Seminário Internacional de Mentoria
Integration experiences in freshmen with and without a mentoring scheme Nina Szczygiel Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism/GOVCOPP, University of Aveiro Andreia Cruz Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra Abstract Over the past years, freshman mentoring programs have been increasingly recognized as a major component supporting transition into higher education. A mission of such initiatives is to promote integration and well-being and nurture the sense of belonging while addressing the problem of school drop-out. Freshmen are rather under-informed about what higher education really is and how university structures work. In the first instance, they are faced with a series of rules and procedures of which noncompliance can have serious consequences. Dealing with this new reality, often away from family and friends, they can experience high levels of anxiety and stress. The Covid-19 pandemic has only accentuated the already existing challenges. People tend to trust the most who they identify with which is why peer support at universities seems to be a logical strategy to be undertaken. Peer mentors have already lived through the freshman year experience and so they can guide and offer a valuable informational and emotional support as well as provide opportunities to network. In Portugal, formal mentoring program can now be part of the Portuguese Network of Mentoring – Tutoring (Rede Portuguesa de Mentoria | Tutoria). Previous research has been interested in studying existing initiatives from the point of view of participants’ experiences. In this work, we examine the potential of implementing such a scheme in an undergraduate program with no formal mentoring system. For this purpose, we conduct an online survey among students of two programs and analyze their perceptions of integration. Results suggest that students who are currently benefitting from being part of a mentoring program present significantly higher levels of academic and social integration what supports the hypothesis that a mentoring program can be an advantage in firstyear students’ integration. We conclude that a well-structured mentoring program can be beneficial for student socialization, integration, and well-being, and therefore should be taken into account by higher education institutions.
Introduction Entering university is a big step for students and their families. It can be an exciting and anxiety-filled experience at the same time, for both parts. As the parents know their children and want the best for them, almost inevitably they create expectations about the child’s academic pathway and progress. They also suffer from the effects of separation, often the first this serious in life. On the other hand, for the student, the transition from secondary to higher education means new surroundings, new routines and new friends. Nowadays, universities and programs are characterized by diversity of public. Freshmen come from different cultures, geographic locations and backgrounds, what, together with the dynamic of the transition, raises challenges of their adjustment. Mentoring is one of the initiatives pointed out as a strategy to address student integration. Formal mentoring programs are based on structured, often one-to-one relationships designed to provide a response into specific first year-students’ needs and have already been adopted by a number of higher education institutions. Arguments in favor of such initiatives are that they foster academic awareness, stimulate autonomy, promote building meaningful social relationships, enhance retention rates and promote well-being. Such programs tackle two dimensions of student integration, academic and social. Dimension D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
Mann-Whitney U 1030.500 1087.500 1240.000 1283.000 1250.500
p-value .000* .001* .016* .0285* .017
*statistically significant Table 1. Mann-Whitney test statistics in five dimensions of integration (D1: peer-group interactions, D2: interactions with faculty, D3: faculty concern for student development and teaching, D4: academic and intellectual development, D5: institutional and goal commitments.
0 0 02
Integration experiences in freshmen with and without a mentoring scheme Promoting academic integration at the University of Aveiro with “Programa Tutoria”
Perceptions of some students in the context of a pandemic
Programa Mentoria e promoção de integração:
a experiência no Instituto de Serviço Social da ULHT
Mentoria U. Porto
Integração e vivências solidárias promotoras de bem estar e de sucesso académico na Universidade
Programa Mentorado do Técnico Promover a integração, o bem-estar e o sucesso pessoal e académico
Vivências e trajetórias no Ensino Superior em Portugal – experiências de mentoria/ tutoria de estudantes da CPLP
Fig 1. Mean scores by group by item (Group 1 – with mentoring scheme, Group 2 – without mentoring scheme).
Fig 2. Mean scores by group by dimension (Group 1 – with mentoring scheme, Group 2 – without mentoring scheme)
Academic integration refers to the degree to which students become attached to the university life and structures. Social integration refers to the fit into social environment and relates with social networks and affiliation with faculty and staff. Both aspects should be considered by higher education institutions as integrated students tend to be generally more satisfied with the program, and more likely to stay and graduate. We hypothesize that first-year students who have access to a freshman mentoring program would experience higher levels of academic and social integration than those who are not supported by their older peers.
Results Exploratory analysis of the data supported by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test revealed that the data were not normally distributed (p<.05 in all except from one analyzed sub-groups). The assumption of homogeneity of variances was met in all studied conditions however the samples were of unequal size. A non-parametric measure was adopted as the most suitable in this situation. The results showed that first-year students of a program with a formal mentoring scheme had statistically higher perceptions of integration than students who did not have access to such project in all five analyzed dimensions (see Table 1) suggesting that mentoring can be an effective mean to promote academic and social integration.
Methods An online study was conducted among first-year students from two study programs delivered at different higher education institutions and consisted of a questionnaire that aimed to assess academic and social integration. The questionnaire was developed on a basis of Pascarella and Terenzini’s (1980) model that had suggested a fivedimensional structure comprising: peergroup interactions, interactions with faculty, faculty concern for student development and teaching, academic and intellectual development, and institutional and goal commitments (identified as dimension 1, dimension 2, and so on, respectively). The answers were registered in a five-point Likert scale.
Mentoria FEUP: De Mentorado a Mentor
Conclusions Successful transition and integration can result in a number of academic (achievement) and social (friends, support network) benefits and make the university experience memorable and unique. This study aimed to understand whether a formal mentoring scheme would be of value for freshmen. The results suggest that students with mentoring scored statistically higher in all the dimensions of integration and are in favor of implementing such schemes in higher education. References Terenzini, P.T., & Pascarella, E.T. (1980). Toward the validation of Tinto's model of college student attrition: A review of recent studies. Research in Higher Education, 12, 271–282
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