How Effective Are Mentoring Programs for Youth? A Systematic Assessment of the Evidence

By D. DuBois, N. Portillo, J. Rhodes, N. Silverthorn, J. Valentine. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2011

932 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The current popularity of mentoring programs notwithstanding, questions remain about their typical effectiveness as well as the conditions required for them to achieve optimal positive outcomes for participating youth. In this report, we use the technique of meta-analysis (i.e., aggregating findings across multiple studies) to address these questions. As backdrop for our analysis, we begin with an overview of recent trends in youth mentoring practice, findings from prior research, and a developmental model of mentoring relationships and their potential effects on young people. Language: en

Subfields: Safety Research, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f1e17a926cc573a1f1d3380155a28b3b9c09be3c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Safety Research

1. L. Eby
2. Tammy D. Allen
3. J. Grossman
4. Sarah Evans
5. C. Herrera
6. D. DuBois
7. Nora Arkin
8. P. Tolan

In Social Psychology

1. L. Eby
2. Tammy D. Allen
3. D. DuBois
4. Sarah Evans
5. J. Grossman
6. Amanda Bayer
7. C. Herrera
8. Nora Arkin

Citations in the corpus

• The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles. Executive Summary. (2013, methodology): “Therefore, programs may be most successful when youth present mentors with moderate (but not absent or overwhelming) levels of challenge (DuBois et al. 2011).”
• USING VOLUNTEER MENTORS TO IMPROVE THE ACADEMIC OUTCOMES OF UNDERSERVED STUDENTS: THE ROLE OF RELATIONSHIPS (2015, positive): “Available research (see DuBois et al., 2011 and Rhodes, 2005) supports the assumption that relationship quality, including feelings of closeness specifically, does have an important influence on youth outcomes.”
• An interdisciplinary meta-analysis of the potential antecedents, correlates, and consequences of protégé perceptions of mentoring. (2013, methodology): “We manually searched quantitative reviews (e.g., T. D. Allen et al., 2004; Dorsey & Baker, 2004; DuBois et al., 2002; Underhill, 2006), narrative reviews (e.g., Jacobi, 1991; Sambunjak et al., 2006; Wanberg et al., 2003), and other major compendiums (e.g., T. D. Allen & Eby, 2007; DuBois & Karcher,…”
• What works in enhancing social and emotional skills development during childhood and adolescence? A review of the evidence on the effectiveness of school-based and out-of-school programmes in the UK. (2015, background): “These include: mentors responding to young people’s needs rather than imposing their own goals, investing in training and support, good monitoring and evaluation techniques, foster regular contact and long relationships, providing structured activities for mentors and young people and supporting or ”
• Toward an integrated approach to positive development: Implications for intervention (2016, background): “For example, SEL and SC place a greater focus on social engagement as a skill undergirding positive development (Collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning, 2012), while PYD focuses more extensively on societal bonding and building socially-conscious youth (Dubois et al., 2011).”