The value of mentorship and applied learning is so well-recognized that it is almost a cliché. Unlike many clichés, however, this one appears to have some truth to it.
A new study conducted at the University of Houston provides substantive evidence for the value of working with a mentor and learning outside of the classroom while in graduate school. The researchers found that graduate students in organizational development who were paired with mentors in their field experienced deeper learning and a greater passion for their work due to their mentorship.
The study was led by Consuelo Waight, an associate professor of human development at the UH College of Technology and the corresponding author on the paper. Waight has been teaching an introductory graduate-level course in organizational development, a subset of human resources focused on the management of organizational change, for over a decade.
For years, she has required students taking this course to find mentors working in the field and to keep a diary detailing their thoughts, insights and interactions with them.
Over the years, she observed the impact that her students’ mentorships have had on their understanding of the field.
“By taking the students outside the classroom, they saw the relevance and meaningfulness of what they were learning,” she said in a news release. “That motivated them beyond the case studies. Organization development was now personal. It was not a concept in a book.”
Using her students’ diaries as evidence, Waight sought to substantiate the value of this experiential learning experience.
While the study is not the first to examine the benefits of mentorship, it is unique in its methodology. Most research on mentorship uses a quantitative methodology focusing on career development and advancement. But Waight and co-author Mayura Pandit-Tendulkar, associate director of learning at the Emeritus Institute of Management, were more interested in the experience of mentorship.
So for this study, they chose to employ a phenomenological method, in which the research aims to interpret the experience of mentorship through written accounts from their mentees.
To this end, they selected 40 diaries, purposefully sampled from a pool of 104. Of those 40, they received consent from 30 of the students. The diaries that made the study sample contained three distinct sections, defined as: (1) an introduction, featuring an in-depth description of the mentor’s education and experience in organizational development; (2) “new learning,” detailing meetings and interactions with the mentor as well as any insights the mentee gathered through these experiences; and (3) reflection, an account of the changes they underwent as a result of the mentorship.
“The sample of 30 studies was viable for our study because of their in-depth descriptions of the three sections stated above,” the researchers wrote in the study. “Also, we found that 30 diaries offered a broad, rich context to examine the effects of the mentoring experience on protégés.”
Through an analysis of these diaries, they found that mentorship helped the student mentees develop a deeper understanding of organizational development both conceptually and practically. The students had the opportunity to set the agenda for discussions with their mentors. Many of them were also able to visit their mentors’ workplaces, sit in on meetings, and interact with other professionals in the field.
The researchers observed that this direct, experiential form of learning helped students internalize and translate concepts from their classes.
“The exchanges between the mentors and protégés revealed that the inert concepts discussed in the classroom became active, vibrant revelations, which gave protégés ownership of the knowledge domain,” they wrote in the study. “The concepts had visible contexts, which made it easy to process, personalize and own. Also, protégés felt that the conversations and discussions accelerated their learning and sharpened the usability of their knowledge.”
On the whole, the mentees came away from their mentorship experiences with a better understanding of organizational development in practice and theory, as well as more confidence in their own futures in the field.
In other words, the cliché holds true — mentors really can make an impact in their mentees’ education.
