2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 177: Work in Progress: The Development of a Research-Based Application for Effective Mentor-Mentee Matching

Presented at Student Division (STDT) Poster Session

This work-in-progress paper explores the development of a research-based application for finding an effective mentor-mentee match. Mentorship is an important part of professional success, especially for underrepresented populations in STEM as it can further their education and careers. Mentoring experiences exist in a variety of ways, such as formal or informal. The most successful mentorships occur when the relationship evolves organically without official agreements in place. Mentoring programs exist, but there are limited programs addressing lasting connections. Moreover, finding an ideal mentoring relationship remains challenging. We hypothesize that for an ideal mentoring relationship to occur, there should be a percentage of matching between four dimensions: personality type, demographics, career aspiration, and interests. The combination of dimensions that are more impactful for mentor-mentee compatibility is unknown. Hence, we designed an experimental Phase 1 algorithm to test a preliminary combination using a tier-distance based approach. We used the algorithm to develop an application to automate the mentor-mentee matching process. We asked one hundred (100) participants to sign up as either a mentor, mentee or both, depending on their career stage for the Phase 1 experiment. The application then used the algorithm to score participants' responses and generate mentor-mentee pairs. The pairs with the highest and lowest matching percentages entered into mentoring relationships without knowing their scores to prevent bias. We conducted a survey on the mentoring experience after two months. Out of twenty-one (21) participants, eighteen (18) completed the post-experience survey. Results showed that 88.8% of the participants felt neutral or agreed with their match, while 11.1% disagreed and none strongly disagreed. Of the 18 respondents, 38.9% believed that all dimensions were important for a mentorship experience, and 22.2% believed that career aspiration was the most important. Results are extremely preliminary, so we cannot yet conclude whether the current algorithm is optimal or not. In the future, we will increase the sample size to complete the Phase 1 experiment and adjust the algorithm for greater user experience in Phase 2. We expect that with a well-tested algorithm, the research-based application will be an effective approach that can be widely accessible.

Authors

Alondra Gonzalez Quintana City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Alondra Gonzalez completed an Associate degree in Engineering Science at Wilbur Wright College and is pursuing a Bachelor's in Computer Science at the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She previously participated in the NSF HSI Summer Bridge. At Wright, she has been a tutor, near-peer mentor, and a research assistant. She was a Molecular Biophysics NSF REU Training Site participant at Princeton University. She is participating in The New Technologists internship program at Microsoft.
Alexis Alvarez City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Alexis Alvarez completed an Associate degree in Engineering Science at Wilbur Wright College and will major in Computer Science at the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined the NSF HSI Summer Bridge. At Wright College, he is a tutor and research assistant. He will be participating in the Molecular Biophysics NSF REU Training Site participant at Princeton University this summer.
Amara Moreno City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Amara Moreno is completing an associate in engineering science (AES) at City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College and is pursuing her bachelor's degree in computer science on the Intent to Pursue pathway for the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At Wright College, Amara is a tutor and research assistant.
Alessandra Romero City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Alessandra Romero is completing her associate in engineering science (AES) at Wright College. She is an Amazon Future Engineer Scholar and a Software Engineering intern at Amazon. Alessandra will transfer to UIUC to complete BS in Electrical Engineering.
Lourdes Beatriz Johnson City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Lourdes Johnson is completing her Assoicates degree in Engineering at City Colleges of Chicago Wilbur Wright College. She attended the NSF HSI Engineering Bridge, transferring to Illinois Tech for Biomedical Engineering and will be doing NSF REU: I-BEST, through University of California Merced.
Bohan Ren City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Bohan Ren completed his Associate in Engineering Science (AES) at City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College. Bohan is pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He attended the NSF HSI Building Bridges into Engineering Bridge. At Wright, Bohan served as a tutor and a research assistant.
Kendrit Tahiraj City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Kendrit Tahiraj was a bridge participant and research assistant of the NSF-HSI Building Bridges project. He earned his Associate Degree in Engineering Sciences and was the president of the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) chapter at Wilbur Wright College. He earned his bachelor's degree in computer science at the Grainger College of Engineering in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he will also pursue a Master of Computer Science degree.
Anthony Jesus Huerta City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Anthony Huerta completed his associates degree at Wilbur Wright College and completed their Bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At Wright, he helped to create the first iteration of MentorMatch and is now working full time as a software engineer.
Dr. Doris J. Espiritu City Colleges of Chicago [biography]

Doris Espiritu is the Dean of the Center of Excellence for Engineering and Computer Science and Professor of Chemistry at City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College. She also serves as the Senior Advisor to the Provost of the City Colleges of Chicago. Doris Espiritu is one of the first National Science Foundation’s research awardees under the Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program. She pioneered Engineering at Wright and had grown the Engineering program enrollment by 2500% within five years. Doris founded seven student chapters of national organizations including the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE), the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and ten times Outstanding Chapter Awardee, the American Chemical Society-Wright College Chapter. Doris promotes collaboration between K-12 schools, other community colleges, 4-year institutions, non-profit organizations, and industries. Doris’ current research is to design and implement practices that develop Community of Practice (CoP), Professional Identity, and Self-Efficacy to increase diversity in Engineering and Computer Science and to streamline transfer from community colleges to 4-year institutions.

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