Outcomes of mentoring at-risk college students: Gender and ethnic matching effects.
Campbell, T. A., & Campbell, D. E. (2007). Mentoring & Tutoring, 15(2), 135-148.
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examining678Students, gradePS
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: May 2021
- Practice Guide (findings for Student-faculty mentor program)
- Quasi-Experimental Design
- Meets WWC standards with reservations because it uses a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups satisfy the baseline equivalence requirement.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Second semester GPA |
Student-faculty mentor program vs. Business as usual |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
2.45 |
2.29 |
Yes |
-- |
|
|
Cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) |
Student-faculty mentor program vs. Business as usual |
8 Years |
Full sample;
|
2.53 |
2.49 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 63%
Male: 37% -
Urban
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California
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Race Black 22% Native American 3% Other or unknown 75% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 69% Not Hispanic or Latino 31%
Study Details
Setting
The program served incoming freshman and transfer students at a large metropolitan university in California.
Study sample
The study sample of 678 matched students was 63% female. Fifty-three percent of the sample were transfer students and 47% entered as freshmen. The mean entering GPA was 2.82 (high school GPA for freshmen and previous college GPA for transfer students). The sample was 22% African American and 3% Native American; 69% of students were Latino.
Intervention Group
Mentors were asked to contact their assigned mentees soon after classes began to set up an initial meeting to discuss goals and expectations. Mentors were asked to meet with their students a minimum of three times during the semester. This was intended as a one-year experience, however some mentors maintained contract with students beyond the initial year of the program. Although the program was open to all interested students, the target population was students from ethnic groups that were then underrepresented at the university (primarily Latino and African American). Students were generally paired with faculty based on shared academic interests.
Comparison Group
Control group students did not receive mentoring through the program (business as usual).
Support for implementation
The mentors were all volunteers—none were paid for their time or given release from other activities to participate in the program. An office was set up as a resource and referral site for questions posed by mentors. The office also sponsored several workshops (with catered meals) for the mentors and their students, and numerous small tokens of recognition were distributed such as coffee mugs and pens.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
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Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).