Program Profile: An E-mentoring Program for Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities

This program was designed to help high school students with mild learning disabilities improve their ability to identify postsecondary career goals. This program is rated Promising. The program group showed statistically significant improvement in social connectedness, transition competency, and self-determination, compared with the control group. However, there were no statistically significant differences in career/educational goals, academic connectedness, and familial connectedness.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals/Target Population

This e-mentoring program was conducted at urban high schools with 10th, 11th, and 12th graders diagnosed with mild learning disabilities (LD) to improve their ability to identify postschool career goals and interests as well as the steps necessary to achieve them. Students were mentored by college students on a password-secure website with virtual classrooms where postsecondary-transition-related topics were discussed, including problem-solving, decision-making, time-management, and self-advocacy.

Program Components

The program comprised two components: 1) e-mentoring to deliver transition learning modules, and 2) college campus visits.

Over 12 weeks of a college semester, college student mentors engaged high school students with mild LD in e-mentoring to deliver three posttransition-related learning modules. The student mentees accessed a password-secured website from the student resource room or the computer lab at their high schools. The learning modules covered three primary areas: 1) discovering oneself, 2) exploring possibilities, and 3) creating an action plan. Each learning module consisted of 3 to 6 weekly lesson plans. Each lesson plan provided the mentors with structured materials, a list of activities, and additional tips to guide their mentees in career and education exploration. The mentors had the option of customizing the lesson plans to suit their mentees’ needs and interests. Each weekly scheduled lesson plan was implemented over two separate electronic contacts between the mentor and mentee. At the end of each module, mentees completed the Mentee Summary Review, in which they summarized what they had learned from their weekly interaction with their mentors. The mentors reviewed their mentees’ monthly summaries to track their progress in acquiring personal transition competency.

Additionally, all participating students were invited to the mentors’ university for two events during the semester. The first campus visit was an orientation to student resources on campus, such as Financial Aid, Career Services, Tutoring Services, and Center for Disability Studies, followed by a campus tour. A subgroup of mentors served as tour guides during the orientation visit. On the second campus visit, students viewed a video of a large college class to introduce them to what it was like to take a college-level course. Students and mentors then discussed the differences between high school and college classes and strategies for succeeding in college. Following this, the mentors and mentees had lunch together to provide further opportunity for in-person interaction and learning about each other.

Program Theory

The foundation of this program lies in research from both the postschool transition of students with disabilities and mentoring literatures. Research suggests that creating avenues for students with disabilities in which they can practice self-determination skills, including decision-making, self-advocacy, problem-solving, goal-setting, and attainment can enhance their participation in their Individualized Educational Plan (IEP)/transition-planning process (Algozzine, Browder, Karvonen, Test, and Wood 2001). A small number of research studies also support the role of mentoring in helping students with disabilities achieve their transition goals (Moccia, Schumaker, Hazel, Vernon, and Deshler 1989). Lastly, research on youth mentoring supports several practices that are part of the program, including providing orientation and training for mentors and mentees, providing ongoing support to mentors, and monitoring of program implementation (DuBois and Karcher 2005).

Study 1

Collier (2009) evaluated the e-mentoring program with high school students with mild learning disabilities (LD). Counselors and special educators at eight urban high schools referred 102 students with mild LD who were in grades 10 to 12, had an Individualized Educational Plan (IEP), could read at the 4th-grade level, and had no history of mental illness. The participating students were 54 percent male and 46 percent female. Most were white (71 percent) with the remaining students belonging to another racial or ethnic group (29 percent). These students were then randomly assigned by grade and gender to the program (n = 51) or the control group (n = 51). The mentors were selected from a pool of college students who showed interest in participation and who were affiliated with the Special Education–Human Exceptionality program, a Service Learning Scholar, or a student with a disability recommended by the Center for Disability Services. Fifty-one college students were finalized as mentors after an FBI background check and an interview with the program coordinator that addressed student attitudes, expectations, and reasons for participation. Mentors were overwhelmingly female (80 percent) and white (84 percent), and some, like the mentees, had a disability (14 percent).

Both the control and the program groups were invited for two college visits–an orientation and a simulated college classroom visit. In addition, the students in the program group were matched on a one-to-one basis with college mentors, received e-mentoring for 12 weeks, and received the opportunity to have lunch and discussion with their mentors after the second college visit.

Outcomes were student self-report measures of postsecondary transition competency; self-determination (which was a composite of three constructs: capacity–opportunity, home and school, and knowledge–ability–perception); and academic, social, and familial connectedness. All 102 participants completed the measures at pre- and post-intervention. Students’ responses to open-ended questions on the transition competency measure regarding their involvement in planning, decision-making, and direction of their postsecondary career interests and goals were scored by the researcher based on a standardized rubric. In addition, special education teachers of the participating students were asked to evaluate the student-developed career/educational interests (part of the transition competency assessment) as realistic or not considering the student’s interests and disability.

Independent sample t-tests were conducted to test for baseline equivalency of the program and the control groups on the outcomes. The program and the control groups did not differ significantly prior to the intervention on the outcomes. Repeated measures of analyses of variance were conducted to determine the overall effect of participation in the e-mentoring program on each outcome. Subgroup analyses were conducted on differences by race, socioeconomic status, grade point average (GPA), grade level, and degree of realism (i.e., teachers’ evaluations of whether students’ goals were realistic).

Collier (2009) evaluated the e-mentoring program for students with learning disabilities (LD) in which several pre-program and program support activities were taken to ensure the smooth implementation of the program. Before the mentoring program started, all mentors were given a 6-hour-long, pre-match orientation and training, which addressed purpose and goals of the program; effective communication strategies; guidelines for mentor role, responsibilities, and conduct; and closure and termination procedures. Each mentor was also given a copy of the “Training Manual for Mentors” (available in Collier 2009). Finally, the mentor training addressed how to use the various functions of WebCT to facilitate the online mentoring. After the initial training, mentors were assessed using the Knowledge of Mentoring Survey. Mentors who scored below 80 percent on this survey were provided with additional training. The student mentees also received an hour of training on using WebCT and on mentoring etiquette. Mentors and mentees were then matched on mutual interests based on their responses to a matching interest questionnaire.

The program developer tracked the electronic communication of each mentor–mentee pair at least 1 week per month to identify and address any problems that occurred. In the event that the student mentee was not communicating with his/her mentor, the program developer contacted the mentee’s special educator to encourage the mentee to respond to his/her mentor. Simultaneously, ongoing training and support was provided to mentors in the form of structured weekly lesson plans that served as guidelines for engaging their mentees (available in Collier 2009). Depending on the individual needs of the mentors, the program developer provided additional one-to-one training and support through e-mails and phone calls.

Additionally, the mentees were required to submit the Mentee Summary Review at the end of each learning module. The review form provided mentees with an opportunity to both summarize their learning and report on their level of satisfaction with their mentor relationships. Mentors completed a Mentor Reflection Form each month. The purpose of this form was to have mentors update the program developer regarding their perceptions of their mentees, degree of satisfaction with their mentee relationships, progress made, and problems encountered.

Finally, the program developer/researcher examined the journaling correspondence taking place between the mentors and the mentees in the virtual classroom to collect fidelity data on a weekly basis. A checklist was used to determine how closely the mentors adhered to the program components.

Subgroup Analysis

Collier (2009) also examined subgroup differences by student race, socioeconomic status (SES), grade point average (GPA), grade level, and degree of realism (teachers’ evaluations of the realism of students’ goals). For white students, there was a greater positive effect on transition competency than among nonwhite students. In addition, benefits of e-mentoring on social connectedness were greater for students with a lower GPA in comparison with students with a higher GPA.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Mentoring for Youth Development

This practice provides youth with a positive and consistent adult or older youth relationship to promote healthy youth development and social functioning and to reduce risk factors. The practice is rated Effective in reducing delinquency and improving educational outcomes; Promising in improving psychological outcomes and cognitive functioning; and No Effects in reducing substance use.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types
	Education - Multiple education outcomes
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Psychological functioning
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Cognitive functioning
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Social functioning
	Drugs & Substance Abuse - Multiple substances

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?