Editorial overview: supporting opportunities for learning in practice

To cite this article: Templeton, N.R. (2022) Editorial Overview: Peer Mentoring: Supporting Opportunities for Learning in Practice, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 30:2, 1-5

This issue of Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning Journal includes research on peer mentoring in various contexts from scholars in Germany, The West Indies, The United Kingdom, and the southern, midwestern, northwestern and northeastern parts of the United States. The authors present compelling discussions on peer mentoring occurring in diverse disciplines and encompassing a wide range of topical strategies to support the opportunity to learn in practice. To provide a reference point for synthesizing and making application of the material in the included manuscripts, it is first prudent to provide a definition of peer mentoring. In this context, peer mentoring is defined as sharing knowledge and enriching growth through relational experiences (Templeton, 2021).

To introduce this issue, I think it prudent to share my own experiences with peer mentoring in the professoriate. When I entered higher education as newly hooded doctoral graduate fresh from professional practice as a campus principal, I initially struggled to find my footing. Admittedly, by design higher education is (or can be) innately combative. After all, your peers decide whether you get published, on what committees you serve, and eventually if tenure will be granted. This imbalance of power, whether intentional or just simply implied, is often the root cause of feelings of inadequacy and insecurity in new faculty. My experiences were not vastly different than what was shared in the immediate narrative, causing me to frequently question my value and self-worth.

Witnessing the struggle, Dr. Julia Ballenger became my peer mentor. Julia is a giant in the field of educational leadership, a widely published and accomplished educator, a Living Legend, and Regents Professor in the Texas A&M System. To be transparent, the emphasis on the awards is my own. The servant-leader in Julia Ballenger would not want the focus to be on her – but in how she serves others. It was this service provided to me that eventually framed the professor I would become. Julia shared her vast knowledge and experiences with me by first building a relationship of mutual trust and respect. This give and take dynamic afforded the opportunity for us to learn from each other. More importantly, our supportive relationship provided to me a sense of confidence which allowed me to grow beyond my comfort zone to a place where experiential learning would become the norm. I am so thankful for Julia Ballenger, and I look forward to sharing forward the investment she made in me.

In the lead article, Mutual Learning in Peer Mentoring: Effects on Mentors and Protégés, Stockamp and Godshalk draw from social change theory to explore the mutually beneficial nature of the mentoring relationship. Collecting data from 146 mentoring teams in a student peer mentoring program, findings from the research supported the hypothesis that mentor and protégé learning goal orientation and meeting frequency are predictors of the mutually beneficial nature of collective learning.

In the second article, Testing the Efficacy of a Near-Peer Mentoring Model for Recruiting Youth into Computer Science, Sun and Midura developed a near-peer mentoring model for high school youth to mentor middle school youth on how to program using MIT APP Inventor. A moderation analysis showed how mentor role modeling and perceived similarity contributed to changes in mentee self-efficacy. The findings from the study may yield deeper implications for practice in the field of computer programming.

In the third article, Mentoring Summer Undergraduate Researchers: The Faculty Members’ Experience, Copenheaver and Shumaker share experiences supervising three consecutive cohorts of summer undergraduate research interns. Using journaling for reflective and reflexive practice, the authors report the largest challenge was balancing the needs of interns with different levels of motivation. Reported findings align with the empirical research on peer mentoring, as the faculty members gained beneficial experiences from working as a team to impact the success of undergraduate researchers.

Baker and McCaffrey, in the fourth article, Fostering Professional Development through Undergraduate Research: Supporting Faculty Mentors and Student Researchers, utilized an institutional case study to examine the extent to which the Student Research Partners Program (SRP) improved student researcher and faculty mentor experiences. Using a combination of historical (one decade) programmatic data along with survey data from faculty mentors and student researchers who participated in the program, findings informed the development of more robust professional development and mentoring support. The study’s findings may also serve as a model to other institutions of higher learning who are seeking to better support student and faculty learning.

The fifth article, Developing Master’s Level Education Students as Researchers: Mentors’ and Mentees’ Experiences, Therese Ferguson and Tanneice Ellis used a generic qualitative study to explore the experiences of mentors and mentees in the development of graduate students as educational researchers at a Caribbean university. Results from the study found that mentoring relationships enhanced students’ research capabilities, while also fostering a culture of mentorship and shared growth between mentors and mentees.

In the final manuscript in this issue, Hayman, Wharton, Bruce-Martin, and Alllin explore the value of peer support within sports education settings. The discussion within the article, Benefits and Motives for Peer Mentoring in Higher Education: An Exploration Through the Lens of Cultural Capital extends the research on the benefits and motives of students volunteering to become peer mentors during their second year of university study. Drawing on Bourdieu’s key concepts as the theoretical framework, findings from the study support the understanding that participants engaged in peer mentoring to develop cultural capital for their chosen professional field, but also to support the development of social and cultural capital for mentees.

Publishing in mentoring and tutoring

Authors are reminded as they submit their work to the journal to ensure all manuscripts follow the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual (7th edition) format. We receive quite a number with APA formatting errors. In Volume 20, Issue 1, we outlined several common concerns with submissions. When writing your manuscript, please remember to check your headings, spacing, table formats, and references for correct 7th edition usage. Because the journal is very popular and competitive, and we are receiving on average three to five manuscripts every week. Please prepare works that are extremely attentive to detail (e.g. current and relevant citations, high-quality writing, careful proofreading, proper formatting style) and that are making specific contributions to the field of mentoring and tutoring. For further information, consult the Taylor & Francis posting of the M&T author guidelines for article manuscripts and book reviews: http://www.tandf.couk/journals/authors/cmetauth.asp (ISSN 1361–1267).

We do not conduct pre-reviews; rather, we will be mentoring authors in the publication process within the FastTrack system review process. That said, the Editor reserves the right to conduct desk rejections at the outset if manuscripts to not follow the prescribed guidelines. Please go to theManuscript FastTrack system to register as a user and then upload your manuscript and any additional information through the system. The FastTrack system helps with the ease of communication between authors, reviewers, and the editor and resolves issues of overloaded email inboxes.

The current requirements for M&T are that the paper, not including references and abstract, should be a maximum of 30 pages, including references, tables, and figures. Depending on the manuscript, we may consider manuscripts that are longer than 30 pages, and certainly we will accept manuscripts shorter than the prescribed 30 pages. If you have any questions about how to submit your manuscript to M&T, please go to International Council of Professors of Educational Administration (ICPEL) Publications at http://www.icpel.org. Click on M&T from the Menu of Buttons on the top of that screen. The submission link appears there on the M&T home page. You may, of course, access the journal page from the Taylor & Francis Publisher page at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13611267.asp.

Qualified individuals who serve on the Review Board, along with select Editorial Board members provide commentaries. We would also like for you to register in the same location as you submit to be a member of the M&T Journal Review Board. We will be acknowledging the Review Board at the end of the year and a top reviewer will be honored. The acceptance rate of the journal is currently 10%. Mentoring & Tutoring is abstracted in Academic Search; Australian Education Index (AEI); Australian Research Council (ARC) Ranked Journal List; Cabells; National Database for Research into International Education (NDRI); British Education Index; Contents Pages in Education; Educational Research Abstracts online (ERA); EBSCOhost EJS; Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI); Education Resources Information Center (ERIC); PsycINFO and SCOPUS®, and Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Educational Curriculum and Methods. Additionally, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning is now included in the Thomson Reuters Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Many authors have been turning to the M&T journal as the venue-of-choice for publishing high-quality works for over 20 years. M&T is the longest-running mentoring journal in the field. This refereed, peer-reviewed journal is known worldwide. Authors, readers, and subscribers are from different countries and various types of institutions and professional environments. The editorial team is committed to producing timely, thorough reviews, modeling conscientious guidance and support, and being open to a wide scope of topics and methods related to mentoring and tutoring, collaboration, and learning.

Books to be reviewed must be about mentoring and tutoring. Visit this journal’s website, http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/carfax/13611267.html, for more information about M&T, as well as special rates and discounts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).