Promoting professional identity, motivation, and persistence: Benefits of an informal mentoring program for female undergraduate students

Abstract

Women are underrepresented in a number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Limited diversity in the development of the STEM workforce has negative implications for scientific innovation, creativity, and social relevance. The current study reports the first-year results of the PROmoting Geoscience Research, Education, and SuccesS (PROGRESS) program, a novel theory-driven informal mentoring program aimed at supporting first- and second-year female STEM majors. Using a prospective, longitudinal, multi-site (i.e., 7 universities in Colorado/Wyoming Front Range & Carolinas), propensity score matched design, we compare mentoring and persistence outcomes for women in and out of PROGRESS (N = 116). Women in PROGRESS attended an off-site weekend workshop and gained access to a network of volunteer female scientific mentors from on- and off-campus (i.e., university faculty, graduate students, and outside scientific professionals). The results indicate that women in PROGRESS had larger networks of developmental mentoring relationships and were more likely to be mentored by faculty members and peers than matched controls. Mentoring support from a faculty member benefited early-undergraduate women by strengthening their scientific identity and their interest in earth and environmental science career pathways. Further, support from a faculty mentor had a positive indirect impact on women’s scientific persistence intentions, through strengthened scientific identity development. These results imply that first- and second- year undergraduate women’s mentoring support networks can be enhanced through provision of protégé training and access to more senior women in the sciences willing to provide mentoring support.

Testing models of reciprocal relations between social influence and integration in STEM across the college years

“…Participants were instructed to think of a mentor as someone “who provides guidance, assistance, and encouragement on professional and academic issues. A mentor is more than an academic advisor and is someone you turn to for guidance and assistance beyond selecting classes or meeting academic requirements” [ 50 ]. On the pre-college survey, participants indicated (yes = 1 or no = 0) if people in any of the following roles served as a mentor in their lives (a) teachers, (b) guidance counselors, (c) program staff members, (d) graduate students, (e) peers, (f) professionals outside of the school setting, (g) family members/relatives, or (h) others.…”

“…For example, researchers using SCCT [ 41 , 44 ] have found moderate positive associations between mentorship support and psychosocial outcomes (e.g., science self-efficacy), as well as small-to-moderate associations with intentions to persistence in STEM among HU college students (i.e., racial/ethnic minorities) [ 45 – 48 ]. Similarly, researchers studying women pursuing STEM degrees have shown significant small-to-moderate positive associations between mentorship and a sense of belong, science identity, and intentions to persist in a scientific career [ 49 , 50 ]. However, even theoretically driven research has not typically examined longitudinal associations linking mentoring, motivational mediators, and integration into STEM, nor has this research tested reciprocal relations or feedback loops.…”

A scoping review of mentor training programs in medicine between 1990 and 2017

“…Many programs augment mentor training programs with the peer, near-peer, online [120], 'functional' (skills based or project-based mentoring) [29,113], mentoring committees and mentoring networks. Mentor consultation services and mentoring committees [11] provide mentees with the additional mentor and peer mentor support whilst mentoring networks [29] provide a mix of peer and faculty support. Online services [122,125] provide mentors and mentees with supplemental resources including information on best mentoring practices and links to resources, such as mentoring agreements and individual development plans.…”

“…Novice mentoring dominates the mentoring landscape in medical education [1][2][3][4][5][6] and has been found to enhance innovation and career progression [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], encourage research involvement amongst women and underrepresented ethnic minorities, boost grant success [16], and publications [10,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23] and navigating the complex landscape of academic life [2,[24][25][26][27]. Clinicians who have been mentored are also more motivated, resilient, have well-developed professional identities and feel better supported in their jobs than colleagues without mentors [28][29][30][31]. Mentoring also has a role in portfolio-learning [32,33] and competency-based curricula [34][35][36][37][38].…”

Factors Influencing Graduate Program Choice Among Undergraduate Women

“…Such initiatives and culture changes may strengthen the scientific identities and motivation of early undergraduate women, and could also serve to increase interest in MD-PhD training among women. 28 Over three-quarters of female participants considering MD, PhD, and/or MD-PhD programs stated that their perceived competitiveness as an applicant was a determining factor in their choice of graduate degree program. Women consistently underrate their competence, even at an early age.…”