The Student Mentor Program - an Action-Research Project Over Five Years

Peter Hanley

Abstract

In universities around Australia, student mentor schemes have figured prominently as a proven strategy in assisting new students to make the transition from school to university. Student mentoring has been an important feature on the Cairns campus at James Cook University since the early days of the campus in 1991. A student mentor scheme catering for all students was introduced on the Townsville campus in 1997. This paper describes how action-research methodology has been employed in the development of the student mentor scheme over the past five years.

Introduction

One of the features of university life since the early 1990s has been a widespread interest in the development of strategies, such as student mentoring schemes, to assist new students in making the transition from school to university. McInnis et al (1995) carried out extensive research into the first year experience at several Australian universities. Perhaps not surprisingly, one of their findings was that 'students now require assistance beyond what was the norm', and they recommended that it was important that a positive academic and social environment be developed that extends beyond the classroom. They found that student support services were often under-used with many students being unaware of their existence. Similar findings resulted from a study in 1994 of 1000 randomly selected students at Central Queensland University. The study by McKavanagh et al (1996) found that students often only sought help only at crisis time, and that many students did not know of the existence of support services or how they might be assisted by these services. McKavanagh et al (1996) proposed that students do appear to listen to other students and this is one of the primary ways they attempt to obtain information and support. They went on to say that placing an emphasis on structuring informal support groups where experienced students support new students would enhance the total university experience. They concluded that a student mentor program was the ideal strategy to facilitate the formation of such support groups. Yet another study of 134 students at James Cook University (JCU) in 1997, revealed that a significant proportion of the students who had contemplated dropping out were unaware of the support services available (McGinty & Zimmermann,1997).

A number of First Year Experience conferences were held throughout Australasia in the 1990s. At the inaugural conference at Brisbane in 1995, the importance of the university becoming a learning community was highlighted in a number of presentations and several papers reported on successful mentoring programs. Inspired by these reports and by the Cairns experience where a mentoring scheme had been in place since 1991 (Treston 1999), the learning advisers at JCU Townsville campus decided to train higher year students as mentors to run orientation programs for incoming students in 1996. This paper reports subsequent developments in the Student Mentor Program on the Townsville campus.

We have followed action research methodology over the past five years where changes were planned and implemented and the process and consequences of the changes were observed. Reflection followed and the spiral process continued - replanning, acting and observing, reflecting and so on (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000). In this process we collaborated with academic staff, Helen Treston (Cairns Learning Adviser) and student mentors.

1996 Orientation Program

The learning advisers had offered study skills sessions to first year students as part of the orientation program since 1990. We realised that there was a credibility gap between ourselves and school leavers and agreed that in 1996 student mentors should run orientation workshops. It was hoped that workshops would teach the new students new skills and would be a community building exercise. We met with a group of intending mentors and together developed a workshop program that we believed would be meaningful for first year students. The workshop program had 3 aims:

This workshop was offered for three days during orientation week and had two stages. Day one involved an orientation workshop and day two involved follow-up meetings between students and their mentors in 1^st semester. The orientation workshops were a great success. Around 140 first year students and 53 mentors participated. Feedback at the end of first Semester 1996 found that students found the orientation workshop most helpful and that most students had maintained contact with other students they met at the workshop. Most students had not attended follow-up meetings with their mentors since they did not feel that this was necessary. These follow-up meetings followed the rule of thirds. One third of the mentors had maintained contact with the students in their group and had held several meetings. A further third of the mentors followed up their first years to be told that things were going well and that there was no need for a meeting, and the remaining third did not initiate contact with the first year students (Hanley, 1996).

Together with a small group of mentors we reflected on the 1996 experience. The workshop had been extremely successful in developing a sense of community among the participants that was sadly missing from much of the orientation program. I had the experience on the first day of orientation of directing students to their faculty welcomes because many could make no sense of the maps they had been given. Even if they were lucky enough to find their way to the welcome, they sometimes could not fit into the lecture theatre. No wonder that many did not venture out to the campus again during orientation week. We agreed that we needed to develop strategies that would include more first year students in our mentor program, but the question was ‘how?’

The answer to that question came from the 2nd FYE Conference held in Melbourne in 1996. At this Conference we reported on our own experience and also heard reports of other initiatives inspired by the previous year's conference.  At Central Queensland University, staff of the Counselling Centre together with the departments of Business and Mathematics, had received funding to initiate an action-learning project to set up mentor programs in these two departments. (McKavanagh et al, 1996). All first year students in these departments had been allocated a mentor and met with the mentor on at least three occasions during the first semester. The success of the program had been such that funding of $70,000 had been promised from the VC's discretional funds to expand the program across all departments and campuses of CQU in 1997. The Arts faculty at UQ had also introduced a very successful peer-mentoring program for their 500 first year students in 1996. There was another report on the Host Program organised each year by the Student Union at the University of Melbourne (Brown, 1996). In this program, 350 higher year students were trained each year to be hosts for 4000 incoming students. Prior to hearing this report we had been daunted by the prospect of including all prospective first year students in the program. We realised then that if Melbourne University was able to offer a program to cater for 4000 students there should be no reason that we should not be able to cater for 1400 in 1997 with a similar approach.

1997 Orientation Program

We were apprehensive about recruiting the mentors we needed and enlisted a number of staff to help with the recruitment. This resulted in 120 mentors and staff also assisted with the training of the mentors. We designed a training process that would encourage mentors to reflect on their own first year experience and then to design a program for the new students. The training session required a full day and took place in faculty groups facilitated by faculty and student support staff. Another aim of the training program was to walk the mentors through the Welcome Program. The first session commenced with a name game as one of the key goals of the program is for first year students to learn the names of other students in their group. We believed that it was important for mentors to know each other’s names. Mentors were then asked to reflect on their own first year experience based on their answers to the following two questions: a) what was the most important thing they had learnt in their first year at university and b) what were four things they would like First Years to take away from their welcome program? Answers to the first question included "it's all up to you", the importance of keeping up and study organisation. The most common responses to the second question were the importance of taking responsibility, understanding what university study involves, being able to find their way around campus and knowing where to go to get help. Mentors spent some time in small groups discussing their responses to the above questions. Some time was also spent discussing what would be expected of them in the role of mentor and the qualities needed to be a good mentor. Mentors were also given a short briefing on the goals and format of the mentor program. In the second session the briefings continued with short presentations from a number of student services staff. The first two sessions set the scene for the final session where mentors planned what they would do with their group of first year students on the welcome day. The purpose of the training process we have developed is to give the mentors "ownership" of the program.

The Welcome Program on Monday of the 1997 Orientation Week on the Townsville campus was very different from those of previous years. As in previous years the welcome was in a large tent on the oval but that is where similarities ended. Around the tent were groups of mentors dressed in faculty colours and clutching balloons of the same colour. After welcomes from the VC and the Student Union President, the new students were directed to faculty areas where they were allocated in groups to the waiting mentors. The program included a tour of the campus, the Faculty welcome and viewing of a video featuring first year students from 1996 discussing study at university. Among goals set for the Monday Program were that each new student should be introduced to 5-6 students doing the same course and that new students should have a sense of excitement about the prospect of university study. Many of the unpleasant features of orientation week in previous years were no more. Gone were the long queues of students waiting for student union sample bags because mentors distributed the sample bags. Gone also were groups of first years wandering aimlessly around the campus seeking their faculty welcomes because their mentors conducted them to the faculty welcomes. The morning concluded at the refectory where new students and mentors enjoyed a sausage sizzle hosted jointly by the Student Union and the University. This was where the success of the new format became most apparent. In previous years, few new students had waited around after the official ceremonies. This year there were hundreds of students sitting around in groups enjoying sausages and soft drinks and listening to local bands.

1998 Orientation Program

The main changes planned for the 1998 program were to increase the number of mentors and to give more responsibility for the program to the faculties. An Orientation Committee, representing all sections of the university, was established and this group coordinated the 1998 Program. The success of the previous year was repeated with 160 mentors assisting around 1500 first year students on Welcome Day. An extensive evaluation was carried out on the 1998 Welcome Program. Two hundred and seven first year students, 184 of which took part in the mentor program, completed a questionnaire that sought feedback about their orientation experience. When asked to nominate the best things about the program, 168 said the tour of the campus, 87 mentioned the advice they had received from their mentor and 63 the opportunity of meeting students from the same course. Many of the students made negative comments about the welcome in the tent, which they said was far too hot with many students unable to see what was happening. When we reflected on the 1998 program, our major concern was that most mentors did not meet with their groups in First Semester. We considered possible strategies to lessen dependence on the learning advisers and to increase ownership of the mentor program by the mentors themselves. We were aware of a host of initiatives on the Cairns campus that had arisen from the mentor program such as the development of a Mentor Corner in the Cairns library that is continually staffed by volunteer mentors. Mentor recruitment is not a problem on the Cairns campus where mentors recruit replacements for themselves from the first year students in their groups (Treston 1999). Another concern was that the faculties had not increased their involvement in the program. The learning advisers and several willing staff members were left to carry out the mammoth task of mentor recruitment.

In 1998, two JCU learning advisers attended the third in the series of First Year in Higher Education conferences held this time in Auckland. Again it was exciting to hear of the developments that were taking place around Australasia. The most impressive reports came from Central Queensland University where the mentor program now operated across all schools and campuses and involved mentors meeting with first year students in their groups on six occasions during the year. A similar program to the one in Townsville operated at the new Sunshine Coast University. One interesting innovation there was that mentors were trained to present mini-workshops on time management and note taking to first year students.

After reflection on our experiences at JCU and the evidence coming from other universities, we identified that the main challenges facing the mentor program were firstly making the program go for the whole year and secondly the task of recruiting mentors. We agreed that the mentor program needed resources to employ a facilitator if it was to develop any further. We applied for and received funding from the ASD New Initiatives Fund to employ mentor facilitators on both the Townsville and Cairns campuses.

The 1999 Mentor Program

The 1999 orientation program operated in a similar way to that of 1998 with one major difference as a result of student feedback; the welcome to new students did not take place in the large tent because new students were welcomed in their faculties. This made allocation of students to mentors easier although we missed the carnival atmosphere that goes with the large tent. On the Townsville campus a mentor facilitator was appointed to undertake coordination of the program and the following specific tasks:

Our major goal in 1999 had been to improve the follow-up of mentors with first year students. The evaluation of the 1999 program took place in Second Semester. We surveyed 100 of the mentors and while 80 reported attempting some follow up with the first year students only 28 actually met with students from their group. All the respondents were enthusiastic about the program and believed that it should be continued, but most still saw orientation week as the main focus of the program.

A Mentor Corner had been established in the Library in Second Semester but the mentors on roster there reported little student interest in the Corner. We had hoped that with the employment of a facilitator, the mentor program would become an ongoing program and would not be seen merely as an orientation event. This had not happened. We discussed this with a number of mentors who indicated that mentors needed to have greater ownership of the program and to be better informed about the program. We convened a meeting with a number of mentors in August to begin planning for the 2000 program and a number of things became apparent. Several mentors said that it was unrealistic to expect all first years to want to meet again with their mentors after the initial meeting on the first day. Many of the first years established their support networks very quickly within their disciplines such as Engineering or Nursing or among friends from high school. These students would not be interested in meeting again with their mentors. This was supported by a recently released evaluation of the mentor program at the University of Tasmania. For students in two schools at the university, participation in the mentor program was voluntary. For students in the remaining nine schools, participation was compulsory. Satisfaction of students with the scheme was much higher in the schools with voluntary participation (Gardner et al 1999).

It was agreed that as part of the 2000 program all first years should be included in the welcome and an invitation be extended to further meetings with mentors. We discussed possible strategies for improving communication with mentors throughout the year. One suggestion from the meeting was that several mentors from each school be invited to be mentor leaders to help plan the program and also to be a contact for mentors in their school. We invited a group of 11mentors to a lunch on the first Friday after the lecture recess. We agreed to work together to plan the 2000 mentor program as an action-learning project over the following four weeks. At the second meeting there was some discussion about the existing program. Several said that the program was boring and focused too much on getting useful information across to the first year students. Others said that this was all right and that it was important for the first years to be exposed to relevant information about the university. It was suggested that Day 1 of orientation week should be fun with music, activities and that mentors should be encouraged to spend the whole day with their groups instead of heading off home after lunch. It was suggested that there should be further meetings between mentors and students later in orientation week. Representatives from the mentors went to the student union meeting for orientation week. A number of possibilities for the program aimed at encouraging participation of mentor groups in social activities were discussed.

The 2000 Program

The major difference between the program in 2000 and that of previous years was the increased mentor ownership of the program. This has always been an important feature of the program on the Cairns campus (Treston 1999). Mentor leaders from each school group, rather than staff, were responsible for mentor training and mentor follow-up.

Final reflection

It is interesting to reflect on the mentor program in the action-reflection framework. The years that the program was the most innovative and exciting were the first and second years in which major changes were made. These were also the years when there was a great deal of collaboration between mentors and other staff. This year there has been another major injection of energy into the program thanks to the involvement of mentors in mentor training and the advent of mentor leaders from each school. We anticipate great benefits for the university community in 2000 and beyond thanks to these recent changes to the mentor program.

References

Brown, G. 1996 "A three-tiered approach to the problems of transition". Proceedings of the 2nd Pacific Rim Conference on the First Year in Higher Education, CSHE Melbourne.

Gardner, J., Kendall D., and Kendall, L.  (1999)"University of Tasmania Mentor Scheme : An Evaluation" (unpublished).

Hanley, P. 1996 "Mentor involvement in a university orientation program: The James Cook Experience" Proceedings of the 2nd Pacific Rim Conference on the First Year in Higher Education, CSHE Melbourne.

Kemmis, S and McTaggart, R. "Participatory Action Research " from Denzin,N. and Lincoln, Y.,(2000) The Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edition, Beverley Hills, CA:Sage.

McKavanagh, M., Connor, J. and West, J (1996) "It's Moments like these you need Mentors" Proceedings of the 2nd Pacific Rim Conference on the First Year in Higher Education, CSHE Melbourne.

McGinty, S. and Zimmermann, L., (1997) "Hanging in or dropping out: A study of student progress at James Cook University" unpublished report.

McInnis, C., James, R,. and McNaught, C. (1995) First Year on Campus. CAUT: Melbourne, Australia.

Treston, H. (1999) "Shifting Paradigms in Mentoring Programs in Higher Education" in Innovations in Education and Training International   August 1999, Routledge.