Mentorship for Transfer Student Success in STEM Research: Mentor Approaches and Reflections.

Autor: Zuckerman AL; Joint Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120.; Joint Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093., Lo SM; Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Joint Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education, and Research Ethics Program, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093., Juavinett AL; Department of Neurobiology and Joint Doctoral Program in Mathematics and Science Education, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: CBE life sciences education [CBE Life Sci Educ] 2024 Jun; Vol. 23 (2), pp. ar27.
DOI: 10.1187/cbe.23-08-0156
Abstrakt: Mentorship has been widely recognized as an effective means to promote student learning and engagement in undergraduate research experiences. However, little work exists for understanding different mentors' perceived approaches to mentorship, including mentorship of students from backgrounds and educational trajectories not well represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Transfer students, in particular, face unique trajectories in their pursuit of research opportunities, yet few studies investigate how mentors describe their approaches to supporting these students. Using semistructured interviews, this study examines how mentors approach mentoring students from diverse backgrounds as research trainees, with an emphasis on transfer students. First, using phenomenography as an analytical approach, we identified four categories describing variations in how mentors reflected upon or accounted for the transfer student identity in their approaches. We find that research mentors vary in their understanding and exposure to the transfer student identity and may have preconceived notions of the transfer student experience. Second, we present vignettes to illustrate how mentors' approaches to the transfer student identity may relate or diverge from their general approaches to mentoring students from different backgrounds and identities. The emerging findings have implications for developing effective mentorship strategies and training mentors to support transfer students.
Databáze: MEDLINE