Assessment of Mentoring, contributed by Pamela Abshire, University of Maryland

From CISEREUPI

• Idea: Mentoring is an important objective for the BIEN REU site. We assess mentoring in several ways:

1. Students complete a short survey 2-3 weeks into the program
2. Students complete another survey 6 weeks into the program which specifically focuses on their mentoring experience
3. During the 9th week of the program, students are interviewed by one of the faculty (not their mentor) about their mentoring experience
4. Graduate student and faculty mentors also complete surveys at the end of the summer, and several of the questions concern the students’ mentoring experience

• Objective: We want to assess mentoring via multiple methods and look for discrepancies and corrobation.

• What works well: Asking for feedback on mentoring early on in the summer helps us to identify any issues quickly and take steps to correct them. Having faculty other than the mentor interview the students about their mentoring experience helps us to ensure that students feel free to discuss any issues and help us to improve the program in the future.

• What Doesn’t Work So Well: Students spend a fair amount of time in completing surveys throughout the summer, and it is sometimes difficult to ensure full compliance. Additionally, it is challenging to schedule faculty interviews with the students in the ninth week of the program, especially when students are supervised by multiple mentors and thus fewer faculty are eligible to conduct the interviews.

• Assessment Data: The data collected using several methods are generally consistent.

Contributed by Pamela Abshire, BIEN REU Program, University of Maryland

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