Article 2 - Mentoring Program
Article 2 - Mentoring Program
1/2013
Abstract: The study was undertaken to investigate the correlation between mentoring program and
mentees‘ psychosocial development using self-report questionnaires collected from undergraduate
students in teaching based higher learning institutions in Sarawak, Malaysia. The outcomes of
SmartPLS path model analysis showed two important findings: firstly, communication positively and
significantly correlated with psychosocial. Secondly, support positively and significantly correlated
with psychosocial. In sum, the result demonstrates that mentoring program does act as an important
determinant of mentees‘ psychosocial development in the organizational sample. In addition, this
study provides discussion, implications and conclusion.
Keywords: mentoring; communication; support; psychosocial development
1. Introduction
Historically the first mentoring system can be traced back in Greek literature when
Odysseus referred his son Telemachus for guidance in preparation for Trojan War
(Ismail & Khian Jui, 2013; Ismail & Ridzuan, 2012; Merriam, 1993). The word
mentor may also refers to a ―father figure‖ who sponsors, guides and develops a
younger person (Hansford, Ehrich, Lisa & Tennent, 2004; Ismail & Khian Jui,
2013). Mentors and mentoring have played a significant role in teaching, inducting
and developing the skills and talents of mentee. Today, mentoring can be
considered as a social-based activity by organization to promote development
among new members or mentee. Mentoring also takes place in educational setting
(Little, Kearney & Britner, 2010; Johnson, Geroy & Griego, 1991) and/or
1
Associate Professor, PhD, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Faculty of Economics & Management,
Address: 43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia, Tel: +6039051 3400, Fax: +603-8925 1821,
Corresponding author: [email protected].
2
Senior Lecturer, PhD, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Faculty of Education, Address: 43600
Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia, Tel: + 03 8921 6256, Fax: + 603-8925 4372, e-mail:
[email protected].
3
Research Assistant, MSc in HRD, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Faculty of Economics &
Management, Address: 43600 Bangi, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia, Tel: +60390513400, Fax:
+603- 8925 1821, e-mail: [email protected].
AUDC, Vol 7, no 1, pp. 18-32
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3. Literature Review
Previous research on higher education student development program recognizes
that the implementation of mentoring programs have enhanced positive learning
process for both mentors and mentees (Hansford et al., 2002; Ismail et al., 2005,
2006, Little et al., 2010; Vieno et al., 2007). For example, Hansford et al. (2002)
found that the implementation of mentoring programs had produced seven positive
outcomes: first, almost 21 % mentors received benefit from collaboration,
networking and sharing ideas with colleagues. Second, 19.5 % were able to reflect
on their teaching, 17.5 % in professional development. Third, 16.4% mentors
gained personal satisfaction. Fourth, 42.1 % mentees benefited from support,
emphaty, counseling, encouragement and friendship while 35.8 % claimed to
receive guidance in subject knowledge and resources for learning. Fifth, 32.1 %
mentees got benefit from discussion and sharing of ideas. Finally, 27.7 % mentees
gained positive reinforcement and constructive comments from the mentoring
programs.
Further, several studies were conducted using a direct effects model to investigate
mentoring program based on different samples like perceptions of 88 participants
of a large south eastern university in United States (Allen & Finkelstein, 2003),
perceptions of 18 students at University of Brighton, United Kingdom (Dutton,
2003), and perceptions of 110 students in Canadian colleges (Bernier et al., 2005).
These studies found that the ability of mentors to properly implement comfortable
communication and provide adequate support in formal and/or informal mentoring
relationships had been important determinants of mentees‘ psychosocial
development in the respective organizations (Allen & Finkelstein, 2003; Bernier et
al., 2005; Dutton, 2003).
These studies support the notion of adult learning theory. For example, Erikson‘s
(1963) theory of psychosocial development explains that human being is said to
undergo eight stages of psychosocial development from infancy through maturity.
It refers to the development of personality, acquisition of social attitudes and skills.
At university level most students will be at stage 6 (intimacy versus isolation)
where their main task is to develop a healthy relationship with the opposite sex.
Undergraduates also need to equip themselves with knowledge and skills as
students at tertiary level. They also need to gain qualities of leadership, team-work
spirit, communication skills and ability to solve problems critically and creatively.
In order to perform this task, students need support and guidance from mentors
usually appointed by faculty. Besides that, Chickering‘s (1969) vector theory of
identity development suggests seven factors which strongly affects the
development of young adult identities that is developing competence, managing
emotions, becoming autonomous, developing interpersonal relationships,
establishing identity, developing purpose, and developing integrity. Application of
these theories in higher education institutions shows that the essence of mentoring
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4. Methodology
4.1. Research Design
This study used a cross-sectional research design which allows the researchers to
integrate the mentoring program literature, the pilot study and the actual study as a
main procedure to gather data for this study. Such approach is said to enable
researchers to gather accurate data, decrease bias and increase the quality of data
collected (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010; Zikmund, 2000). The location of this study is
teaching based higher learning institutions in Sarawak, Malaysia. For confidential
reasons, the name of the organization is kept anonymous. In the initial stage,
survey questionnaires were prepared based on mentoring program literature. After
that, a pilot study was conducted involving 10 senior year students (2nd year and
above) five students from public and five form private institutions. A back
translation technique was employed to translate the survey questionnaires into
English and Malay languages in order to increase the validity and ensure the
reliability of research findings (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010; Zikmund, 2000).
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4.2. Measures
This survey questionnaire has three sections. First section is about communication
adapted from mentoring communication system literature (Foxon, 1993; Ismail et
al., 2005, 2006, 2010; Ismail & Ridzuan, 2012; Sullivan, 2000; Yamnill &
McLean, 2001; Young & Cates, 2005). Secondly, support was measured using 5
items that were adapted from mentoring support system literature (Chiaburu &
Takleab, 2005; Langhout et al., 2004; Ismail et al., 2005, 2006; Ismail & Ridzuan,
2012; Rayle, Kurpius & Arredondo, 2006; Tsai & Tai, 2003; Vieno et al., 2007).
Thirdly, psychosocial development was measured using 3 items that were modified
from undergraduate student psychosocial literature (Allen, Day & Lentz, 2006;
Noe, Greenberger & Wang, 2002; Ismail, A., & Khian Jui, 2013; Noe, 1988; Noe,
1988). All items used in the questionnaires were measured using a 7-item Likert
scale ranging from ―strongly disagree/dissatisfied‖ (1) to ―strongly agree/satisfied‖
(7). Demographic variables were used as controlling variables because this study
focused on student attitudes.
4.3. Sample
The researchers obtained an official approval to conduct the study from the heads
of teaching based higher learning institutions in Sarawak, Malaysia Due the
constraints of the organization rule, duration of study and finance, 250 survey
questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students using a convenient
sampling technique. This sampling technique was chosen because the management
of the organizations did not allow the researchers to perform random sampling
procedures. From the total number, 196 questionnaires were returned to the
researchers, yielding 78.4 percent of the response rate. The survey questionnaires
were answered by participants based on their consents and on voluntarily basis.
The number of this sample exceeds the minimum sample of 30 participants as
required by probability sampling technique, showing that it may be analyzed using
inferential statistics (Sekaran & Bougie, 2010; Zikmund, 2000).
4.4. Data Analysis
The SmartPLS 2.0 was employed to assess the psychometric of survey
questionnaire data and thus test the research hypotheses (Henseler, Christain,
Ringle & Sinkovics, 2009; Ringle, Wende & Will, 2005). The main advantage of
using this method may deliver latent variable scores, avoid small sample size
problems, estimate every complex models with many latent and manifest variables,
hassle stringent assumptions about the distribution of variables and error terms, and
handle both reflective and formative measurement models (Henseler et al., 2009;
Ringle et al., 2005). The SmartPLS path model was employed to assess the
magnitude and nature of the relationship between many independent variables and
one or more dependent variables in the structural model using standardized beta (β)
and t statistics. The value of R2 is used as an indicator of the overall predictive
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strength of the model. The value of R2 are considered as follows; 0.19 (weak), 0.33
(moderate) and 0.67 (substantial) as suggested by Chin (1998), and Henseler et al.
(2009). A global fit measure was conducted to validate the adequacy of PLS path
model based on Wetzel, Kneebone, Woloshynowych, Moorthy & Darsy‘s (2006)
global fit measure. If results of testing hypothesized model exceed the cut-off value
of 0.36 for large effect sizes of R², showing that it adequately support the PLS path
model globally.
5. Results
5.1. Sample Profile
Table 1 shows the sample characteristics. Majority of the respondents were female
(70.9 %), age ranging from 22 to 24 years (70.4 %), 68.9 % sample comprises of
third year students, students achieving CGPA between 3.01 to 3.50 (48.5
percent%) and students from public institutions of higher learning consists of (85.7
%).
Table 1. Respondents’ Characteristics (n=196)
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Table 4 shows the results of reliability analysis for the instrument. The values of
composite reliability and Cronbach‘s Alpha were greater than 0.8, indicating that
the instrument used in this study had high internal consistency (Henseler et al.,
2009; Nunally & Benstein, 1994).
Table 4. Composite Reliability and Cronbach’s Alpha
Construct Composite Reliability Cronbach Alpha
Communication 0.888 0.810
Support 0.935 0.913
Psychosocial 0.904 0.859
Source: Research Findings
7. Conclusion
This study proposed a theoretical framework based on the higher education
mentoring program research literature. The confirmatory factor analysis showed
that the measurement scale used in this study met the acceptable standards of
validity and reliability analyses. Furthermore, the outcomes of SmartPLS path
analysis confirm that mentoring program does act as an important determinant of
mentees‘ psychosocial development in the studied organizations. This result has
also supported and broadened past studies mostly published in Western countries.
This study further suggests that the willingness of mentors to appropriately practice
comfortable communication and provide adequate support will increase subsequent
positive mentee outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy, satisfaction, commitment, career, and
leadership skills). Thus, it may lead to sustained and enhanced the performance of
higher education institutions in an era of global competition.
Findings and conclusions drawn from this study however are subject to some
limitations. First, a cross-sectional research design used to gather data at one time
within the period of study might not capture the causal connections between
variables of interest. Second, this study does not specify the relationship between
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specific indicators for the independent variable and dependent variable. Third, the
outcomes of SmartPLS path model have only focused on the level of performance
variation explained by the regression equations, but there are still a number of
unexplained factors that affect the causal relationship among variables and their
relative explanatory power. Finally, the sample of this study was taken from
teaching based higher learning institutions in Sarawak that allowed the researchers
to gather data via survey questionnaires. These limitations may decrease the ability
to generalize the results of this study to other organizational settings.
The conceptual and methodological limitations of this study should be improved
when designing future research. First, several organizational and individual
characteristics need to further discover, as this may broaden knowledge of
mentoring systems. Second, another form of research designs such as longitudinal
study could be used to collect data as this would describe patterns of change and
the direction and magnitude of causal relationships between variables of interest.
Third, other specific theoretical constructs of mentoring program like formal and
informal learning styles need to be considered because they have widely been
recognized as an important link between mentoring program and many aspects of
individual attitudes and behavior (Davis, 2007; Ismail et al., 2010; Ismail & Khian
Jui, 2013; Ismail & Ridzuan, 2012; Vieno et al., 2007). Finally, other mentee
outcomes such as self-efficacy, academic performance and career should be given
attention because they are strongly recognized in mentoring program research
literature (Fox et al., 2010; Ismail et al., 2010; Ismail & Khian Jui, 2013; Ismail &
Ridzwan, 2012). The importance of these issues needs to be further discussed in
future studies.
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