Studies have shown that mentoring is a viable form of professional development.Faced with large numbers of retirements and a projected increase in student enrollment, the issues of recruitment, retention and revitalization of current faculty are at the core of this study. There is little empirical research on the phenomenon of structured or formal mentoring in higher education from the perspective of both the mentee and the mentor.The purpose of this study was to identify, describe, and analyze the perceived benefits that both senior or more experienced faculty mentors and junior or new-to-the institution faculty mentees at a large urban research university received from participating in a structured faculty mentoring program.A nonexperimental, descriptive study was designed to explore these issues. The method used to collect data was a survey questionnaire. Utilizing both descriptive and correlational statistics, the most notable findings revolved around the significance of sharing aspects of institutional culture by older, more experienced faculty members. Independent samples t-tests performed on ten subscales by participant type were significant at the p≤0.05 level. Specifically, mentors gave higher ratings for Scale 3, Institutional Culture and Scale 10, Value of One-to-one Activities. Mentees gave higher ratings for Scale 5, Psychosocial Compatibility elements.The findings also indicated that women gave higher value to the personal, psychosocial aspects of being involved in the structured mentoring program than men. Women gave higher ratings for Scale 5, Psychosocial Compatibility and Scale 8, Psychosocial Compatibility and Activity Elements.Correlations for faculty members years of experience at this institution as well astheir total years of being faculty members in higher education found faculty members at the current institution with greater years experience was positively correlated with Scale 3, Institutional Culture (r = .33). Total faculty years in higher education was also positively correlated with Scale 3, Institutional Culture (r = .40) and Scale 10, Value of One-to-one Activities (r = .27). The findings also suggest areas of emphasis administrators might use in designing and implementing faculty development activities that involve formal mentoring by more experienced faculty in order to obtain the greatest benefit for all participants.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1855 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| Creators | Smith-Slabaugh, Jennifer J. |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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