The impact of mentoring reconsidered: an exploration of the benefits for student mentors

Abstract

Mentoring represents a widely used outreach intervention amongst higher education institutions. It is also judged to be a ‘particularly effective’ approach in widening access, with a significant amount of attention directed at examining its impact on those being mentored. In contrast, less consideration has been given to the benefits that outreach mentoring can bestow on the students who work as mentors. In response, this study explores an outreach mentoring scheme that deploys university students in selected secondary schools to work with targeted pupils over a series of sessions. It reveals that mentoring affords a similar range of benefits to those gained by students who support outreach and recruitment work more generally, and that have received consideration in a number of published studies. However, the findings also identify differences in the nature of the benefits outreach mentoring offers. These, it is argued, reflect the distinct character of this work. The study concludes by emphasising the need to ensure these benefits are recognised by the student mentors as well as the organising university. The call for recognition acquires added relevance when it is acknowledged that amongst the benefits identified are those associated with improved student retention and success, both areas of growing concern for practitioners.

Keywords:

• outreach mentoring
• evaluation
• benefits
• transferrable skills

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lisa Ambler for her insights into the management of the mentoring scheme examined in this study and in overseeing the distribution and collection of questionnaires. A thank you also to Emma Church for her expertise in helping to prepare the questionnaire and in reading through earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.