, and encourage the mentee to move beyond the things that are most comfortable. Most peer mentors are picked for their sensibility, confidence, social skills and reliability.
Critics of peer mentoring insist that little is known of the nature of peer mentoring relationships and that there are few consistent studies indicating the outcomes of peer mentoring beyond good feelings among peers and the development of friendships. Peer mentoring led by senior students may discourage diversity and prevent Critical analysis of the higher education system.
Program design characteristics.
The frequency with which peer mentors and mentees meet varies according to the particular mentoring program. Some pairs may make contact once a month, while others may meet 3-4 times per month or more. It is usually advised that mentors and mentees meet more often in the beginning of the relationship in order to establish a good foundation. Mentors and mentees may maintain contact through email, telephone or in-person meetings. Peer mentoring organizations may also set up social events for those participating in the program. These events provide good opportunities for increased social interaction between mentors and mentees.
The compatibility of mentor and mentee is a factor that should be taken into consideration when choosing pairs. Mentors and mentees may benefit from having similar backgrounds, interests and life experiences. Age, gender, ethnicity, language preferences, and education may be taken into consideration when pairing mentors with mentees.
The quality of the peer mentoring relationship is important for mentees to experience positive results. A mentor relationship is more successful when the mentor cares for the whole person and not just the academic or career side of a person. Successful mentors tend to be available, knowledgeable, educated in diversity issues, empathic, personable, encouraging, supportive, and passionate. Although this is not an exhaustive list of qualities, they have been shown to be important for successful mentoring relationships. It is important to keep qualities like this in mind when recruiting and training mentors.
The objectives of a peer mentoring program should be well-defined and measurable. The effectiveness of the program should be monitored to ensure that the objectives are being met. One way to monitor the effectiveness of a program is to administer evaluations to the mentors and mentees.
In education.
Peer mentoring in education was promoted during the 1960s by educator and theorist Paulo Freire:
"The fundamental task of the mentor is a liberatory task. It is not to encourage the mentor's goals and aspirations and dreams to be reproduced in the mentees, the students, but to give rise to the possibility that the students become the owners of their own history. This is how I understand the need that teachers have to transcend their merely instructive task and to assume the ethical posture of a mentor who truly believes in the total autonomy, freedom, and development of those he or she mentors."
Peer mentors appear mainly in secondary schools where students moving up from primary schools may need assistance in settling into the new schedule and lifestyle of secondary school life. However peer mentoring can occur at the grade school level, the undergraduate level, and the graduate school level. The goals of the program may vary according to the level, the educational institution or the discipline.
Peer mentors in secondary schools aid in the transition of younger students from primary school to secondary school. They may assist mentees with their school work and study skills, peer pressure (such as pressure to use drugs or have sex), issues with attendance and behavior, and typical family problems. Youth mentors are persons for children or adolescents to spend time with, often to compensate for absent family members or an inadequate home environment. Mentoring programs for youth can be especially useful for students who lack social support, and who therefore may be susceptible to delinquency.
Peer mentors for undergraduates may assist newly admitted students with time management, study skills, organizational skills, curriculum planning, administrative issues, test preparation, term paper preparation, goal setting, and grade monitoring. Additionally, such mentors may provide other forms of social support for the student, such as friendship, networking, and aiding the student's adjustment to college life.
A peer mentor at the graduate school level may assist new students in selecting an advisor, negotiating the advisor/advisee relationship, preparation for major examinations, publishing articles, searching for jobs, and adjusting to the rigors of graduate school life.
In higher education.
Peer mentoring in higher education has enjoyed a good name and is seen favorably by both educational administrators and students. During the last decade, peer mentoring has expanded and is found in most colleges and universities, frequently as a means to outreach, retain, and recruit minority students.
Peer mentoring is used extensively in higher education for several reasons:
There have been numerous examples in various universities. Some examples are as follows:
Peer Assisted Study Session at Monash University.
Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) is a peer-led structured academic mentoring program designed to provide academic assistance for new students in their transition from college to university studies and also for students struggling in certain units at Monash University. The school of medicine at Monash utilizes peer mentoring as part of its curricula and it is delivered by accomplished senior year medical students to junior medical students on a weekly basis after rigorous selection and training. Friendly peer leaders are empowered with guided support to impart their knowledge and experience, and motivate mentees to do better with coursework.
The Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program.
One established cross-age mentoring program is the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program (VYP), which originated in San Antonio, Texas through the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA). In an effort to decrease truancy, the need for disciplinary actions and drop-out rates of students, this program paired up "at-risk" middle school students to tutor "at-risk" elementary school students, both primarily of Hispanic origin with limited English proficiency. In this case, the tutors who participated were not only rewarded by getting paid and receiving course credit, but also by receiving recognition for their service and by improving their own academic and tutoring skills through special tutoring classes. These VYP program benefits, in turn, resulted in a positive impact on school success and lowered the dropout rates of these tutors.
The University of Massachusetts Peer Mentor Program.
The Peer Mentor program at UMass Amherst offers undergraduate students the chance to be live-in, part-time staff members for freshman residents within residential life. This is a paid position. The Peer Mentor's "job" is to assist freshman students with their transition from high school to college. UMass Peer Mentors offers academic support within the first year and are responsible for connecting the residents to campus resources throughout the academic year. Peer mentors follow a curriculum that includes but are not limited to: assisting in New Student Orientation (NSO), academic mentoring (which includes references to tutoring centers, deans, and undergraduate advising), connecting faculty with the students, and hosting various academic success workshops.
California State University, Northridge EOP Mentoring program.
The EOP program has a subset of programs that assist student success with the aid of peer mentors. The program started in the late 1960s with it goal to further higher education and students success for underrepresented students. It was student lead to provide equity for minority students. This population included ethnic minorities, women, and later branched off to better serve students with disabilities and foster youth. The history at California state University, Northridge established EOP programs at all 23 CSU campuses. The main goal of peer mentors at EOP is to help students connect and be made aware of campus resources, staff, university etiquette, and serve as a supportive role model to foster motivation and transition from Community College or Highschool into a four year Institution. EOP's subset of programs includes Transitional Programs that utilize peer mentors in the classroom with supervision of faculty. Peer mentors often share their experiences and build rapport with incoming students to encourage students to seek help by example.
Advantages in education.
Peer mentoring may help new students adapt to a new academic environment faster. The relationship between the mentor and mentee gives the mentee a sense of being connected to the larger community where they may otherwise feel lost. Mentors are chosen because they are academically successful and because they possess good communication, social and leadership skills. As a consequence, mentors serve as positive role models for the students, guiding them towards academic and social success. Mentors provide support, advice, encouragement, and even friendship to students. Peer mentoring may improve student retention rates.
Mentors also stand to benefit from the mentor/mentee relationship. Mentors develop friendships through their participation in mentoring programs and usually derive satisfaction from helping a younger student, and possibly shaping his or her life in a positive way. Mentors may also be paid, and they may receive other benefits such as prioritized registration, course credit, and references.
In higher education tutorial settings, the benefits of peer mentoring programs also extend to class tutors. Using grounded theory techniques, Outhred and Chester found that five themes underlie their experiences: role exploration, sharing responsibility, regulation of the peer-tutored groups, harnessing the peer tutors' role, and community.
Criticisms.
Peer mentoring programs usually target ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and women. This approach tends to be conceived out of the "deficiency model" where multi-ethnic students, women and students with disabilities are perceived as being in need of help and unlikely to succeed unless senior students or successful adults help them. One of the main criticisms of peer mentoring is the lack of research to show how peer mentoring relationships work, how they develop, and what their outcomes are. Also, the nature of being either a mentor or mentee and at the same time a peer can make the relationship a dual one where other identities also converge. Some peer mentoring programs promote assimilation among ethnic minority students because of the use of student role models who are perceived as successful in social and educational environments characterized by majority students. These role models then become the people that peer mentees strive to imitate or emulate. A more subtle criticism of peer mentoring refers to their lack of supervision and structure: most peer mentoring programs led by undergraduate students rarely have direct supervision of full-time university staff.
Given the fact that students are led by other students who serve as peer mentors, critics say that university staff may free themselves from their responsibility to listen and help first year students classified as peer mentees, the group with the largest attrition rate in higher education. Without extensive training and supervision, senior students who serve as mentors may offer unreliable guidance to peer mentees. There is little research on what happens within peer mentoring relationships. Maryann Jacobi, in an extensive meta-analysis of mentoring research, concludes by asking, "Does mentoring help students succeed in college? If so, how? Both theoretical and empirical answers to these questions are lacking." Stephanie Budge states:
"The concept of mentoring has become increasingly popular over the past few decades. Mentoring has been advertised as necessary in order for students and employees to flourish in their environment. However, the lack of research concerning peer mentoring programs in particular is surprising. While there is an abundance of articles on the topic of mentoring in the educational setting, authors must be held to more stringent research standards and more definitional consistency. In addition to higher quality research, the fundamental flaws within peer mentoring programs need to be corrected before these programs can reach their full potential on college campuses."
Peer mentoring in higher education usually focuses on social, academic, and cultural skills that can help students graduate from colleges