Risks and Rewards of School-Based Mentoring Relationships: A Reanalysis of the Student Mentoring Program Evaluation

• Published in: School psychology 2019-01, Vol.34 (1), p.76-85
• Main Authors: Lyons, Michael D, McQuillin, Samuel D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Settings; Behavior Problems; Delinquency; Educational Environment; Effect Size; Emotions; Female; Grades (Scholastic); Human; Humans; Interpersonal Relationship; Interpersonal Relationships; Male; Mentor; Mentoring; Mentoring programs; Mentors; Meta Analysis; Middle School Students; Outcomes of Education; Parent Child Relationship; Peer Relationship; Program Evaluation; Randomized Controlled Trials; Referral; Rewards; Risk; Risk Factors; Schools; Scores; Standardized Tests; Student Attitudes; Students - psychology; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 1045-3830; 2578-4218; 1939-1560; 2578-4226
• DOI: 10.1037/spq0000265

In the United States, school-based mentoring programs are a large and widely funded form of mentoring. Despite widespread support, meta-analyses indicate that the effects of school-based mentoring programs are small. One hypothesis for these results is that school-based mentors are not able to develop a sufficiently high-quality relationship with mentees to produce the hypothesized positive effects. This study presents a reanalysis of a large randomized controlled trial of school-based mentoring and examines the estimated effect of mentoring as a function of mentee-reported relationship quality using a novel statistical approach. Although we found that average effect sizes were near zero and consistent with researchers' original findings, our findings also indicate that low relationship quality is associated with some harmful effects, particularly on misconduct, and that as relationship quality improves, so do effects. However, we found that this association decelerates and resulted in small, positive effects for some outcomes. These results suggest that that poor relationship quality may produce harmful effects and a strong relationship may not be sufficient to produce moderate, positive academic and behavioral outcomes in a school-based mentoring context. Impact and Implications This study advanced the notion that school-based mentoring programs should support mentors in developing a close relationship with their mentee. We found that youth who reported a high-quality relationship with their mentor tended to have better outcomes in school (e.g., behavior), but these effects diminished as the relationship quality increased. The results suggest that a close relationship may be necessary, but not sufficient, for mentors to impact school outcomes. Future efforts in program development may be enhanced by specifically aligning mentor-mentee activities with targeted outcomes.