Conceptualizing mentoring in higher education: A systematic literature review

Wendy Nuis*, Mien Segers, Simon Beausaert

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review article peer-review

Abstract

Mentoring has nowadays become a prevalent educational practice in higher education, as it allows for personalized learning trajectories and competence-based education. However, the effectiveness of mentoring programs is difficult to measure due to a lack of conceptual clarity about the mentoring concept and the broad variety of measurements used. Therefore, a systematic literature review was conducted to conceptualize mentoring by looking at the definitions, characteristics, and measurements. A total of 106 studies were reviewed and a summative content analysis was applied. The results of this study are three-fold. First, a synthesis and integration of existing definitions resulted in a newly developed, holistic definition of mentoring. Second, evidence-based characteristics of mentoring are discussed that give insights into how to design and implement mentoring programs. Third, an overview of existing mentoring measures is presented, and a subsequent in-depth analysis shows their alignment with the proposed conceptualization on mentoring.
Original languageEnglish
Article number100565
Number of pages22
JournalEducational Research Review
Volume41
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Nov 2023

Keywords

  • Mentoring
  • Higher education
  • Student learning
  • Pedagogical approach
  • Support

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Conceptualizing mentoring in higher education: A systematic literature review'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this