TY - JOUR
T1 - Conceptualizing mentoring in higher education: A systematic literature review
AU - Nuis, Wendy
AU - Segers, Mien
AU - Beausaert, Simon
N1 - No data was used for the research described in the article.
PY - 2023/11/18
Y1 - 2023/11/18
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Mentoring
KW - Higher education
KW - Student learning
KW - Pedagogical approach
KW - Support
U2 - 10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100565
DO - 10.1016/j.edurev.2023.100565
M3 - (Systematic) Review article
SN - 1747-938X
VL - 41
JO - Educational Research Review
JF - Educational Research Review
M1 - 100565
ER -