Experiences from a mentorship project

in higher education in Sweden

Ulla Lindgren

Umeå University

Department of

Swedish and Social Sciences

SE-901 87 Umeå

Sweden

E-mail:

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Lahti, Finland 22-25 September 1999.

Experiences from a mentorship project in higher

education in Sweden

In a mentorship project at the University of Umeå in Sweden, different aspects of mentorship were studied using questionnaires and interviews. Twelve female Ph. D. Students participated as novices[1] and twelve people with manager positions in trade and industry or in the public sector participated as mentors. The project involved organised personal converstions and common meetings. Within the mentorship project the work conditions of the Ph. D. Students were discussed as well as the need for male and female models. The effects of the project are visible at several levels. One is that all novices claimed that they had become more confident and gained self-esteem.

What is Mentorship?

The word mentor, as well as the phenomenon mentorship, originates from Greek mythology in which Homer recounts how Odysseus asked the wise man Mentor to be deputy father for his son Telemachos during the times when he would be away. During a ten years period Mentor was, as the story says, advisor, teacher and friend for Telemachos (Homer, transl. Lagerlöf, 1920).

Mentorship in modern times, according to Clutterbuck (1985) and Murray & Owen (1992) is characterised by a free, independent relationship between two persons, a mentor and a novice. The novice, generally, is a younger person who gains support in the terms of personal development and promotion through the knowledge and experience of the mentor. Mentorship can be described as a process in which cultural capital in the form of norms and valuations, language and behaviour of society and/or organisations is transferred from one person to another. This transfer influences and is conducive to personal development (Scandura & Viator, 1994; Aryee, Wyatt & Stone, 1996).

The mentor is usually an experienced and judicious person who will contribute to the personal development and promotion of another person. He/she should not be involved for personal gain, even though it is clearly developmental to be a mentor. Instead, the mentor should find satisfaction in helping a younger person to get on. In return the novice must be willing to develop. Mutual respect, confidence and trust up on which an beneficial relationship can be built, all characterise a mentorship relationship (see e.g. Lyons, Scroggins & Rule, 1990).

Mentorship can manifest itself in different ways and in forms. Thus, for example, spontaneous (informal) as well as organised (formal) mentorship exists. Spontaneous mentorship often arises without outside interference. As a rule it is a younger person who wants to develop and who seeks help from a more experienced person. Spontaneous mentorship is most common between men. In organised mentorship there is, as a rule, a project leader and mentors and novices are specially chosen. Usually the novice will have an interest in trying to get into a mentorship program, while the mentors are chosen because of their competence and experience (see e.g. Bergqvist Månsson, 1993; Boethius, 1995).

It is the novice’s personal development that is the most essential part of the mentorship relationship. The aim first is to strengthen the novice’s self-esteem and to increase the confidence in his/her own possibilities. A frequently recurring motive for organised mentorship programmes is the wish to have more females as applicants for higher posts within organisations. There are however organised mentorship programmes that address both men and women (see e.g. Gilbert & Rossman, 1992).

Originating in the USA where mentorship occurs in trade, industry, and higher education, organised mentorship programmes in Sweden have become increasingly common, especially within trade and industry (see e.g. Ahrén, 1991; Bergqvist Månsson, 1993).

Why has mentorship in higher education become so topical just now?

The rapid changes in society that occurred at the end of the twentieth century are going on now, and which will presumably continue into the twenty-first have increased the need for well-educated individuals, who have the ability to address their own needs and priorities in an environment of consideration and empathy. Therefore universities have been asked to develop new methods and forms of teaching in order to meet these needs. (SOU 1993:112; SOU 1995:4. App. 6).

As it is very difficult to foresee exactly what will be demanded in tomorrow’s society there are reasons to believe that success in work and career will depend largely on social competence and self-confidence. Social competence can be described as having the will and ability, developed in a particular context and according to certain objectives. A characteristic of social competence is self-confidence in the form of reliance on the ability to manage situations effectively. (Lindstein, 1979).

It seems however that in universities no possibilities are provided for students to have the opportunity to develop social competence. Concurrently with increased demands for more research-based teaching in higher education, real teaching time has decreased for students. This means that time for self-study has increased and that fewer opportunities are now provided for students to develop their communicative and their social abilities together with others. This reality has also been observed internationally, as exemplified by Hulbert (1994): "I am concerned that we in higher education are not doing a very good job of guiding and nurturing the next generation." (s. 261).

At the same time the need to address the imbalance between the sexes has been observed in several cases in Sweden and this form of equal opportunities work has increased (see e.g. Billing, 1991; SOU 1995:110; Sjödahl, 1995).

However the different treatment of men and women by Swedish employers does not seem to act in accordance with either the public’s or their own organisation’s good. Irrespective of whether women choose to take up educational opportunities it has been shown that education pays off better for men than for women. This even though women may be educated to higher levels they have difficulties in competing with men and those with lower educational qualifications both in terms of salary levels trend and career possibilities (SOU 1998:6)

Similar situations can be found within universities. Moreover, the impression is given that women themselves are responsible for this situation (SOU 1995.110). Even though all university departments are expected to maintain a plan for equality of opportunity between women and men, and to pay attention to gender perspectives in their courses, equality is seemingly not a priority area.

Information about an increasing need for well educated and socially competentworkforce, the decreasing time for teaching as well as the lack of equality between men and women should, according to the investigations of SOU 1993:112 and SOU 1995:4. App. 6, act as a starting point leading to a search for alternative- or supplementary forms for teaching at university level. In this context mentorship, which in contrast to teaching and theoretical supervision, does not focus on research assignments or thesis writing, but deals with personal development, could be of considerable value.

This assumption is confirmed by the results of an inquiry in 1995 which concerned all departments in Swedish higher education, focusing on organised mentorship at university level. Twelve different mentorship programmes were found that specially aimed at complementing university studies (Lindgren, 1997).

Although internationally organised mentorship is increasingly seen as part of personal development, there seems to be much uncertainty about the conception of mentorship and what it should include (Noe, 1988; Jacobi, 1991). Therefor there exist several different models of mentorship. Ritchie & Conolly (1993) and Jacobi (1991) are of the opinion that the effects of mentorship up to now are more assumed than proved. As a result, questions about how successful mentorship is and which components are of most importance remain unanswered (Kaye & Jacobson, 1996).

Method

With the aim of deepening the knowledge about mentorship and its effects, an investigation was made of a mentorship project, which took place between January 1997 and June 1998. Twelve mentor/novice couples participated in the project. The novices were female doctoral students and women with PhDs thesis from Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Umeå University. All mentors (nine men and three women) came from the trade and industry and the public sectors.

The main objective of the mentorship project was for female doctoral students and women who had PhDs to gain support in their personal development, thus enhancing their future involvement in the structures and ways of thinking of trade and industry and the public sector. Another objective was to establish co-operation across the dividing line between university and industry and the public sector so that mentors and novices were able to gain knowledge about each other’s field of activities. The improvement of working conditions within postgraduate studies and the need of the female postgraduates for specific male and female models, were aspects which were illustrated within the mentorship projekt.

The project was structured and carried out on the basis of a literature search and an interview study that had been carried out earlier (Lindgren, 1997). The project’s timetable is shown in Table 1.[2]

Table 1. Timetable of meetings and their frequency
Type of meeting /

Planned frequency

/

Real frequency

Individual mentor-novice meetings / 1 time per month / Approx. 12-18 meetings
Novice meetings / 1 time per month / 14 meetings
Mentor meetings / 1-2 times per term / 4 meetings
Joint mentor/novice meetings / 2 times per term / 5 meetings
Joint educational visits / 2 times per term / 7 occasions

As Table 1 shows, the meetings occurred according to plan, since actual frequency largely corresponds with the planned frequency. It was suggested that the individual mentor/novice couple should meet once a month. The way in which this could be realised differed slightly between the different mentor-novice couples, depending on their working situations and the possibilities of meeting. Most couples, however, managed to find suitable times and had regular contacts during the entire project.

Qualitative studies such as this are especially characterised by the will to understand and to bring about a comprehensive picture of a phenomenon (Patton, 1990). The objective of this study was not to measure or determine in any scientific sense what was happening but to try and understand how different participants components can co-operate and thereby create awareness about possible effects of mentorship. Therefore the study was more of a descriptive and explorative character. Using previous research on mentorship as a basis, the questionnaires and interview questions were designed to try and see if mentorship has any pedagogical effects and, if so, what kind of effects these were. Furthermore, the question was asked if personal development is influenced by mentorship, how and in what way does this happen. Table 2 shows the research process in the study.

Table 2. The research process in this study

Dimension / Contents/Focus / Framework/Prerequisites
1 / Mentorship, analysis of concepts / Theoretical framework, previous research
2 / Interviews, questionnaires / Data collection, analysis of data
3 / Mentors/novices / Contents and nature
4 / Individual, group, university, trade and industry / Effects, consequences

In the research process there was room for different forms of data collections such as interviews and questionnaires. Data collection took place at the beginning of the project, after one year and at the end of the project and took the form of self-assessment, interviews with all participating mentors and novices, and a final assessment. Moreover, a control group, containing female doctoral students, carried out self-assessments at the same time as the novices. Each supervisor in the case of doctoral students and three other for the novices important people did both assessments and were interviewed at the end of the project. Table 3 shows which data collections were carried out and when they took place during the project.

Table 3. The different data collections and the time they took place
Participant / Data collections / During the start / After one year / During the end
Novice / Interview
Self-assessment (questionnaire)
Balancing (questionnaire)
Evaluation (questionnaire) / X
X / X / X
X
X
Mentor / Interview
Evaluation (questionnaire) / X / X
X
Control group / Self-assessment (questionnaire) / X / X
Supervisor / Assessment of each doctoral student (questionnaire)
Interview / X / X
X

The results of the different data collections were analysed separately but brought together to develop the final overall analysis of the effects of mentorship.

Results

All twelve mentor/novice couples continued to meet during the project period though several novices and mentors went through big changes in their own lives, which led to variations in the regularity of some mentor/novice contacts. However, the evidence that emerged during the final interviews showed that all mentor/novice couples had developed a working relationship and that they had the intention of keeping in touch with each other in the future.

Each participant whether novice or mentor claimed that the discussions in individual meetings between mentor and novice had been open and easy, and that they had used the novice’s questions as a starting point. Three different discussion categories emerged: Work related issues, Gender related issues and Other issues, all of which related to the areas of teaching, time-planning and personal- and topical questions. Even though it seemed that many different issues were discussed, it appeared that the novices´ working situation and questions of personal- or topical nature were most popular.

In terms of gender all except one novice thought that whether the mentor was man or woman had a certain influence, though they also emphasised the importance of personality. Despite the fact that the majority of the novices said they would have preferred a woman as their role model, they nevertheless preferred man as their mentor. The mentioned motivation for this were the possibilities to study men’s culture and ways of thinking. The mentors on the other hand claimed that the gender of the novice was of little importance to them and that they just as well could have mentored a male novice.

Even though all mentor/novice couples succeeded is building well-functioning relationships some mentors found it difficult to provide support to novices who had different professional backgrounds from them. For them it simply felt as if the ”university world” was a world apart. A few novices also expressed some disappointment about the fact that the mentor did not have enough competence in their subject or sufficient professional contacts in their own field.

Pedagogical effects

The compilation of the assessments carried out by the novices and the supervisors both at the beginning and at the end of the project showed pedagogical outcomes in the form of increased interest in their dissertation work and in teaching. Moreover, the supervisors claimed that the project had led to increased willingness to take initiatives and to deal with several tasks at the same time. The different forms of data collection showed that all participants felt that their knowledge about trade and industry and the public sector had increased and intensified through their visits to the mentors´ places of work and the educational visits. Because of their increased knowledge of trade and industry and the public sector, the novices said that their will to find work outside the university had become stronger. This effect is worth noting, as many doctoral students are unlikely to be offered a post at university after taking their PhD degree.

In the personal discussions and joint meetings, the similarities as well as the differences between university and the private sector were discussed. Until then many of the mentors had been unfamiliar with the work of the university. They said therefore that their knowledge about the university had increased. They also thought they had become more aware of the process of graduating as a PhD. Even though many positive aspects of the project were emphasised, it also became clear that many post-graduates work in less than propitious conditions.

Two mentors pointed out that the unsatisfactory working conditions of the post-graduates, with stress at work and the absence of support and encouragement, needed to be considered as a serious shortcoming that should be improved, if the objective is to produce better research. While novices thought they had already gained a good understanding of university, they felt, that during the project they had increased their knowledge of their own working situation, the culture and ways of thinking as well as the continuing in equality between women and men. This emerged within the novice group and together with the mentors.

Personal development

All novices commented that they experienced personal development in a positive way, as a result of the project, although they expressed this in different ways and emphasised different issues of importance. Most mentors confirmed this development. How the novices described their development and how the mentors described their novices development, is shown in Table 4.