2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The transition from high school to college can present significant challenges for students, creating a need for a strong support system. In modern engineering education, mentoring has emerged as an important component in supporting the growth and success of undergraduate students. It is generally recognized that relationships with faculty members impact student success[1]. Mentoring has gained significant attention for its role in providing personalized guidance and fostering a sense of belonging within the community.

Mentors can help students to deal with academic challenges and make informed decisions[2]. Furthermore, the mentor-mentee relationship establishes a nurturing atmosphere dedicated to enhancing academic performance. Most of the research in this area focuses on mentoring research activities between students and advisors, as well as peer advising. However, there has been limited attention given to a more general advising role. This role includes assisting in course selection, technical interests, finding internships or research opportunities, graduate school applications, extracurricular activities, study abroad, offering support for personal or mental health concerns, etc. Some work has been done in this direction[3].

This work in progress aims to understand the needs and expectations of students who are supported by a faculty mentoring process in an Electrical and Computer Engineering department in a large public university.  Currently, the program involves students meeting their assigned faculty mentors once per semester. However, the approach varies among different faculty members. Meetings can take the form of one-on-one private conversations or group sessions, allowing for peer mentoring. They can also occur either in person or online. The topics covered during these sessions are diverse, as previously mentioned. One-on-one mentoring can provides highly personalized guidance and support, while group mentoring can offer diverse perspectives from the student peers and provide networking opportunities. Peer mentoring has been shown to increase both retention and self-esteem among college students [4]. These mentoring meetings are mandatory for students, and failing to attend the meeting results in a hold on their upcoming semester's class registration. Students are responsible for scheduling appointments based on faculty members' availability calendars.   

Three faculty members within the department requested their mentees to voluntarily participate in a survey aimed to understand their experiences and preferences regarding various aspects of the mentoring process. This includes topics covered during the meetings or that would be beneficial to cover, resources provided or that would be beneficial to provide, as well as the duration and frequency of these meetings, among other aspects. Additionally, these three faculty members themselves completed a survey to gain a better understanding of their perspective on the mentoring process. In this work, we discuss the findings from these surveys and include recommendations for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the mentoring process.

References:

[1]  M. S. Jaradat, and M. B. Mustafa, “Academic Advising and Maintaining Major: Is There a Relation?,” Social Sciences, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 151, 2017.

[2] Lucietto, A. M., & Dell, E., & Cooney, E. M., & Russell, L. A., & Schott, E. (2019, June), Engineering Technology Undergraduate Students: A Survey of Demographics and Mentoring Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida.

[3] Banerjee, J. K. (2020, June), Mentoring Undergraduate Students in Engineering Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34968

[4]  R. Collings, V. Swanson, and R. Watkins, “The impact of peer mentoring on levels of student wellbeing, integration and retention: a controlled comparative evaluation of residential students in UK higher education,” Higher Education, vol. 68, no. 6, pp. 927- 942, 2014.