Kubra Say and Giambattista Davis (Educational Leadership and Policy)

Zoom Link https://buffalo.zoom.us/j/98272238661?pwd=dUNOeUprYlhtNHRFYzlCMFViYWh0UT09

Background

Mentoring programs are one of the services that colleges and universities commonly offer to support first-year students to facilitate their transition and integration into college (Venegas-Muggli et al., 2021). Tinto (1975) suggests that integration can occur in two ways, academically and socially. Mentoring programs serve as key constituents impacting students’ academic achievement and persistence (Flores & Estudillo, 2018; Sanchez et al., 2006).

Tinto’s (1975) attrition model describes how students show better academic outcomes when they feel more integrated into their college community. Mentees are anticipated to have higher academic performance and better school outcomes. The literature has found positive associations between peer-mentoring programs and different components of academic success, including better test grades (Chester et al., 2013; Rodger & Tremblay, 2003), higher GPA (Leidenfrost et al., 2014; Zaniewski & Reinholz, 2016), the number of failed/passed courses (Fox et al., 2010) and better persistence rate (Chester et al., 2013; Collings et al., 2014; Goff, 2011; Mangold et al., 2002).

Purpose

The University at Buffalo (UB) launched, in 2020, a peer-mentoring intervention for first-year, first-generation students to enhance their college outcomes. This peer-mentoring program aims to create new contacts at the University, build a sense of community, stay on track with the academic path, connect with resources, discuss issues and challenges, connect with faculty and staff on campus, and receive individualized support from a peer at the institution. Peer mentors are required to meet with their mentees at least four times each semester, and there are a variety of settings that can count for such meetings, for example, workshops on campus, and sessions journaling about one’s experience, then to be reported on surveys and assessments (Student Success Gateway, n.d). Considering the prior peer-mentoring evaluation studies and the significant impacts on the first-generation student population, this study will evaluate the effectiveness of UB’s peer-mentoring program and present preliminary findings of our evaluation research.

Significance

Peer-mentoring reinforces students’ academic and social growth, benefits their college integration, and improves college outcomes. However, previous research supports that the students identified as underprivileged, such as low-income, racially minoritized, or first-generation, tend to get more benefits and help from mentoring programs than non-participant peers (Flores & Estudillo, 2018). Focusing on the first-generation entering students, our study will help understand peer-mentoring programs’ impact on our specific target population. Our findings aim to contribute to the general knowledge of peer-mentoring, as well as inform researchers, fellow students, faculty, and administrators in higher education and student affairs.

Method

This study uses student-level data from the Office of Institutional Analysis (OIA) at UB between 2016-17-2021-22 academic years. To identify the effect of the peer-mentoring program on participants’ academic performance and retention outcomes, we employ difference-in-differences (DID) as an empirical method. This quasi-experimental method allows us to establish causal relationships between intervention and outcome variables (Furquim et al., 2020). We aim to estimate how the dependent variables would change over time before and after the intervention and evaluate the effectiveness of the peer-mentoring program.