Understanding the factors that contribute to high-quality mentoring relationships is critical to developing and sustaining effective mentoring programs. In study 1, sixty-three adolescent mentors, from two high schools, were surveyed four to six weeks after being matched with elementary-age mentees. Hierarchical regression models revealed that mentees’ academic and behavioral risk status, parental involvement, and program quality all explained variance in mentor-perceived relationship quality, but none remained significant predictors after mentors’ self-efficacy, motivations for self-enhancement, and assessments of their mentees’ support seeking behaviors were accounted for. Study 2 cross-validates the regression model in study 1 and examines the concurrent validity and predictive validity of a measure of mentoring match characteristics using mid-year and end-of-year assessments from mentees and mentors.
Editors’ Strategic Implications: The focus on mentors’ initial impressions of their mentees and the relationship represents a novel contribution to the study of relationship formation and persistence. The authors provide a promising strategy – and descriptions of specific measures – to help programs study relationships that endure or terminate. Coordinators will benefit from the knowledge that if mentors feel efficacious and if the mentoring relationship is strong, mentors are more likely to persist.
Keyword mentoring - mentor - relationship - at-risk - youth development