LE3 .A278 2000

2000

MacKinnon, David

Acadia University

Master of Education

Masters

Counselling

Education

In this study, I am exploring the multiple perspectives both mentors and mentees hold of the mentoring process as they are experiencing it. The focus is on the mentorship of university students within an academic support program at a Canadian University. These students have failed at the end of their first year but have been permitted to return the next year on certain conditions. These conditions are that they take only three courses and attend a twice-weekly academic support class. My work attempts to gain insight into the effectiveness of such support programs and whether their mentoring components show themselves to be meaningful. I also sought to try to understand the dynamics of the mentoring process through the eyes of both participants in the mentoring relationship. I have designed an interpretive methodological approach that seeks to understand how others (mentor and mentee) make sense of their lived experience. The focus is on the shifting dynamics of these dyadic relationships. A series of semi-structured open-ended interviews were used to understand the participants' experiences. The mentoring relationship has shown itself to be powerful in the lives of the participants. Meaningfulness of the mentoring relationship was demonstrated when the relationship had shown itself to be worthwhile for the parties involved. Mentees had expectations that their mentors fulfill roles of knowledge giver, role model, counsellor, advisor, and perhaps surrogate parent. In all cases, the mentor was able to provide one or some of these roles for the mentee. The mentee, in turn, accepted this support and benefited in some way from it. Program recommendations were made for the future mentors as well as administrators.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3111