Outreach mentors with high school mentees: co-creating engagement, belonging and loyalty in higher education

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Singh, Sonal Tregale, Ruth
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Peer mentoring in higher education is regarded as an effective tool in retaining students. While various researchers have provided support for this, limited studies have looked at outreach mentoring programs as a satisfaction-creating service experience offered by universities for their students. This study examined the benefits of the LEAP Macquarie Mentoring program to first year university student mentors who are mentoring high school students from refugee backgrounds. Three focus groups with 21 university mentors, an online survey with 33 university mentors and written surveys with 365 high school mentees were carried out between 2011-2013. Preliminary findings illustrate that for university mentors who are in their first year, the mentoring program fosters a sense of belonging with the university community as well increasing their academic self-efficacy and perceived value in education. A sense of belonging with the university in their first year is critical in shaping a student’s journey at university. Introduction “Repeat business or behaviour can be bribed; Loyalty has to be earned” Janet Robinson In the marketing literature, it has been highly researched that retaining existing customers and building strong customer–provider relationships is a more cost effective approach than continually seeking and acquiring new customers (Anderson & Mittal, 2000; Reichheld, 1996). Over the years, peer to peer mentoring has been part of universities’ initiatives to foster smoother transitions as part of the first year experience and retaining students. Mentoring is often defined as a one-to-one interaction between peers or an academic to peer interaction to develop in the areas of self-esteem, connectedness, identity, and academic attitudes. The retention of students is now considered equally as important as the attraction of them (Helgesen, 2008; Hemsley-Brown & Oplatka, 2006). The Macquarie University LEAP (Learning, Education, Aspiration, Participation) Mentoring program is one such partnership, recognizing the need for ongoing support of targeted high school students from refugee and humanitarian backgrounds to enable and support their successful transition into higher education. The program is run in partnership with the NSW Department of Education and Communities (DEC). The Refugee Council of Australia has described mentoring as ‘a mutually beneficial relationship that involves a more experienced person (or ‘mentor’) helping a less experienced person (or ‘mentee’) achieve their goals’ (RCA, 2005). While there are studies in the field of mentoring, they generally address only the perceived quality and benefits of peer mentoring on mentees; therefore, the present study focuses on first year university mentors and the benefits associated with the mentoring program for mentors in terms of increasing overall sense of belonging, engagement and loyalty with the university. To provide value and satisfaction to students, it is vital universities understand first year
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Ending Page	5
Page Count	5
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://fyhe.com.au/past_papers/papers14/03C.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article