2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Near peer mentoring has proven to yield positive benefits to mentees in engineering programs. However, formal mentoring programs can be difficult to implement and sustain. Volunteers through student organizations or departmental initiatives may be inconsistent in meeting or lack common goals to work toward. In this work, we sought to create a framework for near-peer mentoring that provides structure to the relationship and a common goal for the mentor and mentee to work toward. There are two versions of implementation in this work, formal pairings between groups that last through the semester project and informal mentoring that occurs in small groups during single lectures.

In the first instance, semester project teams from a first-year course were paired with teams from upper-level courses with similar topics but different objectives. The outcome of this framework is that both teams in the introductory and upper-level course will gain broader insight into their projects and provide mutual support to each other throughout the project. The first-year students will also be able draw on the knowledge and experiences of the students in the upper-level courses as well as making strong connections with students in the discipline. In this pilot study, three pairs of groups were formed.

In the second instance, seniors enrolled in the department’s senior-level professional development course attend at least two lectures of the first-year course to meet with first-year student groups. In this mentoring, senior students are given topics of discussion and directions to provide feedback to the first-year students’ projects. With this system, each senior meets with multiple teams during their one-hour visits. While this mentoring is not expected to provide the same level of benefits as the previous instance, the aim is that both the mentors and mentees receive some benefit from the exercise.

As highlighted in previous research, near-peer mentoring benefits the mentee through reinforcing the sense of belonging and community within the department in addition to technical benefits to their project work. Upper-level students will gain mentoring experience as well as expanding their own community. This framework has been piloted in both of its forms. The results from surveys on a range of student perception will be presented along with lessons-learned. The lessons-learned will help to inform on future improvements to the senior mentoring and broader implementation of the paired project groups across upper-level courses.