E-Mentoring in Higher Education: A Structured Literature Review and Implications for Future Research

Abstract

Mentoring in higher education helps learners acclimate to a new academic topic, increases the likelihood of academic success, and reduces attrition. Learners rely on the expertise and experience of mentors to help them graduate in a timely manner and advance on to their career. As online and distance education becomes more pervasive, computer-mediated mentoring allows learners to connect with their mentors in new ways. Research about mentoring in higher education includes investigations into the efficacy of virtual or e-mentoring. We conducted a literature review of research from 2009 to 2019 to identify relevant elements for implementing e-mentoring programs in higher education. Our research revealed that there is a consistent interest in the subject matter within educational research; however, there is a gap on virtual mentoring in higher education for students conducting offsite internships. Our research reviews e-mentoring programs, identifies how these programs are evaluated, identifies factors of successful programs, and establishes a research agenda in areas of e-mentoring programs for students in offsite internships and how they can be structured to achieve the same level of success.

Mentoría en curso de emprendimiento en línea.Sistematización de una experiencia en educación superior

“…Las aportaciones de esta investigación están relacionadas con la presentación de los resultados de un estudio empírico sobre mentoría en cursos de emprendimiento en línea en educación superior. La cual viene a cubrir en parte la falta de este tipo de estudios (Tinoco-Giraldo et al, 2020), presentando algunos principios de diseño que pueden ser utilizados en otros cursos o contextos, según la experiencia sistematizada en este estudio. Debido a que la sistematización de experiencias pone énfasis en el proceso vivido durante la experiencia concreta y busca describir y entender qué es lo que sucedió y por qué ocurrió, en este estudio se buscó poder explicar cómo vivieron los participantes este proceso y extraer lecciones que permitan mejorarlos en una futura experiencia (Barbosa-Chacón et al, 2015;Inciarte-González et al 2017;Jara, 2018;Picado-Alfaro, 2018).…”

The future challenges of scientific and technical higher education

“…81 For a detailed review of e-learning and e-mentoring see papers by Rodriguez and by Tinoco-Giraldo and their colleagues. 82,83 While the restrictions during the COVID/19 pandemic have completely changed the education landscape (see the conceptual paper by Cesco and colleagues), 84 the use of the abovementioned tools -with the exception Moodle and its basic functions of an online repository -have been until recently mostly limited to online Universities.…”

Avoiding the Dark Side of Digital Transformation in Teaching. An Institutional Reference Framework for eLearning in Higher Education

“…The other types of content will be managed by the teaching team, including different types of activities, third party resources, self-assessment tests, etc., but paying particular attention to the resources for interaction with the students, given that this is key for learning, collaboration, and active participation by all those involved in the training action [60,61].…”