Assessment

Feedback for improvement

Mentors and mentees will be asked to complete surveys that are designed to help us improve our SCSE Faculty Mentoring Program. All information will be submitted to the UMD Office of Institutional Research and will be returned to the SCSE Dean in anonymous form. One set of before-and-after surveys will be subjected to a formal analysis and the results submitted for publication. Although there are numerous publications about the effectiveness of faculty mentoring in a medical school environment, there are none that pertain to a college as broad as the Swenson College of Science and Engineering.

Research questions

• Is the mentor/mentee training effective?
• Is the mentoring program effective?
• Does it improve tenure success and/or time to promotion?
• Does it improve mentees' attitudes, perceptions, and understanding of important features of their jobs?
• Is the new mentoring program better than the old one?

Surveys

Data will be gathered using a total of six surveys:

1. Mentoring Competency Assessment for Active Mentors
2. Mentoring Competency Assessment for New Mentors
3. Mentoring Competency Assessment for Active Mentees
4. Understanding, Perceptions, and Attitudes Survey for All Mentees
5. Retrospective Assessment of Mentoring Program for All Mentees
6. Open-ended questions for mentors and mentees on program quality

Participants

Faculty involved in the mentoring program can be divided into four groups that will complete surveys to answers the research questions listed above:

Mentors

1. Have participated in the old mentoring program (“active mentors”)
2. Have not participated in the old mentoring program (“new mentors”)

Mentees

1. Have participated in the old mentoring program (“active mentees”)
2. Have not participated in the old mentoring program (“new mentees”)

Assessment Schedule