Peer Mentoring in Higher Education

Collier (2017) explains that peer mentoring is an effective method for facilitating success for college students because it has a positive effect on the learners morale and increases the students satisfaction with the university. This is essentially the same finding as that of Flores and Estudillo (2018), who note that peer-to-peer mentoring programs can assist first year college students in their academic and social goals. Peer mentoring provides support for learners by giving them a reliable shoulder to lean on, and it gives them motivation to become more socially connected on campus. Both researchers have found this to be true over the course of their studies.

Students with autism can also be assisted through peer mentoring, according to the study by Siew, Mazzucchelli, Rooney and Girdler (2017). Siew et al. (2017) used a single group pre-test, post-test design with qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the outcomes of peer mentoring among ten college students with autism. Interviews were conducted along with questionnaires answered, and the focus of both was on how the students experienced the peer mentoring program and what impact the program had on the students general anxiety, state communication apprehension, perceived communication competence, and communication apprehension both prior to, and five months after the program began. Siew et al. (2017) found that the autistic students who received peer mentoring felt more supported socially speaking and nervousness about communicating. The main limitation of the study, however, was that it did not use a control group and so the implication of causation is made, i.e., that the program is what caused a change in feeling about social support or in nervousness about speaking. However, just because there is a correlation between the program and the changes does not mean the program was the main reason for the change.

The lack of a control group is often a limitation of most studies of this kind. Fruiht and Chan (2018) for instance, investigated the role that community members, relatives, and educators play in first-generation college goers educational outcomes by looking at 4181 participants data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health, the focus being to test differences in supports received between first-generation, continuing-generation, and non-college students. This is as close to a type of control as the majority of studies on peer mentoring among college students gets. It is not quite a control group analysis, but rather a kind of comparative group assessment. Randomized control trials with a double blind, placebo-controlled trial are considered the gold standard of trials, but they are infrequently done by researchers because they require a great deal of time, preparation and have ethical implications that are difficult to reconcile in todays day and age. Thus, limitation by lack of control is not uncommon and most...

This suggests that it is important for mentors to realize that first-generation students should be supported from their peer mentors in terms of how they see themselves simply because they themselves are venturing into unchartered waters and have no one to back them up in what they are doing. Their parents did not go to college and so they do not have a sympathetic or empathetic family member at home who understands what they are up against. Instead, they have to figure things out for themselves and this can...…are these topics mentioned or discussed at any length, and this only impairs the field of study. In only one of the ten studies reviewed herein was there any discussion of validity or reliability in the data, and that was in the study by Siew et al. (2017). The other studies either neglected the issue of validity and reliability altogether or did not see it as worth mentioning in their research report because it would call into question the value of their findings. Therein lies the problem with much of this research. It is lacking in standards that should be implemented across the board in all research. The outcomes are goal-sought and the conclusions generally held even before research is commenced.

In conclusion, the studies discussed herein are generally similar in terms of associating positive outcomes with peer mentoring. Though the researchers rely upon different methods of research and use different designs to obtain and interpret data, the data is generally shown to give a favorable view of peer mentorship. Someof the studies are exploratory while others seek to provide quantitative data. Overall, the studies approach the topic in diverse manners, some looking at the experience of mentees, others at the experience of mentors, some at the benefits the program has for autistic learners, and others at the problems such a program could solve. There needs to be more discussion, however, on the impact of peer mentoring from an objective point of view. The possibility of a randomized controlled trial should be discussed by the researchers in a more open manner and it is to be wondered at why there are so few studies of this type on the subject. If peer mentoring is really to be understood, it should be examined from this perspective and it should receive the kind…