ONLINE-MENTORING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

AS A MEANS FOR PERSISTENCE,

RETENTION AND GRADUATION

GLORIA NATIVIDAD, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS

“Mentoring is a developmental partnership

through which one person shares knowledge,

skills, information and perspective to foster

the personal and professional growth of

someone else. We all have a need for insight

that is outside of our normal life and

educational experience. The power of

mentoring is that it creates a one-of-a-kind

opportunity for collaboration, goal

achievement and problem-solving.”

- Indiana University. Health Education home page.

MENTORING - DEFINITION

• The issue of high attrition rates for undergraduate students enrolled in face-to-face and online courses has become a priority concern for higher education administrators and several foundations.

• Online–Mentoring is being considered as a means to address persistence, retention and graduation.

The reason for the study

• Over the past three decades the number of students entering higher education has dramatically increased.

• Recent student-retention studies indicate that only two thirds of first year students stay in school, and that only one third of those students would earn a bachelor’s degree.

The problem:

These numbers are estimates based on a Chronicle analysis of theEntering fall 2004 class at 3,800 colleges.

4.3 MILLION FRESHMEN STARTED COLLEGE IN FALL

2004

2.1 MILLION DIDN’T OFFICIALLY GRADUATE

These numbers are estimates based on a Chronicle analysis of theEntering fall 2004 class at 3,800 colleges.

Highest Graduation Rates

GRADUATION RATES BY STATE

• The development of the personal computer, Internet and other technologies have allowed a much broader and diverse population to enroll in postsecondary education.

• Creating a new category of learners (Halsne & Gatta, 2002), quite different from traditional on-campus students.

• Therefore, new ways are needed in which to address the problem of retention (Del Valle, R. and Duffy, T. M., 2006).

• Institutions have employed online technologies to provide courses to those students who would not otherwise be served.

• Unfortunately, online student retention has been noted as one of the greatest weaknesses in online education (Bierema & Merriam, 2002).

Actions taken:

MENTORING FUNCTIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS

MiscommunicationSlower Dev. RelationshipsIncreased Writing and Technical SkillsTech ProblemsPrivacy

Greater access to MentorsReduced costsStatus EqualizationDecreased importance of DemographicsRecord of Interactions

Opportunities

Challenges

CMC PrimaryCMC OnlyCMC SupplementalF-t-F Mentoring

CoachingFriendshipsCounselingLearning

Type of Mentoring

Mentor Roles

Summary of Research Propositions

• Mentoring programs have proven to be effective in academic environments to increase success and retention of students; however, very few educati onal institutions have incorporated mentoring as part of their pedagogy (George, 2012).

Recommendation:

• Offering and incorporating online-mentoring programs at our institutions will provide:

a) A means to provide emotional supportb) To help students perform betterc) To encourage underrepresented groupsd) To provide greater access and support to all

members (no geographical limitationse) Reduced cost (time and financial cost of meetings)f) And ultimately… PERSIST, STAY AND GRADUATE!

“A great mentor has a knack for making

us think we are better than we think we are.

They force us to have a good opinion of

ourselves, let us know they believe in us.

They make us get more out of ourselves, and

once we learn how good we really are, we

never settle for anything less than our very

best."

The Prometheus Foundation

MENTOR - DEFINITION

ReferencesBarab, S.A., & Hay, K.E. (2001). Doing science at the elbows of experts: Issues related to

the science apprenticeship camp. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 38(1), 70-102.

Freire, P. (1997). A response. In P. Freire, with J. W. Fraser, D. Macedo, T. McKinnon, & W. T. Stokes (Eds.), Mentoring the mentor: A critical dialogue with Paulo Freire (pp. 303-329). New York: Peter Lang.

U.S. Department of Education. OPE Office of Postsecondary Education. Federal TRiO Programs. http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html

George, M. P. (2012). A model for student mentoring in business schools. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education. 1(2), 136-154.

Ensher, E.A., Heun, C., and Blanchard, A. (2003). Online mentoring and computer-mediated communication: New directions in research. Journal of Vocational Behavior 63, 264-288.

Del Valle, R. and Duffy, T. M. (2007). Online learning: Learner characteristics and their approaches to managing learning. Learning Strategies in Distance Education. DOI 10.1007/s11251-007-9039-0

The Chronicle of Higher Education. College completion: Who graduates from College, who doesn’t, and why it matters. http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/about/