How Are Mentees' Goals and Demographic Characteristics
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How are Mentees’ Goals and Demographic Characteristics Associated with their Mentoring Experiences, Preferences and Perceived Benefits? By Vanina Wekam July, 2021 Director of thesis: Dr. Heather Vance-Chalcraft Major Department: Biology ABSTRACT Mentoring typically happens in a dyadic form where a senior mentor advises a mentee who is not as experienced. Recent review of the literature suggests that other forms of mentoring could be beneficial to mentees. Group mentoring is where a mentor or multiple mentors work with a mentee or several mentees; it can take on many forms such as mentoring triads, collective mentoring with more than three individuals in the mentoring relationship, and a mentoring network with different information, resources, and people to help guide a mentee. Mentoring can also be either formal, where a designated mentor (s) is assigned to a mentee (s), or informal, where the mentoring relationship evolves spontaneously between mentor(s) and mentee (s). Career (sponsoring, coaching, increasing the mentees exposure or visibility, etc.) and psychosocial (role modeling, counseling, offering friendship, etc.) goals are two major goals that have been documented for mentoring relationships. It is possible that the type of mentoring, as well as demographic factors, may influence one’s access to mentors and the likelihood of fulfilling one’s goals for the mentoring relationship. This study seeks to investigate how medical students’ mentoring goals and demographic characteristics (race/ethnicity, gender identity, household income, or parental highest level of education) may have influenced their prior mentoring experiences. I focus on medical students because their insight on their mentoring experiences would be beneficial for students interested in pursuing a career in medicine. I surveyed 87 medical students from three different institutions (East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine (SOM), Wake Forest SOM and UNC Chapel Hill SOM) and holding one-on-one interviews with ten of the survey respondents. The goals of the study were to provide a deeper understanding of the factors that may impact mentoring and to advance ongoing research about effective mentoring in higher education. Findings show that medical students from all populations had previously participated in both formal and informal mentoring, and Asian students had significantly more informal mentors than white and UR students. Medical students generally had university faculty or medical professionals as mentors, and there was a significant association between the gender identity of the mentee and that of their first mentor (i.e., they shared the same gender identity). Additionally, students reported having both career and psychosocial goals for mentoring, and there was a positive association between the strength of the mentees’ goals for mentoring and the number of formal mentors the mentees had. Most respondents preferred having one mentor in a dyadic relationship, but only around a quarter of the survey respondents had experienced group mentoring. Further research into the functions and benefits of group mentoring will be critical to better anticipate under what conditions it may be preferable over dyadic mentoring. Mentoring programs for aspiring medical students may benefit from focusing on both career and psychosocial functions, as well as offering access to dyadic and group mentoring, to maximize the benefits of mentoring for students from diverse backgrounds. How are Mentees’ Goals and Demographic Characteristics Associated with their Mentoring Experiences, Preferences and Perceived Benefits? A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Biology East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MS, Biology by Vanina Wekam July, 2021 © Vanina Wekam, 2021 How are Mentees’ Goals and Demographic Characteristics Associated with their Mentoring Experiences, Preferences and Perceived Benefits? . By Vanina Wekam APPROVED BY: Director of Thesis Heather Vance-Chalcraft, PhD Committee Member Carol Goodwillie, PhD Committee Member Mark Bowler, PhD Chair of the Department of Biology John Stiller, PhD Dean of the Graduate School Paul J. Gemperline, PhD ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank you, Dr. Heather Vance-Chalcraft, for being instrumental to my success both in my undergraduate and graduate studies. You have provided to me emotional support and career guidance throughout my time at East Carolina University, and I could not be more grateful. Thank you, Dr. Heather Vance-Chalcraft, Dr. Mark Bowler, and Dr. Carol Goodwillie, for your feedback and for your help completing this thesis. I appreciated your encouragement along the way, and I am beyond grateful to have had you all as members of my committee. Thank you, Michelle Reyes, Jen Teshera-Levye, and Jynx Pigart-Coleman for your feedback and for your assistance analyzing the surveys and interviews and competing this thesis. Thank you to my family: Rosaline (mom), Daniel (dad), Celine, Sandrine, Isabelle, Raoul, Rodolphe, Dalia, Anthony, Life, Aiden, Skylate, Angel, and Natan for always being there for me and supporting me; you all are my inspiration to keep pushing forward. Thank you, Jessica, Victoria, Michaela, and Jazontè for being supportive friends; I could not have completed this thesis without you all. Thank you to the faculty and staff from Brody School of Medicine (SOM), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill SOM and Wake Forest SOM for distributing the survey to their medical students. Thank you to the medical student survey respondents and interviewees for taking the time to complete the survey and interviews. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1: Introduction....................................................................................................... 1 Participation in Mentoring Relationships.............................................................................. 2 Types of Mentoring Relationships ......................................................................................... 3 Research Aims ..................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 2: Methods ............................................................................................................ 8 Study Population.................................................................................................................. 8 Survey Creation ................................................................................................................... 9 Survey Distribution ............................................................................................................ 10 Survey Data Manipulation.................................................................................................. 10 Survey Analysis .................................................................................................................. 11 Interview Requests ............................................................................................................. 12 Interview Analysis .............................................................................................................. 13 CHAPTER 3: Results ............................................................................................................ 15 Survey Results.................................................................................................................... 15 Interview Results................................................................................................................ 17 CHAPTER 4: Discussion ....................................................................................................... 20 TABLES AND FIGURES ..................................................................................................... 26 REFERENCES...................................................................................................................... 33 APPENDIX A: Survey Items ................................................................................................. 43 APPENDIX B: Interview Questions ....................................................................................... 49 APPENDIX C: Codebook...................................................................................................... 51 APPENDIX D: IRB Approval................................................................................................ 54 LIST OF TABLES 1. Gender Identity of the Survey Respondents 2. Aggregated Race/Ethnicity of the Survey Respondents 3. Reported Household Income (Aggregated) of the Survey Respondents 4. Highest Parental Level of Education for the Survey Respondents 5. Gender Identity of the Interview Respondents 6. Reported Household Income (Aggregated) of the Interview Respondents 7. Aggregated Race/Ethnicity of the Interview Respondents 8. Reported Participation in Group Mentoring of the Interview Respondents 9. Reported Institution of the Interview Respondents 10. Mean Percent and Standard Deviation of Interview Transcript Text Matching Each Code LIST OF FIGURES 1. Number of Formal and Informal Mentors by Student Race/Ethnicity 2. Count of Mentors, by Gender Identity, Reported