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The effectiveness of a peer mentorship program: a mixed methods study

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The effectiveness of a peer mentorship program: a mixed methods study

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Content Running head: PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

The Effectiveness of a Peer Mentorship Program: A Mixed Methods Study

by

Shujin Zhong

______________________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF EDUCATION
in
POSTSECONDARY ADMINISTRATION AND STUDENT AFFAIRS

May 2016
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Table of Contents
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. 4
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter One: Overview of the Study .............................................................................................. 6
Background of the Problem ...................................................................................................... 6
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................. 9
Significance of the Study ........................................................................................................ 10
Definition of Terms................................................................................................................. 11
Organization of the Study ....................................................................................................... 12
Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................................. 14
Overview ................................................................................................................................. 14
Engineering Students’ Transition into Graduate School ........................................................ 15
The Mentorship Program in Higher Education ....................................................................... 17
Cultural Exchange and Peer Culture in Higher Education ..................................................... 20
CAS for Graduate and Professional Student Programs and Services (GPSPS)...................... 22
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 24
Chapter Three: Methodology ........................................................................................................ 26
Description of Research Design .............................................................................................. 27
Sample and Population ........................................................................................................... 28
Instrumentation and Data Collection ...................................................................................... 29
Data Analysis and Interpretation ............................................................................................ 33
Limitations .............................................................................................................................. 34

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Chapter Four: Results ................................................................................................................... 36
Demographic Information of the Survey Participants ............................................................ 37
Results from Survey Part I ...................................................................................................... 39
Results from Survey Part II..................................................................................................... 41
Interview Results .................................................................................................................... 46
The Suggestions for the Graduate Mentorship Program......................................................... 53
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 55
Chapter Five: Summary of Findings ............................................................................................. 58
Summary of Findings .............................................................................................................. 59
Implications for Practice ......................................................................................................... 64
Future Research ...................................................................................................................... 67
References ..................................................................................................................................... 69
Appendix A: Survey ..................................................................................................................... 76
Appendix B: Informed Consent .................................................................................................... 80
Appendix C: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................... 83

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List of Tables
Table 3.1 Variables, Research Questions, and Items on the Survey 31
Table 4.1 Demographic Information of Survey Participants 38
Table 4.2 Mentees’ General Self-Report Assessment Results 40
Table 4.3 Mentees’ Degree Program, Preference of Mentors, and Meeting Frequency
(Group 1)
42
Table 4.4 Mentees’ Degree Program, Preference of Mentors, and Meeting Frequency
(Group 2)
43
Table 4.5 Satisfactory Comparison between Mentees in Group 1 and Mentees in Group 2 44
Table 4.6 Self-report Comparison between Mentees in Group 1 and Mentees in Group 2 45
Table 4.7 Interview Participants 46
Table 5.1 Self-report Comparison between Domestic Mentees and International Mentees 61
Table 5.2 Self-report Comparison between Master Students and Doctoral Students 63

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Abstract
This study focuses on assessing an existing mentorship program for first year engineering
graduate students. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a peer mentoring for
graduate students in engineering fields, in a Tier I private research university in the western
region. The assessment follows a mixed-methods explanatory sequential research design, using
an online survey, and interviews. The study population includes the mentees in a graduate peer
mentorship program. The survey provides descriptive information of the population, and
mentees’ preference and experiences in the program. The interviews explore mentees’ in-depth
views of the mentorship program.
The findings in this study include recognizing the effectiveness of the program in
assisting engineering students’ in their transition period to graduate school; a lack of evidence in
helping students promote individual networks, and cultural exchange; the significant role social
media played in the program; and the population differences related to the mentees’ experiences
in the program. The study sparks the discussion of strategies to improve the program and
program assessment; at the same time, the study identifies the special peer culture amongst
graduate engineering students. The study results will be of interest to the mentorship program
manager as well as other student affairs professionals, hoping to better understand and improve
graduate mentoring programs for engineering students.
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CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
As students transition into graduate school, they may experience a life-changing period
due to environmental changes, increased work load, financial burden, and change of social
relations. (Goplerud, 1980; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000). This transition could compromise
students’ total well-being (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000), and result in academic failure
(ACHA, 2014; Reynolds, 2013; Ruthig, Marrone, Hladkyl, & Robinson-Epp, 2011). Often
stereotyped as “Nerds” (Cheryan, Siy, Vichayapai, Drury, & Kim, 2011), new graduate students
in engineering majors seem particularly vulnerable during this period because of the multiple
demands from graduate school, such as academic requirements, lab research load, and a need to
network (Myers et al., 2012).
According to the latest data from the Institution of Education Sciences (2015), about 3
million graduate students are currently enrolled in U.S. universities, pursuing master’s or
doctoral degrees, and graduate or education specialist certificates. Among them, roughly 1 out of
every 6 graduate students majors in an engineering-related field (Allum & Okahana, 2015). The
first-time graduate enrollment of engineering related fields has been steadily increasing with
around 8% annual growth over the past decade (2004 - 2014). The increasing popularity of
engineering majors suggests that student affair professionals should seriously think about how to
help new graduate engineering students with the transition into graduate school, and assist them
in achieving the individual development they seek.
Background of the Problem
To help engineering students’ transition into graduate school, universities offer various
types of instrumental and psychosocial supports (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000). The literature
indicates that many universities have tried to place students into peer mentorship programs in the
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past three decades (Tenenbaum, Crosby, & Gliner, 2001; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, &
Hsu, 2012). Peer mentoring is one of the effective ways to ease students’ transition (Grant-
Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, & Hsu, 2012). Lin and Hsu (2012) stressed the significant
effectiveness of utilizing peer mentorship into graduate engineering student population. Based on
these evidences, the researcher in this study believes that peer mentoring plays a positive role in
assisting new engineering students’ transition into graduate school. However, most current
literature about peer mentoring in higher education only targets undergraduate students. A lack
of research in graduate peer mentoring motivated the researcher to explore the effects of peer
mentorship on graduate engineering students.
The purpose of this study, then, is to assess if a peer mentorship program is an effective
intervention in assisting new engineering graduate students during their transitional period.
Mentorship describes a relationship in which a more experienced person helps to guide a less
experienced one. In this study, mentorship means the relationship between the new engineering
graduate students and upperclassmen studying engineering. The peer mentoring program under
study, matches new students with experienced students, and hopes that a positive relationship
forms between them. The newcomers can receive suggestions and assistance to help them with
the transition to graduate study.
The researcher identified a peer mentorship program at an engineering school in a Tier I
private research university in the western region. In 2015, the school hosted 1,802 new graduate
engineering students. In Summer 2015, the school’s Office of Graduate and Professional
Programs (GAPP) planned to start a program aimed at easing the transition of new graduate
engineering students, encouraging individual networking, and promoting cultural exchange in
communities. Based on these goals, GAPP designed a peer mentoring program named “Graduate
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Mentorship Program.” This program started recruitment for the fall 2015 semester over the
summer of 2015, and matched up mentors and mentees in the middle of July 2015. A total of 277
upperclassmen have been trained to become mentors, and 562 mentees (out of 1,802 new
engineering students) officially confirmed their interest in the program. Currently, this
mentorship program is going smoothly, and GAPP keeps tracking survey data, and analyzing
feedback from mentors and mentees.
GAPP matched the mentors and mentees by the primary keyword “academic program.”
Though the mentees were randomly assigned to mentors, mentors and mentees tend to come
from the same academic program. The secondary keyword is “academic level,” which means the
doctoral students could have a better chance matching up with a mentor who is currently in a
doctoral program, and masters would likely match up with masters. Apart from those keywords,
other demographic differences such as gender, ethnic identity, and nationality were not
considered in the matching process. However, in the recruitment stage of the program, the
perspective mentees were allowed to express their preferences of their future mentors. The
pairing process was realized by a self-developed computer program that matches mentees with
mentors. On average, one mentor has two mentees, while exceptions exist in that several mentors
either have one mentee, or three mentees.
Considering the popularity of this program for incoming graduate students, GAPP is
actively conducting a full assessment, and hopes to get feedback that will provide better direction
for the next year. As a part of the GAPP Graduate Mentorship Program assessment, this study
focuses on the post program assessment of the first round of the mentorship program. The
purpose of the survey is to test if this program meets the goals mentioned above (i.e., easing the
transition, promoting networking, and increasing cultural exchange), and to find out what kinds
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of mentors are favored by the mentees. The study also hopes to measure the mentees’ overall
experiences in, and perceptions about this program, through interviews.
Purpose of the Study
To reiterate, the purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of peer mentoring for
graduate students in engineering fields. To be specific, this study will focus on assessing an
existing mentorship program for the first-year engineering graduate students. The assessment is
conducted at a Tier I private research university in the western region. This is a prime location to
conduct the study since the university is home to one of the largest engineering schools in the
nation. The comprehensive program settings and the diverse population of the school contribute
to the study a perfect sample pool, increasing the possibility to generalize the findings to other
Tier I private research universities in the United States.
The assessment follows an explanatory sequential research design, combining a self-
report survey, and interviews. The sample population first took a general quantitative online
survey. The survey provides a glance into the influence of the peer mentorship program, and
students’ rating for the program. After quantitative data analysis, the qualitative study
(interviews) digs for more detailed explanations of the quantitative survey data.
The mentorship program was developed under the guidance of the Council for the
Advancement Standards in Higher Education (CAS, 2015) for Graduate and Professional Student
Programs and Services (GPSPS). The CAS Contextual Statement for GPSPS (2015) mentioned
“the growing awareness of the unique needs of graduate and professional students.” In response
to the “unique needs” of the new graduate engineering students, the GAPP set up three goals to
help students ease the transition, increase networking, and promote cultural exchange. The
GAPP Graduate Mentorship Program was designed for meeting the goals. Under this
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circumstance, the mentorship program is an action to students’ request. According to CAS Self-
Assessment Guide (SAG) for GPSPS (2015), to provide a better program and services to future
students, an assessment is required. A rational assessment could tell the program manager
whether the mentorship program fulfills the original goals effectively or not. In addition, the
CAS strongly focuses on learning outcomes, and assessment of students’ learning outcomes.
This study fully assists GAPP to create the program evaluation, and to record learning outcomes.
Accordingly, the following research questions are explored in this study:
Q 1. To what extent is a graduate engineering peer mentoring program able to
a) assist students’ in their transition period to graduate school?
b) encourage individual networks?
c) promote cultural exchange in communities?
Q 2. In mentor-mentee relationships, what characterizes the mentors that are favored by
the mentees?
a) Do mentees learn more from mentors with a different cultural background?
b) What are common characteristics of helpful mentors?
Q 3. What are the mentees’ overall experiences in the peer mentoring program?
Significance of the Study
Newcomers to the engineering graduate school might experience a tough transition
period because of the high demands on study, personal development, and professional growth
(Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000). Assisting students in getting through the transition period could
increase their total well-being. As the number of graduate engineering students continues to
climb, the need to implement effective interventions, such as peer mentoring, to help these
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students get through their transition period is increasing. A study on graduate level peer
mentoring program is necessary.
Although many studies have discussed mentoring programs for undergraduate students,
and in professional areas, there is a lack of research on peer mentoring at the graduate school
level. The present study hopes to fill this gap. This study will give an in-depth exploration of the
peer mentorship program among graduate students at a Tier 1 Private Research Institute. This
program is conducted in one of the largest engineering schools of all Research I universities in
the United States. The program involves hundreds of students with diverse backgrounds. The
program might become a model for helping engineering students with their transition to graduate
school in other urban areas, and it could even potentially be generalized to large 4-year Research
I universities in the United States.
Specifically, this study corresponds with the unique needs of the new graduate
engineering students, and assists to realize the three goals to help students ease the transition,
increase networking, and promote cultural exchange. The study provides an opportunity to
conduct a rational assessment to evaluate if the program manager meets the goals of this
graduate peer mentorship program.
Definition of Terms
Mentor
Mentors can be described as individuals who have been in a certain field for some time,
and have a good understanding of knowledge in their specialties. They have experiences and
understand the situation of the new comers. Mentors tend to be a more experienced group of
people who will, hopefully, offer helpful suggestions based on their knowledge and past
experiences (Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Gomez, Ali, & Casillas, 2014). In this study, the mentor means
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upperclassman studying engineering, who join the peer mentorship program, and have paired up
with at least one new engineering student.
Mentee
In previous studies, researchers named the new and inexperienced group of people in a
peer mentoring program “interns” (Abell, et al., 1995; Bradbury & Koballa, 2008;), “new
students” (Hughes & Fahy, 2009;), “beginners” (Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson,
2009), “protégés” (Chao, 1997; Jacobi, 1991, Storrs, Putsche, & Taylor, 2008; Underhill, 2006),
“peer mentored individuals” (Collings, Swanson, & Watkins, 2014), or “mentees” (De Anda,
2001; Lin, & Hsu, 2012). In this study, the new engineering students in the peer mentorship
program are named mentees following the name selected by the program manager at the
beginning of the program design.
Organization of the Study
Chapter One introduces the topic of peer mentorship for graduate engineering students,
and the theoretical frameworks of peer advising. The chapter provides an overview of the
Graduate Peer Mentorship Program, the goal of this program, and the rationale of conducting this
research. Moreover, Chapter One points out the research questions, study purpose, and the
significance of study.
Chapter Two describes the current literature on mentorship programs, and features of the
study population. The literature provides a broad range of information on mentoring in different
forms, environments, and contexts. Past researchers indicated the popularity of this topic;
however, a lack of research on peer mentoring for graduate students was a reality, especially for
graduate students in engineering majors. Based on the characteristics of the study population, the
researcher reviewed the features of the peer culture in college settings. In addition, Chapter Two
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provides the CAS Self-Assessment Guide (SAG) for Graduate and Professional Student
Programs and Services (GPSPS) frame for the study in detail.
Chapter Three describes the sequential-explanatory research design of the study. The
study utilizes both quantitative, and qualitative methods. The chapter mentions the research
design, sampling strategy, instrumentation, data collection, data analysis, study limitations, and
delimitation of methodology.
Chapter Four presents the results from the analysis of survey and interview data. The
chapter answers the research questions in the order originally displayed. In the chapter, the
researcher describes the demographic information of the participants, analyzes both quantitative
data and qualitative data, and merges the data from the two sources (survey and interviews) to
explain the research questions. Chapter Four also leads further discussion of the findings, and
presents suggestions for the Graduate Mentorship Program.
Chapter Five concludes the limitations of the study, the implications for practice, and
recommendations for future research. The chapter summarizes suggestions and recommendations
to the Graduate Mentorship Program, as well as insights of theoretical frameworks for future
study of the peer mentorship research topic.
The next chapter is literature review. Chapter Two provides detailed information from
previous related studies on mentorship program. The literature review introduces the engineering
students’ transition into graduate school, the mentorship program in higher education, peer
culture and its potential influence on individuals, and the CAS Self-Assessment Guide (SAG) for
Graduate and Professional Student Programs and Services (GPSPS).
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Overview
The literature provides a broad range of information on students’ transition into graduate
school, and the effectiveness of mentorship programs. The researcher notices that an increasing
number of graduate students major in engineering and computer science fields each year (Allum
& Okahana, 2015; IES, 2015). Many of those students are enrolled into graduate school for the
first time. The first year graduate students in engineering school occasionally reported that they
were easily prone to depression, suffered from academic difficulties, and social awkwardness
(Bowman, Bowman, & Delucia, 1990; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000).
To help new graduate students release stress, and achieve individual development, many
universities promote various programs to help them with the transition period. Among them,
different forms of mentorship programs seem to work effectively (Tenenbaum, Crosby, &
Gliner, 2001; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, & Hsu, 2012). This chapter will provide
detailed information about the peer mentorship program in higher education, and point out the
current research gaps, as well as introduce the CAS framework that guides the assessment.
This study is focusing on assessment of a mentorship program to answer research
questions below:
Q 1. To what extent is a graduate engineering peer mentoring program able to
a) assist students’ in their transition period to graduate school?
b) encourage individual networks?
c) promote cultural exchange in communities?
Q 2. In mentor-mentee relationships, what characterizes the mentors that are favored by
the mentees?
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a) Do mentees learn more from mentors with a different cultural background?
b) What are common characteristics of helpful mentors?
Q 3. What are the mentees’ overall experiences in the peer mentoring program?
Apart from summarizing literature related to the peer mentorship program, this chapter
will also introduce the conceptual framework for this assessment, which is based on CAS
standards.
Chapter Two will state the following parts by order:
1. the current situation of new graduate students’ transition in engineering school;
2. mentorship programs in higher education;
3. cultural exchange and peer culture in engineering students and its connection with
individuals; and
4. CAS Self-Assessment Guide (SAG) for Graduate and Professional Student Programs
and Services (GPSPS).
Engineering S tu d e n ts’ Transition into Graduate School
The Institution of Education Sciences (IES) estimates that roughly 3 million current post-
baccalaureate students are studying in the U.S. universities (2015). After surveying 636
institutions, the latest report of Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) provided a panorama of the
current graduate enrollment pattern in the U.S. universities (Allum & Okahana, 2015).
According to the data jointly collected by CGS and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE)
Board, in the Fall of 2014, more than 1.7 million students were enrolled in graduate level
programs in the surveyed institutions (Allum & Okahana, 2015). Among them, about 250
thousand students majored in engineering and related fields, including more than 77,000 enrolled
as graduate students for the first time. The first-time graduate enrollment in engineering and
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computer science fields has been steadily increasing over the past decade (2004 - 2014), with a
7.2% average annual percentage increase in engineering, and a 9.3% increase in mathematics and
computer science. The growth rate is even higher during the past 3 years. Growing at 21.3%, and
10.7% between the Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 (mathematics, computer science, and engineering
won the fastest-growing fields in all graduate disciplines). In sum, the engineering graduate level
programs are getting more and more popular, and a large population of those students are first
time graduate level enrollees.
Many researchers point out that the period of transition into graduate school is very
important (Goplerud, 1980; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000). However, many students might
experience life-changes due to environmental changes, increased study and work load, and other
factors. Bowman, Bowman and Delucia (1990) identified several factors that could compromise
students’ total well-being, such as “feelings of insecurity”, “decreased self-esteem”, and
“increased work load”. Grant-Vallone and Ensher (2000) found from past research that during
the transition period, high levels of stress and anxiety were reported. According to the data from
American College Health Association (ACHA, 2014), stress and anxiety is a significant
impediment to academic success.
The transition to the graduate school for engineering students seems even harder. When
fulfilling the requirements and demands of graduate school, students in engineering related
majors need to perform well in multiple aspects, such as lectures, lab research, professional
involvement, and fieldwork experiences (Lin, & Hsu, 2012). The course load and research load
in engineering fields are heavy, and expectations for performance are high. Moreover, some
research mentions students in engineering majors often suffer from social awkwardness
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(Cheryan, et al., 2011; Morris, 2000). To summarize, the factors mentioned above contribute to
the difficulties in the engineering students’ transition into graduate school.
The Mentorship Program in Higher Education
Following Kram’s research in 1985, mentorship developed from professional settings,
such as business companies (e.g., Bryant, 2005; Chao, 1997; Egan & Song, 2008; Seibert, 1999),
hospitals (e.g., Bates, Cohan, Bragg, & Bedinghaus, 2006; Madhavanprabhakaran, Al-
Khasawneh, & Wittmann, 2015), and libraries (e.g., Hardesty, 1997; Neyer & Yelinek, 2011).
This form of building relationships between newcomers and experienced professionals is
applicable to graduate and professional schools because schools and professional offices share
similar goals of engaging newcomers and easing the transition phase.
Jacobi (1991) conducted a completed literature review on mentorship programs in higher
education with an emphasis on the programs that assist undergraduates with academic success.
She reviewed mentorship from 4 aspects. She examined the definition of mentoring, the
empirical research related to mentorship, theoretical perspectives, and directions for future
research (Jacobi, 1991). Jacobi raised two concerns in the review — the definitional vagueness
and the diversity of mentoring, and an absence of theoretical and empirical research to explore
how mentoring helps students achieve success. Jacobi (1991) identified the methodological
deficiencies, such as a limited sample, measurement issues, and a low level of external validity.
She encouraged future researchers to utilize quasi-experimental designs (Jacobi, 1991) to
evaluate the program efficiency.
After Jacobi’s exceptional work on analyzing the literatures of the 70s and 80s, Crisp and
Cruz (2009) updated the review of the literature between 1990 and 2007. Crisp and Cruz (2009)
explored the definition of mentoring from a historical view, and produced the following
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definition: a “Mentor serves as a wise, responsible and trusted advisor,” who guides the
development of an individual (p. 527). Crisp and Cruz (2009) summarized the definition and
characteristics of mentorship, the approaches and methodology of the past studies, and different
forms of mentoring. They further concluded that Jacobi’s concerns still exist. The definitions of
mentoring varied from program to program, and most studies were lacking in theoretical support.
The majority of the 23 reviewed qualitative studies reviewed in the article were based on
grounded theory, and the majority of the 19 reviewed quantitative studies considered in this
study utilized non-experimental methods. Crisp and Cruz (2009) agreed that quasi-experimental
designs would be a good approach on this topic; though only a handful of studies used an
experimental or quasi-experimental design. The last part of Crisp and Cruz’s article (2009)
proposed a theoretical and conceptual framework. However, as a matter of fact, their framework
only touched upon latent important aspects of mentoring college students, with no theory
regarding how to assess mentorship programs.
In the reviewed articles about mentorship, many past research studies have concluded
that mentorship programs were beneficial to the individuals and to the development of
organizations or institutions (Lin, & Hsu, 2012; Seibert, 1999). Some researchers appealed for
the institutional involvement in promoting mentorship activities (Bradbury & Koballa, 2008;
Colvin & Ashman, 2010). Mentorship offers positive effects not only on improving learning
outcomes of both mentors and mentees, but on promoting students’ integration to universities as
well (Collings, Swanson, & Watkins, 2014; Hughes & Fahy, 2009).
In regarding the form of mentorship in school settings, most literature described the
faculty-student mentoring model (e.g., Cunningham, 2013). The targeted population for mentees
were usually from a special student population, such as a minority group (Cunningham, 2013;
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Strayhorn & Terrell, 2007; Torres, & Hernandez, 2009), at-risk students (Campbell, & Campbell,
2007; De Anda, 2001), or female students (Packard, Walsh, & Seidenberg, 2004). Regardless of
the different forms of mentorship, generally, all assessed mentorship programs have a positive
influence on both individuals, and the organizations they belong to.
The number of literature that specifically focused on peer mentoring is very limited (cf.,
Abell, Dillon, Hopkins, McInerney, & O’Brien, 1995; Collings, Swanson, & Watkins, 2014;
Colvin & Ashman, 2010; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin & Hsu, 2012), and even less
articles about graduate population were identified (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin & Hsu,
2012). Grant-Vallone and Ensher (2000) conducted quantitative research about peer mentoring
programs for graduate students. Grant-Vallone and Ensher (2000) stressed the significant role
that mentorship played in helping students pursue individual success. They documented that
mentoring is often related to, and expected to be related to “retention and graduation rates,”
“cross-cultural understanding,” and “positive perceptions of research expectations for graduate
school.” The results showed that peer mentorship could benefit the mentee in a variety of ways,
namely, in helping graduate students with their transition into graduate study. In addition, peer
mentoring provided a “promising alternative” to traditional faculty mentoring programs. In 2012,
Lin and Hsu conducted a qualitative research study targeting engineering students in a peer
mentoring program in a comprehensive university in Taiwan. The study concluded that the peer
mentorship had a positive influence on both mentors and mentees. These studies suggest that
peer mentoring could be an effective way to help new engineering graduate students to smoothly
transition into graduate school.
Gomez, Ali, and Casillas (2014) studied mentorship in the Graduate Education Diversity
Internship (GEDI) program. The GEDI program has lasted for 10 years, and mentorship is a core
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program feature. In their article, they identified the definition of mentorship, mentorship models,
and conducted an investigation on GEDI participants’ views about mentoring, utilizing Q
methodology. In the final Q sort, the study results indicated that a good mentor is someone who
helps mentees with career development and network building, shows understanding about
mentees’ professional and personal life, and meets with mentees regularly. The research on the
GEDI program by Gomez, Ali, and Casillas (2014) suggested three important characteristics of a
qualified mentor (stated above), and these results could help direct future study’s instrumentation
design.
In sum, the past research provides evidences that peer mentoring is one of the proven
ways to ease student transition and promote individual development; however, few researchers
have described and analyzed an actual peer mentorship program designed for new graduate
students. Apart from the studies by Grant-Vallone and Ensher (2000), and Lin and Hsu (2012),
currently the known research studies on peering mentorship are mostly about undergraduate
students (Abell, et al.,1995; Collings, et al, 2014; Colvin & Ashman, 2010; Grant-Vallone &
Ensher, 2000; Jacobi, 1991). Crisp and Cruz (2009) reviewed 42 empirical studies on mentoring
in college, and 69% of them centered on the undergraduate population, not to mention the
existence of any article related to peer mentorship of engineering graduate students in a U.S.
university. In addition, the program evaluation by Gomez, Ali, and Casillas (2014) implied the
common characteristics of a qualified mentor, which provided insights of research
instrumentation design on mentorship program evaluation.
Cultural Exchange and Peer Culture in Higher Education
In many publications, culture refers to shared behavior, values, customs, beliefs,
language, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age,
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economic status, geographic location, experiences, consciousness, skills, forms of expression,
social institutions, and other cultural dimensions (Frierson, Hood, & Hughes, 2002; Leonard,
Brooks, Barnes-Johnson, & Berry, 2010; Le’Roy & Vera, 2007; Ryan, 2009; Tillman, 2002).
Cultural diversity and cultural exchange proves to bring positive impacts on college students’
learning outcomes (Gurin, 1999; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Gurin, Nagda, & Lopez,
2004). The diverse culture enables students to learn from their peers, and the benefits are even
clearer if the cultural exchanges happen than students just co-existing in the same institution
(Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002).
Some researchers expanded the ideas of culture in different environment settings, such as
home culture (Ladson-Billings, 1995), and school cultures (Matthews, 2008). Researchers further
recognized the peer influence on individuals’ learning and development (Kuh, 1995; Pascarella
& Terenzini, 2005; Renn & Arnold, 2003), and raised the concept of peer culture (Renn &
Arnold, 2003).
Peer culture describes the special characteristics of a student population. The individuals
in the population are students within a certain affinity group, who have shared values in their
college study period (Kuh, 1995; Renn & Arnold, 2003). The shared values in the student peer
culture go beyond the traditional concept of cultural values. The idea of peer culture was
developed from the phrases “peer groups” and “student culture” (Kuh, 1995; Renn & Arnold,
2003). The students in the affinity group are not necessary from similar cultural backgrounds;
while they might hold psychological and behavioral learning notions — such as knowledge
acquisition, critical thinking, and practical competencies (Kuh, 1995) — in common.
Renn and Arnold (2003) explored the definition and provided a dense literature review of
the theoretical development of peer culture. They connected the peer groups with individual
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development through Bronfenbrenner’s theory. Bronfenbrenner did fundamental work in
exploring how individuals develop in ecological system (in Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton, &
Renn, 2008). He identified 4 components: process, person, context, and time (PPCT). Renn and
Arnold (2003) provided further explanation and examples on how these four components,
especially the context, played a role in the college campus setting. They believed that
Bronfenbrenner’s model would hold a greater role in doing research and practice on each context
levels. By doing so, the theory would serve better to create an effective intervention. Renn and
Arnold (2003) pointed out that on the context level (mesosystem), peer culture could potentially
bring positive influence on individual development. Perna, et al. (2009) recognized the
supportive role that peer culture played in their case study of female African American students
in STEM fields.
In general, the past literature suggests that college students could benefit from cultural
diversity and cultural exchange (Gurin, 1999; Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002; Gurin,
Nagda, & Lopez, 2004). More importantly, for a specific group of students, a special peer culture
within the peer group could shape individuals’ development, and promote positive learning
outcomes (Perna, et al., 2009; Renn & Arnold, 2003). The articles mentioned in this section
implied that identifying the peer culture of the sample population, and composing evaluation
discussions responsively could help researchers understand students learning and behavioral
outcomes, and further implement the peer culture to better serve students.
CAS for Graduate and Professional Student Programs and Services (GPSPS)
As noted briefly in Chapter One, CAS is short for Council for the Advancement
Standards in higher education. The CAS (2015) is “a consortium of professional associations in
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higher education that promotes the use of its professional standards for the development,
assessment, and improvement of quality student learning, programs, and service.”
The Graduate Mentorship Program was designed under the guideline of CAS, and it is
one program much like others that have been studied in the literature above. The program
utilized CAS for graduate and professional student programs and services as a guideline. The
assessment of this program took CAS Self-Assessment Guide (SAG) for Graduate and
Professional Student Programs and Services (GPSPS) as a reference. Overall, the CAS SAG for
GPSPS touched upon the 14 components (Mission, Program, Leadership, Human Resources,
Ethics, Legal Responsibilities, Equity and Access, Diversity, Organization and Management,
Campus and External Relations, Financial Resources, Technology, Facilities and Equipment, and
Assessment and Evaluation) in CAS standards and guidelines. The literature review will
selectively state the components.
Mission
The GPSPS standards are organized to “promote academic, personal, and professional
growth and development of students enrolled in graduate and professional schools” (CAS, 2015).
The mentorship program set up its goals as helping students ease the transition, increase
networking, and promote cultural exchange. These three aspects reflect “promoting academic,
personal, and professional growth and development of students”, and further help to cultivate
students to become rich minded, who will contribute the development of the society in the future.
The goals of Graduate Mentorship Program are consistent with the mission of the institution, and
meet the mission requirements of CAS GPSPS.
Program
CAS (2015) requests that programs should contribute to student learning, development,
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and specific student needs. Meeting the goals of the mentorship program will result in promoting
students’ learning outcomes. An assessment of learning outcomes for this study is based on the
program development plan. As mentioned before, the program under study is a response to the
needs of new engineering students. The program was designed to be informative and aligned
with student orientation, transition, and persistence. This researcher is working on collecting the
evidence and documentation of this programs effects.
Assessment and Evaluation
Assessment and Evaluation includes “plan and practice”, and “reporting and
implementing results” (CAS, 2015). In general, CAS provides a “common sense” frame for
program building, and correspondingly suggests program runner conducting scientific evaluation
to prove if positive learning outcomes show up through the program. The assessment serves to
examine whether or not the program has hit its goals and realize its mission. It helps to provide
suggestions of which parts of the program are helpful, and which parts need to be improved.
Meanwhile, the assessment and evaluation takes information from itself, and improves itself. The
next section of this chapter describes the theoretical models that have been used to analysis the
findings of a survey that attempted to assess the mentoring program noted above.
Summary
This chapter introduced the current situation of graduate students, new graduate students’
transiting to engineering school, mentorship programs in higher education, cultural exchange and
peer culture for engineering students and its connection to individuals, and CAS standards
regarding the research topic. In addition, the researcher identified the significance of the past
research, and the research gaps.
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Previous research and data support the tendency of having more and more engineering
graduate students in U. S. universities (Allum & Okahana, 2015; IES, 2015). Literature points
out that the transition into graduate school is a challenge for new engineering graduate students
(Bowman, Bowman, & Delucia, 1990; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000). On the other hand, the
past studies prove the effectiveness of mentorship in helping inexperienced individuals get
involved and transition into a new environment (Tenenbaum, Crosby, & Gliner, 2001; Grant-
Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, & Hsu, 2012). The mentorship form of instructing new comers is
used more frequently in the higher education period (Jacobi, 1991; Crisp & Cruz, 2009). Among
them, peer mentoring is one of the most effective ways (Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, &
Hsu, 2012). The literature supports the rationale GAPP Graduate Mentorship Program.
This chapter examined the research gaps. From the sample population aspect, most
studies of mentoring programs were about undergraduate students (Crisp & Cruz, 2009). A lack
of literature focused on the graduate population. From methodology aspects, researchers (Jacobi,
1991; Crisp & Cruz, 2009) suggest that quasi-experimental research designs have a better chance
to get a thorough analysis of college mentoring programs; however, only a minority of studies
were quantitative ones. The research gaps provide the rationale to conduct a study on mentoring
in the graduate student population that includes quantitative data collection.
In addition, this chapter introduced cultural exchange and peer culture in engineering
students. The literature illustrated the positive influence that cultural exchange brought to
individual students. Furthermore, the literature suggested that future researchers should be aware
of the special peer culture of the study population.
The next chapter will provide the methodology for assessing the mentorship program,
and offer the explanation of methodology choices.
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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a peer mentoring program for graduate
engineering students. The study used the case of an existing mentorship program for first year
engineering graduate students at a Tier I private research university in the western region. The
study followed an explanatory sequential research design (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2010; Creswell,
2013). This approach sequentially involved a quantitative survey, and qualitative interviews.
In the explanatory sequential research design, the quantitative part provided information
about participants’ demographic characteristics and their satisfaction/experience with the peer-
mentor program; the qualitative portion offered explanations for the survey results. The
researcher chose the explanatory sequential research design for several reasons. First and
foremost, the program stakeholders wanted to understand participants’ general opinions about
the peer-mentoring program, and then get deeper explanations of what the students liked or
disliked. The program manager agreed to embody the quantitative part of this study into their
general survey at the end of 2015 Fall semester, which allowed enough time for formative use of
findings. After getting the survey results, the researcher conducted interviews at the beginning of
Spring 2016 (February) to understand the findings of the quantitative data. Secondly, an
explanatory sequential research design enabled the researcher to obtain a more in-depth
explanation of the general survey data. The researcher fully utilized the survey data to design the
interview protocol. During the interview, the researcher then focused on what had been indicated
in the survey results. Thirdly, this assessment was conducted by a single researcher. As
mentioned by Creswell (2013), the sequential design is the best for a single researcher, since it is
better for one researcher to work on one manageable task at a time, rather than work on multiple
tasks, and deal with different forms of data. Besides, no common way of conducting assessment
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was found in the literature on this topic, so the explanatory sequential research design was
acceptable. The latter part of this chapter will discuss the research design, sampling strategy,
instrumentation, data collection, data analysis, validity, study limitations, and delimitation of
methodology.
Description of Research Design
In this study, the quantitative survey instrument acquired self-reported quantitative data
from the new engineering students (mentees) enrolled in the Graduate Mentorship Program (Fall
2015). The survey results gave a full description of students’ experiences, and their preference of
the Graduate Mentorship Program after they finished their first semester. The interviews further
explored the survey findings and revealed more information about mentees first year graduate
school experiences.
The following research questions were answered in this study. The researcher answered
the research questions and hypotheses in sequential order.
Research questions:
Q 1. To what extent is a graduate engineering peer mentoring program able to
a) assist students’ in their transition period to graduate school?
b) encourage individual networks?
c) promote cultural exchange in communities?
Q 2. In mentor-mentee relationships, what characterizes the mentors that are favored by
the mentees?
a) Do mentees learn more from mentors with a different cultural background?
b) What are common characteristics of helpful mentors?
Q 3. What are the mentees’ overall experiences in the peer mentoring program?
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The quantitative survey explained Q 1 and the first sub-question of Q 2. The researcher
used the findings in the survey to finalize the interview protocol. The interviews explained the
second sub-question of Q 2 and the third research question (Q 3).
Sample and Population
The study was conducted in a 4-year, private Research I university with approximately
43,000 students, located in an urban area of one of the largest cities in the United States. The
university houses one of the largest engineering schools, with one of the most diverse student
populations in the nation. The international students take up the majority of the graduate student
population at the engineering school. As a result, the findings of this study might be
generalizable to other large Research I urban universities, especially those with a large
international student population. As of Fall 2015, a total of 1,802 students enrolled as first year
graduate students, including 1,652 master students, and 150 doctor students. Almost one third of
these new students (562) confirmed joining the mentorship program. The program stakeholders
believed that this evaluation study was a great start to the new mentorship program.
The sampling strategies in this study followed Creswell’s (2013) suggestion on
explanatory sequential mixed methods sampling — “rigorous quantitative sampling in the first
phase”, and “purposeful sampling in the second, qualitative phase.” A total population sampling
was utilized for the quantitative study, and a purposeful sampling was adopted for the qualitative
component.
To explore the first research question, and the first sub-question of the second research
question, the program manager for the Graduate Mentoring program sent the survey to all 562
mentees in the mentorship program. The sample strategy was total population sampling, since
the survey was sent out to every mentee. All mentees in the program were encouraged to finish
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the online survey. At the end of the survey, the participants were asked if they were willing to
participate in interviews.
To answer the second sub-question of Q 2, and the third research question (Q 3), the
researcher conducted interviews with mentees who agreed to participate in the study. In total,
five mentees were interviewed. The first three of them were identified using purposeful
sampling, and the last two were identified through snowball sampling. The fourth student
interviewed was recommended by the first interviewed student, and the fifth one was
recommended by the fourth student. Three of the interviews were conducted in English; two
were conducted in Chinese.
Instrumentation and Data Collection
Based on the program goals and the other elements indicated by the program manager,
the researcher drafted the research questions, and later designed the online survey. The purpose
of conducting the online survey was to get descriptive data about the demographic characteristics
of actual participants in the study, the participants’ satisfaction/experience with the Graduate
Mentorship Program, and more generally if the program met its goals (to help ease the transition
period to graduate school, to increase networking, and to promote cultural exchange). The survey
findings were also used to help with the design of the interview protocol.
Although 562 students showed their interest in the Graduate Mentorship Program, this
did not guarantee their actual participation. Thus, the researcher needed to collect the
demographic data of students who participated in this assessment, and compared this to the
general demographic data of the 562 original mentees to ensure representativeness. The
demographic index included gender, race, country of origin, degree program, and whether the
student was a first time enrollee in an academic program at this university.
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A main part of the survey was aimed at exploring Q 1, and the first sub-question of Q 2.
The Q 1 was designed to test if this program met its original three goals (ease the transition,
increase networking, and promote cultural exchange). The Q 2 intended to obtain mentees’
general preference for their mentors.
The researcher created an online survey questionnaire that was consisted of Part I, a
general self-report assessment, and Part II, the evaluation of the mentorship program. Part I
included a total of ten 5-point Likert scale questions to measure student development. The scales
were quantified as “Strongly Disagree = 1, Somewhat Disagree = 2, Neutral = 3, Somewhat
Agree = 4, and Strongly Agree = 5”. Part II included in total of 10 Yes/No questions and 4
multiple choices questions.
Based on Q 1, the researcher identified measurable outcomes. They are the smoothness of
students’ transition period, the development of students’ individual networking, and the cultural
exchange in communities. To be specific, the smoothness of students’ transition period was
measured by 1) students’ ability to access campus resources, and 2) the change in students’ stress
levels. The development of students’ individual networking was measured by 3) improvements
in students’ social networking, and 4) improvements in students’ professional networking. The
cultural exchange in communities was measured by 5) students’ awareness of cultural diversity,
and 6) students’ development of belonging. Reflecting on the survey items, a total of ten 5-point
Likert scale questions on the survey were designed to help the researcher understand the
mentees’ learning outcomes from the Graduate Mentorship Program, and from their first
semester in graduate school (Table 3.1).

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Table 3.1
Variables, Research Questions, and Items on the Survey
Research
Questions
Variables Measurements Items on Survey
Does this
program help
new students in
their transition
period?
The
smoothness of
students’
transition
period
Students’ ability to
access campus
resources
I am able to find on campus resources
such as the library, study rooms,
computer labs, academic advisors, the
career center, etc.
I know where to get information
about campus activities, such as
career fairs, games, speeches,
different kinds of information
sessions, and other events.
The change in
students’ stress
levels
I feel less stressed than I did at the
beginning of the semester.
I feel more accustomed to daily life
on campus.
Does this
program
encourage
individual
network
The
development
of students’
individual
networking
Improvements in
students’ social
network
I have made many friends outside of
class.
Improvements in
students’
professional
network
My professional development goals
are clearer now than they were at the
beginning of the semester.
I know more people in my
professional field than I did at the
start of the semester.
Does this
program
promote
cultural
exchange in
communities
The cultural
exchange in
communities
Students’
awareness of
cultural diversity
I have made many friends from
different cultural backgrounds during
this semester.
Campus diverse environment has
helped me grow.
Students’
development of
belonging
I feel like I belong here.
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The first sub-question of Q 2 explored the group differences between mentees who had a
mentor from their home country, and mentees who had a mentor originally from another country.
The learning outcomes were measured by the frequency of meeting, the discussion topics, and
the sense of belonging to this program (Table 3.1). The participants were directed by the
question “Is your mentor’s cultural background different from yours” (Appendix A), and then
they would answer the questions related to the three outcomes — the frequency of meeting, the
discussion topics, and the sense of belonging to this program.
To obtain the raw statistical data, the program manager sent the Qualtrics survey link to
all mentees in Fall 2015. The instrument was administered through the program office. To ensure
reliability and validity, the researcher consulted with the program manager, and tested this
instrumentation with a paper based pilot survey before finalizing the online version.
In exploring Q 3 and the second sub-question in Q 2, the researcher conducted interviews
as a follow-up to the survey, as this brought further insights from the participants’ view. The
researcher designed and revised the interview protocol based on the survey data; the interviews,
in turn, offered explanation for the survey results. The interview protocol and procedure was
approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).
The whole assessment followed the conceptual framework for ethics in assessment
mentioned in Assessment Method by Schuh (2011) — the researcher kept autonomy, and
avoided harming the participants at all times during the project. Before the start of the research,
the researcher received the permission from the program manager to plan the assessment of the
Graduate Mentorship Program. The program manager was the owner of the data collected from
the online survey. Every participant could choose to complete the survey or not. The survey
minimized participants’ burden by constructing a questionnaire within less than 30 quantitative
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questions in total. Response analysis indicates that the majority of the participants completed the
survey in less than five minutes. In the interview procedure, the researcher was explicit about
voluntarily participation before and after the survey. The researcher informed every participant
that they were not pressed to finish the survey, nor obliged to leave their contact information and
that the findings would be shared with the program. Participants were assured that the final
report would not mention any name nor any identifiable information. This process followed the
university required IRB structure.
Data Analysis and Interpretation
The data analysis for this study includes two distinct forms of analysis in sequential
order, as dictated by the order of research questions. The researcher explained Q 1, and the first
sub-question of Q 2 by analyzing statistical data from the quantitative survey. The rest of the
research questions were answered by analyzing themes from interview data.
To answer Q 1, basic descriptive and statistical tests of significance were used to analyze
the survey data. The initial report was exported from Qualtrics to excel. The researcher utilized
Microsoft Excel to calculate and display basic statistical tools such as percentage distributions,
means, ranges, and standard deviations. The analysis procedure is similar for the first sub-
question of Q 2. The results of the survey highly shaped the interview protocol. The interview
data were collected at the beginning of the Spring 2016. After producing the recording
transcripts, the researcher coded the data, summarized patterns, and refined themes. Then the
researcher took the results from the interviews and used them to explain the previous survey
results.
The main challenge of survey data analysis was that the researcher struggled with
collecting enough completed surveys to obtain statistical significance. For interpreting
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qualitative data, apart from the difficulty in interviewing enough participants that could well
represent the whole population, one of the problems was that the whole qualitative research
design was highly dependent on the quantitative results — the systematical errors or errors
resulted from the instrumentation of the survey might also influence the qualitative data
collection. At the same time, the qualitative data needed to answer Q 3. If the quantitative results
got far off track, the interpretation of qualitative data might suffer as well.
To ensure the transparency of this study, after data analysis, the researcher shared the
results with officers from GAPP, mentees, and mentors. The researcher and GAPP staff could
then have further discussion on the report and its findings. The discussion could focus on the
findings and themes from the study and how to improve the mentorship program. It might also
touch on how the researcher formed an assessment circle, including timelines, budgets,
recruitment, and program promotion.
Limitations
The biggest challenges of the study include the short time frame for data collection and
limited resources. Clearly, a better way to prove the effectiveness of a program is to target a
specific group of people, design a pre-post survey before the beginning of the program, and re-
administer the post-test after one semester. A comparison group is also needed to rule out the
possible changes caused by time and other activities. These did not happen in the study, due to
timing and resources issues. In this study, the ideal time to administer a pre-survey passed before
the starting of the assessment. Even though the participants could self-report the scale of change,
it would not be as accurate as a pre-post survey design. The program timeline determined that the
program manager had to send out the survey before mid-November. Then, the researcher could
not obtain Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the interviews for an extended period
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of time. Moreover, surveying students outside the program was beyond the power of the program
manager, and the researcher had to give up the idea of conducting group comparison. In this
case, the sequential order of conducting a quantitative survey and interviews only to the mentees
was limited by the timing and program resources. The timing and resources limitation resulted
that the pilot survey only involved a small number of participants.
A second limitation is that the quantitative survey instrument used in this study is not as
valid as other existing survey instruments, since the survey was self-designed, and the outcomes
were self-identified. There could exist more inputs and outcomes that had not been considered in
the survey design. The program insisted on using a self-designed survey because this study
focused on the special needs of the institution, and no existing survey was found in the literature
nor documents that could test the specific goals of the graduate mentorship program. Thirdly, the
entire quantitative survey rests on the notion of a set of continuous variables. However, the
survey items are targeting at this mentorship program. With this specific instrumentation, a lack
of established validity and reliability coefficients for the constructs and item loadings could
jeopardize the scientific explanation of the whole study. The survey constructs might result in
errors, and the generalizability of the study could be compromised. Finally, the assessment was
solely focusing on mentees in the program. Learning stories only from one side might result in
some bias. There could be a future study on mentors.
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CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
This study is an evaluation of a peer mentoring program for first year engineering
graduate students at a Tier I private research university in the western region. The purpose of this
study is to assess if the Graduate Mentorship Program could help the first year engineering
graduate students — who self-identified as mentees in this program — ease the transition,
increase networking, and promote cultural exchange. In addition, through this study, the
researcher could help the program manager to understand mentees’ overall experiences in this
program, so that the program manager would have a better vision of the whole program.
A mixed-methods research design helps answer the research questions:
Q 1. To what extent is a graduate engineering peer mentoring program able to
a) assist students’ in their transition period to graduate school?
b) encourage individual networks?
c) promote cultural exchange in communities?
Q 2. In mentor-mentee relationships, what characterizes the mentors that are favored by
the mentees?
a) Do mentees learn more from mentors with a different cultural background?
b) What are common characteristics of helpful mentors?
Q 3. What are the mentees’ overall experiences in the peer mentoring program?
The quantitative survey tested if the program met their original goals, and the interviews
explored mentees’ general experiences in this Graduate Mentorship Program. This chapter
reports survey and interview results by the order of the research questions. The survey was
designed to response the Q 1, and the first sub-question in the Q 2. The survey results also
provided the demographic data of the survey participants. The interviews served to answer
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second sub-question of the Q 2, and the Q3; meanwhile, the interviews informed the program
runner of mentees’ general experiences in their graduate school experiences. The reporting of
results follows the order of: 1) demographic information of the survey participants; 2) data
related to Q 1 (data from survey Part I); 3) data related to first sub-question of the Q 2 (data from
survey Part II); 4) interview participants’ information, and data related to second sub-question of
the Q 2 (data from interviews); 5) data related to Q 3 (data from interviews); and 6) the
suggestions for the Graduate Mentorship Program.
Demographic Information of the Survey Participants
A total of 116 mentees participated in the online survey, and 94 of them completed all the
questions. The response rate is 16.7% (94/562). The researcher cleaned the data, and only
counted the completed entries for data analysis. The majority (86 out of 94) of the survey
participants are pursuing their master degrees, taking up to 91% of the population who
completed the survey (Table 4.1). This percentage is similar as the whole population
stratification, in which 1,652 out of 1,802 incoming students in the 2015 Fall are master students.
The participants are from 10 different departments in the engineering school. Nearly half
of the mentees (46/94) who completed the survey are from Computer Science Department, and
the second largest population (26/94) is students from the Electronic Engineering Department
(Table 4.1). Computer Science, and Electronic Engineering are the two departments that host the
largest number of the new engineering students in this institution.
Most participants are non-U.S. citizens (87/94), and this matches the demographic
(506/562) of the population who indicated their interest in joining this Graduate Mentorship
Program.
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Table 4.1
Demographic Information of Survey Participants

Category
Response
(n = 94)
Percentage
Degree Program
Master's 86 91%
Ph.D. 8 9%
Department
Computer Science 46 49%
Department of Electrical Engineering 26 28%
Chemical Engineering & Material Science 6 6%
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering 4 4%
Biomedical Engineering 3 3%
Civil & Environmental Engineering 3 3%
Informatics (Cyber Security, Data Informatics & Spatial
Informatics)
3 3%
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering 1 1%
Astronautical Engineering 1 1%
Green Technologies 1 1%
Citizenship
U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident of the U.S. 7 7%
Non-U.S. Citizen (Citizen of another country) 87 93%
India 50 53%
China 26 28%
Iran 4 4%
Thailand 2 2%
Cyprus 1 1%
Japan 1 1%
Nigeria 1 1%
Vietnam 1 1%
Gender
Male 66 70%
Female 26 28%
Prefer not to state 2 2%
First time enrollment
Yes, before this current program. I was here for ___ (how long). 0 0%
No. 94 100%

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The participants include 70% male, and 28% female, and 2% prefer not to state their
gender (Table 4.4). This matched up with the gender ratio in the whole engineering school (about
30% female engineering students in the whole engineering school). Most of the participants self-
identified as Asian/American Asian (79/94). These 79 Asian/American Asian students include 78
international students from 5 Asian countries (most of them are Indian (49), and Chinese (25),).
In addition, all 94 participants are first time enrolled in this institution as a graduate student
(Table 4.1).
Results from Survey Part I
The Part I of the survey consists of ten 5-point Likert Scale questions that explored the
extent to which an engineering peer mentoring program is able to assist students’ transition
period, encourage individual networks, and promote cultural exchange in communities (Q 1, see
Table 3.1).
As stated in the previous chapter, “a mentoring program is able to assist students’
transition period” is measured by 1) students’ ability to access campus resources, and 2) the
change in students’ stress levels. The related question items on the survey are:
“My mentor helped me find campus resources such as advisors, career office, health care,
study places, etc.”
“My mentor directed me where to get information about campus activities, such as
events, career fairs, games, speeches, etc.” and,
“I feel less stressed than I did at the beginning of the semester.”, and “I feel well adjusted
to daily life on campus with my mentor’s help.”
All these items that measure this Mentorship Program assisting students’ transition into
graduate school scored over 3.6, with almost two thirds of students believing that their mentors
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help them with finding campus resources and information, and adjust their life on campus (Table
4.2).
Table 4.2
Mentees’ General Self-Report Assessment Results
Questions Mean Variance
Standard
Deviation
My mentor helped me find campus resources
such as advisors, career office, health care,
study places, etc.
3.64 1.70 1.3
My mentor directed me where to get
information about campus activities, such as
events, career fairs, games, speeches, etc.
3.76 1.61 1.27
I feel less stressed than I did at the beginning
of the semester.
3.74 1.70 1.3
I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus
with my mentor's help.
3.62 1.55 1.25
My mentor introduced me friends outside of
my class.
3.09 2.01 1.42
My mentor introduced me friends from
different cultural backgrounds.
2.96 2.00 1.41
My professional development goals are
clearer now than they were at the beginning
of the semester.
3.77 1.43 1.2
My mentor helped me build networks with
people in my professional field.
3.09 1.86 1.37
I feel like I belong here. 4.04 1.09 1.05
Overall, I have benefited from being in this
program.
3.84 1.47 1.21
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The development of students’ individual networking is measured by 3) improvements in
students’ social networking, and 4) improvements in students’ professional networking. The
related question items on the survey are:
“My mentor introduced me friends outside of my class.”
“My professional development goals are clearer now than they were at the beginning of
the semester.” and,
“My mentor helped me build networks with people in my professional field.”.
The results indicate that mentors did not play an important role in helping mentees make
friends or build up individual networks; however, a majority of mentees (61) agree that their
professional development goals are getting clearer (Table 4.2).
The cultural exchange in communities is measured by 5) students’ awareness of cultural
diversity, and 6) students’ development of belonging. The item “My mentor introduced me
friends from different cultural backgrounds.” received the lowest score (2.96) in the Likert scale
questions, while the item “I feel like I belong here.” achieved the highest (4.04). The results
show that although mentees did not get to know more people from other cultural backgrounds,
they did find a sense of belonging in the community.
Results from Survey Part II
The Part II of the survey starts with the question “Is your mentor’s cultural background
the same as yours (including nationality and/or races)?”. By answering “Yes” or “No”, students
are grouped into two clusters. Group 1 is consisted of 42 mentees, whose mentors are from the
same cultural backgrounds as them. Group 2 includes 52 students who have mentors from
different cultural backgrounds. The Part II is designed to partially answer Q 2: Do mentees learn
more from mentors with a different cultural background?
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Mentees in Group 1
Mentees in Group 1 are all master students from India (33), and China (9). When being
asked if they could have opportunity to choose again, would they prefer their mentors from a
different cultural background, 36% students indicated that they had no preference, and 38%
students still insisted in having a mentor from the same cultural background.
In the whole semester, 24% students have never met their mentors in person, and 40%
met their mentors more than twice, including 11 students met their mentors regularly (more than
5 times, see Table 4.3).
Most mentees (76%) got information about campus, the city, or this country from their
mentors. Almost all mentees (39) responded that they would recommend this program to new
students, and 88% mentees felt their mentors did a great job.
Table 4.3
Mentees’ Degree Program, Preference of Mentors, and Meeting Frequency (Group 1)
Items Response (n = 42) Percentage
Degree Program
Master's 42 100%
Ph.D. 0 0%
If you could choose again, what will be your preference
about the cultural background of your mentor?

The same as mine. 16 38%
Different from mine. 11 26%
No preference. 15 36%
How many times have you met with your mentor this
semester?

None 10 24%
1--2 15 36%
3--5 6 14%
More than 5 11 26%

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Mentees in Group 2
Group 2 includes 44 master students and 8 doctoral students. Seven of them are domestic
students, and the rest 45 students are from nine different countries (China, Cyprus, India, Iran,
Japan, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam). Half of the mentees in Group 2 indicate no
preference of their mentors’ cultural backgrounds; 31% students like to have a mentor from a
different cultural background.
Table 4.4
Mentees’ Degree Program, Preference of Mentors, and Meeting Frequency (Group 2)
Items Response (n = 52) Percentage
Degree Program
Master's 44 100%
Ph.D. 8 0%
If you could choose again, what will be your preference
about the cultural background of your mentor?

The same as mine. 10 19%
Different from mine. 16 31%
No preference. 26 50%
How many times have you met with your mentor this
semester?

None 24 46%
1--2 17 33%
3--5 9 17%
More than 5 2 4%

Comparing to mentees in Group 1, mentees in Group 2 spent less time with their mentors.
In 2015 Fall, nearly half (46%) students have never met their mentors in person, and 33% met
their mentors once or twice. Only 2 students met their mentors more than 5 times.
Similar to mentees in Group 1, most mentees (65%) got information about campus, the
city, or this country from their mentors. Although 46 mentees (92%) claimed that they would
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recommend this program to new students, only 60% mentees felt their mentors did a great job,
which is less that the 88% in Group 1 (Table 4.5).
Table 4.5
Satisfactory Comparison between Mentees in Group 1 and Mentees in Group 2
Questions
Group 1 (n = 42) Group 2 (n = 52)
Response Percentage Response Percentage
Would you recommend this program to
new students?

Yes 39 93% 48 92%
No 3 7% 4 8%
Do you feel your mentor did a great
job in this mentoring relationship?

Yes 37 88% 31 60%
No 5 12% 21 40%

That data show that mentees in Group 1 met more often with their mentors, and more
mentees in Group 1 reported that their mentors did a great job. When comparing the results in
Part I of these two groups, Group 1 scored higher (mean score) in the nine out of the ten Likert-
scale questions (Table 4.6); especially for the question “I feel well adjusted to daily life on
campus with my mentor’s help”, the Group 1 scored significantly higher than the Group 2 (z =
2.18 > 1.96, p < .05).

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Table 4.6
Self-report Comparison between Mentees in Group 1 and Mentees in Group 2
Questions
Group 1 (n = 42) Group 2 (n = 52)
Mean Variance Mean Variance
My mentor helped me find campus resources such
as advisors, career office, health care, study places,
etc.
3.88 1.67 3.44 1.66
My mentor directed me where to get information
about campus activities, such as events, career
fairs, games, speeches, etc.
3.93 1.53 3.62 1.65
I feel less stressed than I did at the beginning of the
semester.
3.86 1.74 3.65 1.68
I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus with my
mentor's help.
3.90 1.31 3.38 1.65
My mentor introduced me friends outside of my
class.
3.31 1.98 2.90 2.01
My mentor introduced me friends from different
cultural backgrounds.
3.05 2.05 2.88 1.99
My professional development goals are clearer
now than they were at the beginning of the
semester.
3.69 1.78 3.83 1.17
My mentor helped me build networks with people
in my professional field.
3.19 1.72 3.00 2.00
I feel like I belong here. 4.05 1.36 4.04 0.9
Overall, I have benefited from being in this
program.
4.02 1.58 3.69 1.35

The data indicate that the Group 2 was consisted of a more diverse population, and
mentees in Group 2 were exposed to a more diverse opportunity — being matched up with
mentors from another cultural background. However, through the self-report survey, the mentees
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in Group 1 enjoyed the Mentorship Program more (since the mean scores were higher). The
responses in Part II show the trend that if mentees and mentors from the same cultural
background, mentees might involve more in the mentorship program, and learn more from their
mentors. More detailed information could be found from the interview data.
Interview Results
After analyzing the data from the survey, the researcher recruited six students to conduct
interviews, and five of them finally completed the interviews (Table 4.7). The paragraphs below
will introduce basic information of interviewees by the order of being interviewed.
Table 4.7
Interview Participants
No.
Mentees Mentors
Citizenship Department Gender Citizenship Department Gender
Currently
a mentor?
Mentee 1 China CS M China EE M Y
Mentee 2 India EE M India EE F Y
Mentee 3 India EE F India EE M Y
Mentee 4 China EE M China EE M N
Mentee 5 China CS M India CS M Y

Mentee 1
Mentee 1 is a Chinese male, first year Computer Science student. His mentor was a
second year master student in Electronic Engineering major, also a Chinese male. Mentee 1 met
his mentor only once in the whole semester, during the Mentorship Program mingle night, one of
the events holding by the program manager. Although they did not meet often, Mentee 1 claimed
that his mentor helped him with adjusting his life in the United States.
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“I came here in last semester. So that is 2015 Fall. And I joined the mentorship program
for last term as a mentee, and for this term, I’m a mentor. For the last term, I’m a mentee,
and my mentor is a Chinese boy. His major is very large circuit design, which is not very
similar to my major. My major is Electric engineering, and his major is very large circuit
design, which we say the hard ware major. And my major is… I don’t know how to
describe it. Some like mathematics, and transformation in major processing. So I think
the most helpful advice he gave me is for the… how to live. Live near the neighborhood
(the institution), and where to find interesting things to do. And some very general
guiding for the study.”
Their conversations were mainly about living in the big city in the United States, such as
where to find good restaurants, and places of interest, etc. Mentee 1 also asked his mentor about
registration procedure, and how to keep visa status. His mentor was friendly and patient, but his
mentor would not actively reach out to him. His mentor was more of passively answering
questions. Mentee 1 and his mentor were not very close, and they did not contact often after last
round of the Graduate Mentorship Program. Mentee 1 hopes to have a mentor from a different
cultural background, and a locally grown-up domestic student would be even better.
Mentee 1 is currently a mentor in the semester for two Chinese students. Mentee 1 shares
that although all of them have busy schedule, he keeps a close relationship with his mentees, and
meet with them in person about every two to three weeks.
Apart from answering their questions, or helping them when they need him, he often
reaches out to them, and check how they are doing. Similar as how Mentee 1 communicated with
his mentor, most of the communications between him and his mentees are through WeChat, a
social media app that is very popular in Chinese students.
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Mentee 2
Mentee 2 is an Indian male, first year Electronic Engineering student. His mentor was an
Indian female, also in Electronic Engineering major. As an international student, and also a first
generation engineering student in his family, he appreciated this Mentorship Program, because it
provided him opportunity to know his mentor — someone who had similar experience, even
before his arrival to this country.
“We planned to meet in the Mingle Night event, but she didn’t have time, and I didn’t
have time. So we didn’t meet that night. But later, there’s one day, I was having lunch
outside the student canteen, and she walked to me and said hi. We were friends on
Facebook, so we saw each other’s’ pictures. She recognized me first, and she said ‘I’m
your mentor’. Then we met twice last semester in the library. Actually, just now, before I
came to talk with you, I saw her in the library, and we chatted.”
His mentee was the only person he knew in person who was a current student in this
school, before came to the United States. They ran into each other and chatted (not intentionally)
on campus several times (twice in the library, and once in the school canteen). Most of their
communication went through text messages, Facebook messages, or emails. Since they are in the
same major, their main conversations were about their course work, and internship searching.
They both had busy schedule last semester, and as a result, they missed all the social events of
the Graduate Mentorship Program, although they would like to attend. They still keep close
connection till now. Mentee 2 described his mentee as a very helpful and responsible friend, and
a good role model; while he hopes to have a mentor with a different cultural background if he
could choose.
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“As far as to the mentorship program, I would suggest we shouldn’t be signed with
(mentors) from the same country… Since there are many international students, we
should pair with people from other countries, and so that we learn from each other. That’s
how you make friends. Especially in the US, networking is really important. That’s how
you network. So if you are with someone from your own country, I think that somehow
would discourage us to make more friends. If you get help initially from a person from
another country, it makes things a lot easier, I think.”
Mentee 2 is current a mentor in another peer mentoring program hosted by Office of
International Services, targeting at international students on campus. His mentees are two
Chinese students in the business school. Although he has little idea about business majors, he
helps his mentees with common issues that international might run into, such as how to verify
their passport upon their arrival, and how to get their driver’s license.
“At first I wanna be a mentor in this mentorship program, but I want to know more
people from other countries, and from other schools. Now I’m a mentor in the
international student mentorship program, and I have two mentees from China. They are
in the business school… They ask me about registration, passport verification, and
driver’s license… I don’t know much about business, but I have some Indian friends in
the business school, and if my mentees have questions about the course, I usually try to
find my friends to help them.”
His mentees told him that they were lucky to have him as a mentor and a good friend, and
he was very helpful. He admitted that his pleasant experiences in the Mentorship Program was
one motivation for him to become a mentor himself, and helps out other international students.
The reason that he chose the international student peer mentoring program over the Mentorship
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Program for engineering was that he wanted to know more people outside the engineering field,
and more people from other countries.
Mentee 3
Mentee 3 is an Indian female in Electronic Engineering, Computer Network major. She
and her mentor, an Indian male, are from the same town in India. They share same culture, and
same native language. They are also in the same major, and last semester, they even have one
common class together.
“He emailed me first, and he knew I was from India. I was glad we are in the same major.
Later we realized we were from the same town. We speak same language. My parents
wanted to fly with me here together, so I asked him a lot of last minute questions, such as
which hotel to stay, and where to visit.”
The first time that they met each other was in the first class meeting of that common
class. Before departing India, she asked her mentor about some “last minute” questions, such
finding housing, insurance choices, and where to visit. Then her mentor gave her some advice
about class registration. Her mentor also helps her understand the education system here in the
US, and internship opportunity searching. Apart from meeting in the class every week, they
chatted regularly (every two weeks). She considered her mentor as a good friend, and though he
graduated at the end of last semester, and moved to Arizona, they still contact each other. She
felt like that with the help of her mentor, she got involved more, and that she had a sense of
belonging to the institution, and to the community as an Indian engineering student. She rated
highly of this Mentorship Program, and hoped that all graduate engineering students should be
paired up with a mentor, especially international students.
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Mentee 3 is now a mentor of two Chinese students. Her mentees were not into the
Mentorship Program at the beginning. One claimed he had never signed up for a mentor, and the
other one was debating if she wanted to enrolled in her academic program.
“We did not actually get very well at the beginning. One of my mentee was really hard to
contact. She’s a Chinese girl, and I’m not sure if she made her mind to study here before
the class started. I reached out to her a bunch of times, but she did not respond. I brought
it to the program manager’s notice… and she (program manager) sent out email from her
side. Unfortunately, no reply to that. I reached to another mentee, and he emailed back,
and said he actually had never signed up for the program at all. I was like okay… That’s
not a problem. What about let’s just be friends? You know you could always ask a friend
if you have any question. I could help you at the best from my part. He’s cool about it,
and he said okay, let’s be friends… When they came here on campus, the second mentee
actually contacted me and asked if we could meet up… and my first mentee also wrote
back, and said it was her bad… Three of us finally met in the mix event.”
As a mentor, Mentee 3 reached out to both of them before they came to this country, and
pursued them that even if they were not interested in having a mentor, it would not be bad to
have one more friend. Both of her mentees now are more involved into the Mentorship Program,
and three of them finally met in a Graduate Mentorship Program social event.
Mentee 4
Mentee 4 is a Chinese male, he had the same mentor as Mentee 1. Mentee 4 and his
mentor are in the same major. His mentor gave him some advice about class registration, and
some introduction about their academic program. He has not met his mentor till now. Most time,
they communicated through WeChat. Mentee 4 felt this program was helpful, but he was not
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involved much in the Mentorship Program, due to his busy class schedule. He has many Chinese
friends, and he felt if he had anything that he wanted to ask his mentor, he could get information
from his friends. If he could choose, he would like to have an American student to be his mentor.
He did get some help from his friend’s mentor in this program. That mentor was a straight A
Indian student. Mentee 4 took some of his advice regarding how to find internship, and how to
build up résumé.
Mentee 5
Mentee 5 is a friend of Mentee 4, the friend with the straight A Indian student mentioned
above. Mentee 5 is a Chinese male, and he enjoyed his time of being a mentee in this Graduate
Mentorship Program. His mentor introduced him many friends from different cultural
backgrounds, whom he would not be able to meet if he did not join the Graduate Mentorship
Program. He also learned study strategies and network building strategies from his mentor. His
mentor reached out to him a lot, and encouraged him to find research and working internship
opportunities. Mentee 5 learned from his mentor’s experience of being a straight A student, he
takes less course load this semester, and spends more time one each one course. Mentee 5 and
his mentor went to the Graduate Mentorship Program events together twice, and they loved these
social networking opportunities. They still keep close relationship till now, and they often hang
out together.
Mentee 5 also becomes a mentor of two Chinese students in this program. He introduced
his mentees to his mentor. They sometimes have meal together, and talk about courses,
internships, and career development. Mentee 5’s mentor joined the WeChat group with the
Chinese students, and they often group chatting on the WeChat.

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The Suggestions for the Graduate Mentorship Program
The suggestions for the Graduate Mentorship Program were collected through interviews,
and the survey question “Do you have any comments or recommendations about the program?”
The feedbacks are in general positive. The suggestions are mainly focused on the program
events, the standards of the mentors, and the algorithm for pairing mentors and mentees.
Students commented:
“This is a great program, and I really get a lot of help from my mentor.”
“It was very helpful! Thank you:)”
“Program is very helpful to new students.”
“This is a great opportunity for the new students to learn about the live at the campus,
about the classes and much more other things. Thanks for giving this opportunity to us.”
“I would love to be a mentor myself. I could totally appreciate the need of this program.”
“This program is perfect for me!”
“Excellent program for new comers at USC.”
“The program is serving its purpose.”
“This program is great, which is why I stood for the position of a mentor.”
“Please continue with such programs! :P”
“It is a great initiative for newly admitted students.”
Some mentees pointed out that they made new friends from the social events, and they
would love to attend more in the future. At the same time, mentees wish the events could be
more organized, and hope that the program manager could do more to help them identify their
mentors and avoid awkwardness:
“This is great; it will be better if there are more activities together.”
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“More scheduled program events.”
“The event organized in the beginning of the semester where we first met our mentors
was disorganized and the questionnaire activity seemed useless.”
“I felt like the program was a bit rushed and nothing was ever really planned out. I was
really disappointed with the first day we were supposed to meet our mentor but nobody knew
who their mentor was or anything. Next year, please fix that.”
“It will be great if we meet our mentors before orientations itself.”
The negative comments are mainly about having a mentor who did involve very much.
Some mentees would like to see the program manager could have a stricter standard for the
mentors:
“I contacted him, but he didn't respond.”
“Hardly had any interaction with mentor, most of the times my mentor ignored me.”
“My mentor never showed up nor did he reply to my message.”
“The program is very good but it needs to make sure that the mentors are up to the
standards, in my case the mentor was not helpful at all.”
“please do monitor and assign people mentors who can at-least communicate promptly
with people.”
“It's probably more helpful to pair mentors/mentees who aren't starting the same year in
the same program.”
“I would recommend more structure, engagement, and a better algorithm for pairing
mentors with mentees.”
“It’s a great program, amazing initiative. I've seen a lot of people benefit from it. My
mentor wasn't very interactive but it’s still a great program. But he's still a very sweet guy.”
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Some other comments include the conflict between this program and their busy schedule,
and their preference of the mentors, such as:
“I found myself being too busy to take advantage of having a mentor. I imagine he was
very busy as well.”
“I really want to attend the events, but I was too busy.”
“We should be paired with a mentor from another country.”
The program in general meets mentees’ expectation. Mentees provided valuable thoughts
regarding program structure, standards of mentors, and suggestions for social events. The
program will surely make improvements from these suggestions.
Summary
The survey participants in general represent the demographic characteristics of the whole
population of the Graduate Mentorship Program. The results from the survey, and the interviews
prove that many mentees in the Graduate Mentorship Program believe this program is helpful.
The survey focuses on explaining if the program meet its goals of assisting students’ transition
period, encouraging individual networks, promoting cultural exchange in communities, and if
mentees could learn more from mentors who come from a different cultural background. The
interviews are designed for exploring what are common characteristics of helpful mentors, and
what are the overall experiences in this program as a mentee. Meanwhile, the survey results, and
interview results compensate each data set.
For Q 1, the survey results indicate that the Graduate Mentorship Program has met the
goal of assisting students’ transition period, since the items related to this goal all scored higher
than 3.6. Although during the program time period, mentees claimed that their professional
development goals were getting clearer, the program did not significantly help them to know
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more people. In other word, this program did not help mentees build individual networks. Most
mentees feel like belong to their current community; however, no significant evidence indicates
that this program has helped with promoting any cultural exchange in communities. The reasons
for why the program did not help with building networks and promoting cultural exchange are
somewhat indicated in the interviews — mentees sometimes prefer informative answers to
specific questions, rather than spending time interacting with their mentors. Moreover, the
assessment focuses on mentees’ experiences in one semester. During this short time period, some
distal individual developmental outcomes such as networks and promoting cultural exchange are
unlikely fully detected. Therefore, the results showed less individual developmental growth
through this program.
The survey has also partially answered Q 2. When comparing mentees in Group 1
(mentor and mentee share same cultural background), and Group 2 (mentor and mentee come
from different backgrounds), based on mentees’ satisfaction on their mentors, and self-report
improvement score in survey Part I, the researcher could conclude that mentees did not learn
more from mentors with a different cultural background. More mentees in Group 2 complained
about their mentor did not do the job, and did not meet their expectation. However, even the
mentees who complained about their mentors still believed that this program would be helpful,
and that their situation (mentor ignored mentees) was a special case.
The information from interviews has answered the rest part of the research questions. The
interview results conclude some mentees’ common opinion to this program. The mentees
interviewed claimed that the program is helpful. Most communications in between mentors and
mentees are through social media, text messages, and emails. They built their trust with their
mentors even when they were still in their home countries, because they believed that this was a
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university-run program, and they trusted the quality of the program even before they received
any benefit from this program. Almost all of them indicated that their busy schedule
compromised their overall experiences in the Graduate Mentorship Program, especially their
experiences in attending the program social events. All five mentees interviewed suggested that
they would love to have a mentor who is in the same academic program as them, but who comes
from a different cultural background. They believed in doing so, they would benefit more from
academic advising, and cultural exchange. The mentees who have pleasant experiences in the
Mentorship Program tend to move on becoming a mentor for other new students.
In addition, from the response in the interviews, and the qualitative suggestion box in the
survey, the researcher inferred that mentors’ characteristics, and involvement level would highly
influence mentees’ overall experiences. For example, if the mentor and mentee are from the
same academic program, their conversations tend to focus on course discussion, registration, and
career development opportunities; while if they are from different academic programs, they
might talk more about living in the US than school work. If the mentor has a high involvement
level in this program, and often reaches out to the mentees, mentees satisfaction to this program
might increase; while on the other hand, if the mentor always ignores mentees’ message, mentees
might identify this program less helpful.

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CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The increasing number of newly enrolled engineering students into graduate school and
the difficulties these students experience keep asking higher education institutions to pay more
attention to helping students realize academic success and professional development (Allum &
Okahana, 2015; Bowman, Bowman, & Delucia, 1990; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; IES,
2015). The past literature has identified several main challenges that compromise engineering
students’ experiences in the graduate school. They are the stress during the transition into
graduate study caused by course load, and limitations in social networks (Grant-Vallone &
Ensher, 2000). Previous studies have pointed out that peer mentorship program could help new
graduate students release stress and achieve individual development effectively (Tenenbaum,
Crosby, & Gliner, 2001; Grant-Vallone & Ensher, 2000; Lin, & Hsu, 2012). Based on these
information, the Graduate and Professional Program office of the engineering school in a large
Tier I private research university in the western region designed a Mentorship Program, aiming
at providing a platform for newly enrolled engineering students to find a mentor to help them
ease the transition, increase networking, and promote cultural exchange.
This study focuses on assessing the Graduate Mentorship Program, and answers research
questions:
Q 1. To what extent is a graduate engineering peer mentoring program able to
a) assist students’ in their transition period to graduate school?
b) encourage individual networks?
c) promote cultural exchange in communities?
Q 2. In mentor-mentee relationships, what characterizes the mentors that are favored by
the mentees?
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a) Do mentees learn more from mentors with a different cultural background?
b) What are common characteristics of helpful mentors?
Q 3. What are the mentees’ overall experiences in the peer mentoring program?
Summary of Findings
The Mentorship Program in general has a positive influence on the mentees’ transition
period. Specially, the program help students ease the stress during the transition, and help
mentees make more friends. Most surveyed mentees believe this program is effective, and they
would recommend this program to new students. This study, however, does not find significant
evidence that shows the Mentorship Program could contribute to cultural exchange. The
quantitative data and qualitative data interactively compensate each other, and draw a picture of
the mentees’ experiences in the program.
The Graduate Mentorship Program just started in Fall 2015, and it has proved beneficial
for many students. As CAS suggested (2014), the assessment serves the role of examining
whether the program has met its goals and realized its mission, and suggestions for future
improvement. However, the CAS does not provide actual solution processes. In this case, the
future improvement includes: meeting the goal of promoting cultural exchange, and encouraging
networks. The possible solution could be holding more structural social events, and conducting
effective pre-program training for the mentors to control and improve mentors’ general quality.
This study inevitably has limitations. Apart from those limitations regarding to research
design that has been discussed in Chapter Three, the researcher finds some limitations during
data analysis.
Firstly, the researcher noticed that all five interviewees claimed that they would love to
have someone from another cultural to be their mentors, because they believed in that case, they
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could learn more from the mentors; while the survey results showed that in general mentees
would involve and enjoy the program more, if the mentee and mentor were from the same
cultural background (Group 1). The results are in contradiction with one another. More mentees
in the Group 2 reported that their mentor ignored their message, and did not do the job. The
potential assumption for this issue is the existence of cultural and behavioral habit barrier in
between mentors and mentees if they are not from the same cultural background. For example, a
Chinese mentor likes to use WeChat, while his/her mentee from India usually uses Facebook
message, or an American mentor likes to talk more about life in the US, while his/her mentee
only wants information about course study. This assumption cannot be proved through this
study.
Secondly, the research underestimated the number of international participants in the
program, and in the study. The researcher was aware of that the majority of engineering of
students in this engineering are international students, but did not explore much about this factor.
However, in the survey Part I, the domestic students score lower in the eight out of the ten
Likert-scale questions than the international students (Table 5.1), including four scores below
3.00 (“My mentor helped me find campus resources such as advisors, career office, health care,
study places, etc.” scored 2.86; “I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus with my mentor’s
help.” scored 2.43; “My mentor introduced me friends outside of my class.” scored 2.57; “My
mentor introduced me friends from different cultural backgrounds.” scored 2.29), which means
on average, they disagree that their mentors have helped them in those four items. Particularly,
the domestic students’ score of the question “I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus with my
mentor’s help.” is significantly lower than the international students’ (t = 2.59 > t (df = 6) =
2.447; p < .05).
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Although other items do not display any statistical significance, when considering only 7
domestic students finished the survey, and 5 of them claimed their mentors did a bad job and 6 of
them have never met their mentors, the researcher concludes that the domestic students did not
Table 5.1
Self-report Comparison between Domestic Mentees and International Mentees
Questions
Domestic Students
(n = 7)
International
Students (n = 87)
Mean Variance Mean Variance
My mentor helped me find campus resources such
as advisors, career office, health care, study places,
etc.
2.86 2.48 3.70 1.61
My mentor directed me where to get information
about campus activities, such as events, career
fairs, games, speeches, etc.
3.29 1.90 3.79 1.58
I feel less stressed than I did at the beginning of the
semester.
3.00 3.00 3.8 1.58
I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus with my
mentor's help.
2.43 1.95 3.71 1.42
My mentor introduced me friends outside of my
class.
2.57 2.62 3.13 1.97
My mentor introduced me friends from different
cultural backgrounds.
2.29 2.24 3.01 1.96
My professional development goals are clearer
now than they were at the beginning of the
semester.
4.14 1.14 3.74 1.45
My mentor helped me build networks with people
in my professional field.
3.00 3.00 3.09 1.81
I feel like I belong here. 4.14 0.48 4.03 1.15
Overall, I have benefited from being in this
program.
3.29 1.90 3.89 1.43
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enjoy this Mentorship Program as much as the international students. Seven participants might
not be enough for quantitative data analysis, and none of them was interviewed. Gurin, Nagda,
and Lopez (2004) found a positive influence from peer cultural exchange on domestic students,
while this study so far, did not find strong evidence to support this claim. The domestic students’
experiences in the Mentorship Program could be very different from the international students’
experiences; however, the researcher could not find a way to dig more information from the
domestic students.
Moreover, this study targets engineering graduate students, including both master
students and doctoral students. Their experiences could be very different, since master students
are most likely spending two years studying practical skills, and doctoral students might plan to
spend 4 years or even more on research. Their focus and needs could be very different. The
distinctions in between these two groups clearly exist. The master students score higher in seven
out of 10 questions in survey Part I (Table 5.2). However, since in total of eight doctoral
participants in the survey and no doctoral participant in the interview, and the statistic results are
not significant in any score of the items, the researcher has no strong evidence to identify a
typical experience for doctoral students in the Graduate Mentorship Program.

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Table 5.2
Self-report Comparison between Master Students and Doctoral Students
Questions
Master Students
(n = 86)
Doctoral Students
(n = 8)
Mean Variance Mean Variance
My mentor helped me find campus resources such
as advisors, career office, health care, study places,
etc.
3.65 1.71 3.50 1.71
My mentor directed me where to get information
about campus activities, such as events, career
fairs, games, speeches, etc.
3.78 1.61 3.50 1.71
I feel less stressed than I did at the beginning of the
semester.
3.78 1.66 3.38 2.27
I feel well adjusted to daily life on campus with my
mentor's help.
3.65 1.52 3.25 1.93
My mentor introduced me friends outside of my
class.
3.07 2.07 3.25 1.64
My mentor introduced me friends from different
cultural backgrounds.
2.94 2.03 3.13 1.84
My professional development goals are clearer
now than they were at the beginning of the
semester.
3.79 1.41 3.5 1.71
My mentor helped me build networks with people
in my professional field.
3.07 1.88 3.25 1.93
I feel like I belong here. 4.03 1.12 4.13 0.98
Overall, I have benefited from being in this
program.
3.87 1.45 3.50 1.71

Finally, the Graduate Mentorship Program has been run, and the assessment has been
conducted for one semester. The timing posed significant limitations to discovering findings in
this study. The timing issue not only influenced the mentees’ self-reporting of their distal
PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 64/83

individual developmental outcomes (since individuals might need more time than just one
semester to develop networks, or realize cultural exchanges), but it also limited the diversity of
data collected from the sample population. A longer period of time would allow participants to
reflect more deeply on their experiences in the Graduate Mentorship Program, and to provide
more critical thoughts about the benefits of the Program in the long term. Meanwhile, longer
time would offer a bigger sample pool. If the researcher could have enough time (or if the
Program runs enough time) to recruit more participants with different identity stratifications,
conducting study in thorough comparisons between different groups of students in the Graduate
Mentorship Program (mentioned earlier in this section), such as international students vs.
domestic students, and master students vs. doctoral students, would be possible.
The study limitations could be minimized in future research. The limitations gave the
evaluator ideas of how to improve the assessment itself — as mentioned in CAS, the assessment
and evaluation is not only about improving the program, but also about helping to triangulate the
findings, and improve the assessment over time. The CAS does not, however, provide a basic
line for the researcher to decide when the evaluation process should be stabilized. From the
limitations in the data analysis, the research sees the need of keeping the evaluation process, but
improving the current instrumentation, and spending more time in recruiting interview
participants.
Implications for Practice
The Graduate Mentorship Program started in the Fall 2015. This fairly new program has
partially reached its goals. As a program evaluation, this study illustrates the benefits of the
Mentorship Program in helping students ease their transition into graduate study. The program
also assisted students find clearer goals of their professional development. The program did not
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improve individual networks, nor promote cultural exchange. Most of mentees in the program
believe that they learned from their mentors, and benefited from the program. In this regard, the
program could be considered as successful. From the current impact of this program, three main
implications will be discussed in the below paragraph.
Firstly, this program could build connection between current students and newly admitted
students. The newly admitted students and the institution itself benefit from understanding one
another’s goals with little additional cost. This is significant for prospective students, because
with the help of current students who have experienced the process of enrollment and transition,
the prospective students could have a better idea of how to be successful in graduate study, and
that would potentially make the new students stress less. This approach could even help students
make decisions to enroll into an academic program, and increase the institution’s enrollment rate.
At the same time, the administrative office could spend less time and money on monitoring
individual students, and arouse students’ enthusiasm in participating in campus activities. In this
case, the GAPP provides the platform; students create and enjoy their distinctive experiences in
the program. Student affairs administrators need to keep in mind that newly admitted students
trust the university and current students, recognizing this kind of peer mentoring program could
benefit students and the institution with minimal cost.
Secondly, the program helps engineering students identify as a part of the program
community, and spontaneously organized a “peer culture,” with the characteristics of studying
hard, busy schedule, limited networks, and the desire of perusing career development. The
results of this study suggested that engineering schools and departments could be more
responsive to the unique peer academic culture of engineering. The students in this study were
more interested in engaging a “culture of engineering” with their peers rather than making global
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cultural connections. In this study, the characteristics of peer culture shows stronger significance
than the traditional race based or ethnic cultures. The participants in the study are from diverse
cultural backgrounds; while the data, especially the qualitative data presents many common
beliefs featuring that the study population is consisted of engineering graduate students, and less
evidences in this case indicate students’ diverse cultural backgrounds could result in significant
different opinions to the program. Moreover, although some students suggested that the program
manager (GAPP) should host more social events, and take more control of the program,
throughout the whole semester, the flexible structure of this program, on the other hand, helps
students realize their traits of being engineering students.
Thirdly, unlike the traditional interactions between mentors and mentees, in this program
students take advantage of social networking, text, and email. The GEDI program study (Gomez,
Ali, & Casillas, 2014) mentioned in Chapter Two classified meeting with mentees regularly as
one important factor of being a qualified mentor. In this Graduate Mentorship Program, mentors
and mentees “meet” online, through their smartphones. This finding suggests that nowadays
online communication is one important form of interactions between mentors and mentees in the
peer mentoring program. Communicating through smartphones could better adjust engineering
students’ busy schedule, and provide information effectively. Even though mentees might not
meet with mentors regularly, they could touch base often through the internet — this did not
compromise mentees’ satisfaction about this program, or rather, it could be one of the reasons
that why mentees liked the program. This way of interacting might be a trend in the peer
mentoring relationship between young people. These implications could be applicable to peer
mentoring programs for engineering students, especially those that involve a large number of
international students.
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Future Research
Based on the limitations from the data analysis and the use of different theoretical lens,
future research could potentially focus on:
1. Program evaluation:
a. Instrumentation revising;
b. Collecting and analyzing data about special population in this program;
c. Extending the study
2. Research theoretical framework building for graduate peer mentoring program.
For program evaluation purposes, as mentioned before, the quantitative survey items are
targeting at this certain mentorship program. This specific instrumentation could be lacking in
established validity and reliability constructs. Taking the current results as the pilot survey for
revisions of next year’s instrumentation will help build the validity, reliability, and
generalizability of the future study. In the short term, this is one vital thing for the program
manager to consider. This is also a requirement by CAS standards (2014).
The program evaluation has been conducted from the beginning of the program. This
study is assessing the first round of the Graduate Mentorship Program, and it serves to provide a
broad view of mentees’ general experiences. From the data collected, the researcher identified
some limitations about experiences differences resulted from population difference. The
statistical evidence shows the possibility of significant differences existing between different
group of students. For instance, the fact that the domestic students’ score of the question “I feel
well adjusted to daily life on campus with my mentor’s help.” is significantly lower than the
international students’ (t = 2.59 > t (df = 6) = 2.447; p < .05) brings up the questions: Are there
other significant differences? Do the domestic students receive enough help and attention from
PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 68/83

the program? Or does the design of the program pay too much attention to international students?
If data collection could continue for next few years, there could be enough data to analyze
differences between populations, and answer questions such as what is doctoral students’ overall
experiences in this program, and what is American students’ overall experience in this program.
Specially, how domestic students fit in the special peer culture setting, where the majority
population is consisted of Asian international students, is an interesting topic.
For research purposes, in the long run, the theoretical framework building off of graduate
peer mentoring program is needed. Potentially, future research could anchor the theoretical
framework on integrative theories for student development; to be specific, the developmental
ecology theory and Schlossberg’s transition theory, since the research targets at assessing
students’ transition period. The theory pieces will help researchers understand how individuals
compose their peer culture, and how peer culture, in turn, shape the students. At the same time,
capacity building of program managers and evaluators could also be considered as building
theory pieces of this research.
PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 69/83

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Appendix A
Survey
We look forward to hearing about your experience in the Viterbi Graduate Mentorship Program.
This will help us improve services for you and incoming students in the future terms.

Thank

you!

1. What degree are you pursuing?
❍ Master's (1)
❍ Ph.D. (2)

2. Department (Major):
❍ Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (1)
❍ Astronautical Engineering (2)
❍ Biomedical Engineering (3)
❍ Sonny Astani Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (4)
❍ Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering & Material Science (5)
❍ Computer Science (6)
❍ Informatics (Cyber Security, Data Informatics & Spatial Informatics) (7)
❍ Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering (8)
❍ Green Technologies (9)
❍ Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering (10)

3. Before this semester (current program), have you attended another program here?
❍ Yes, I have been here for (how long)? (1) ____________________
❍ No. (2)

4. What is your present citizenship status?
❍ U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident of the U.S. (1)
❍ Non-U.S. Citizen (Citizen of another country) (2)

Answer If What is your present citizenship status? Non-U.S. Citizen (Citizen of another country)
Is Selected
5. What is your current country of citizenship? (List)

Answer If Current country of citizenship Other Is Selected
6. You selected "Other" when asked your country of citizenship. Please provide your country of
citizenship below.

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7. Please select your level of agreement with the following statements:

Strongly
Disagree (1)
Somewhat
Disagree (2)
Neutral
(3)
Somewhat
Agree (4)
Strongly
Agree (5)
My mentor helped me find
campus resources such as
advisors, career office,
health care, study places,
etc.

My mentor directed me
where to get information
about campus activities,
such as events, career fairs,
games, speeches, etc.

I feel less stressed than I
did at the beginning of the
semester.

I feel well adjusted to daily
life on campus with my
mentor's help.

My mentor introduced me
friends outside of my class.

My mentor introduced me
friends from different
cultural backgrounds.

My professional
development goals are
clearer now than they were
at the beginning of the
semester.

My mentor helped me
build networks with people
in my professional field.

I feel like I belong here.
Overall, I have benefited
from being in this program.

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8. Is your mentor’s cultural background different from yours (including nationality and/or
races)?
❍ Yes (1)
❍ No (2)

9. If you could choose again, what will be your preference about the cultural background of your
mentor?
❍ The same as mine. (1)
❍ Different from mine. (2)
❍ No preference. (3)

10. How many times have you met with your mentor this semester?
❍ None (1)
❍ 1--2 (2)
❍ 3--5 (3)
❍ More than 5 (4)

11. What are the most discussed topics with your mentor? (Please choose all that apply)
❑ Information about the campus, the city, or this country. (1)
❑ Professional development (2)
❑ Social events and activities (on and off campus) (3)
❑ Other, please specify: (4) ____________________

12. Would you recommend this program to new students?
❍ Yes (1)
❍ No, because: (2) ____________________

13. Do you feel your current mentor deserves a certificate proving he/she did a great job in this
mentoring relationship?
❍ Yes, My mentor's email is: (1) ____________________
❍ No, My mentor's email is: (2) ____________________

14. Do you have any comments or recommendations about your experience so far?

15. Are you willing to give an information interview to the program staff regarding your
experience in the program? (no more than 30 minutes)
❍ Yes (1)
❍ No (2)

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16. Gender:
❍ Male (1)
❍ Female (2)
❍ Prefer not to state (3)

17. Race:
❍ White/Caucasian (1)
❍ African American/Black (2)
❍ Hispanic/Latino, or Spanish Origin (3)
❍ Asian/American Asian (4)
❍ Native American (5)
❍ Mixed race (6)
❍ Other: (7) ____________________
❍ Prefer not to state (8)

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Appendix B
Informed Consent
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
3470 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, 90089

INFORMED CONSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

Assessment on Effectiveness of Viterbi Mentorship Program

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Shujin Zhong, M.Ed. Candidate
2016 Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs, supervised by Dr. Kristan M. Venegas,
clinical education professor at Rossier School of Education, the University of Southern California,
because you are a mentee at Viterbi Mentorship Program. Your participation is voluntary. You
should read the information below, and ask questions about anything you do not understand, before
deciding whether to participate. Please take as much time as you need to read the consent form.
You may also decide to discuss participation with your family or friends. If you decide to
participate, you will be asked to sign this form. You will be given a copy of this form.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of peer mentoring for graduate students in
engineering fields. This study will focus on assessing an existing mentorship program for first-
year engineering graduate students.

STUDY PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to attend a 30 - 40 minutes’
interview with one researcher. The interview process will be audio-recorded. You can still
participate in this research study even if you do not wish to be audio-recorded.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
The interview questions will be only related to the Viterbi Mentorship Program. If you feel
uncomfortable with the interview questions or study procedures, you have rights to stop the
interview at any time.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
The interviews will explore mentees' in-depth views of the mentorship program, and will help the
program runners get better understanding of their program, and adjusting this program to better fit
the student population.

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CONFIDENTIALITY
We will keep your records for this study confidential as far as permitted by law. However, if we
are required to do so by law, we will disclose confidential information about you.

The data will be stored in hard drive with password protection. You have the right to review your
audio-recordings. The researcher who interview you will be the only person who will transcribe,
and have access to your audio-recordings. The recordings will be only used for this study. The
researcher will keep confidentiality of the recordings, and destroy the recordings three years after
the completion of the study. Your recordings will not be labeled with any personal identifying
information, nor with a code that the research team can link to personal identifying information.

The research findings will share with the program. The report will not mention any name or
identification information. Your identification information will not be preserved in any format, nor
be mentioned under any circumstance.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
Your participation is voluntary. Your refusal to participate will involve no penalty or loss of
benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent at any time and
discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies
because of your participation in this research study.

INV E S T IG ATO R’ S CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Shujin Zhong,
3434 South Grand Avenue #302, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2812, (213) 880-9512 or
shujinzh@usc.edu.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu

PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 82/83

SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT

I have read the information provided above. I have been given a chance to ask questions. My
questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have
been given a copy of this form.

AUDIO/VIDEO/PHOTOGRAPHS

□ I agree to be audio

□ I do not want to be audio

Name of Participant

Signature of Participant Date

SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR

I have explained the research to the participant and answered all of his/her questions. I believe
that he/she understands the information described in this document and freely consents to
participate.

Name of Person Obtaining Consent

Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date

PEER MENTORSHIP PROGRAM 83/83

Appendix C
Interview Protocol
1. What is your overall experience in the mentorship program?
2. What have you learned from the program?
3. What were your expectations?
4. What is your impression about your mentor?
5. How did you communicate with your mentor?
(1) How often did you contact each other?
(2) In what ways did you contact each other?
6. What would your ideal mentor be like? What is the important character of being a good
mentor?
(1) Gender?
(2) Country of origin?
(3) Major?
(4) Other factors?
7. What would you have done differently in the mentorship program, if you have opportunity to
start over?
8. What aspects do you like best in the program? Which parts could be improved? (Could be
anything, or anyone related to the program.)

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study focuses on assessing an existing mentorship program for first year engineering graduate students. The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a peer mentoring for graduate students in engineering fields, in a Tier I private research university in the western region. The assessment follows a mixed-methods explanatory sequential research design, using an online survey, and interviews. The study population includes the mentees in a graduate peer mentorship program. The survey provides descriptive information of the population, and mentees’ preference and experiences in the program. The interviews explore mentees’ in-depth views of the mentorship program. ❧ The findings in this study include recognizing the effectiveness of the program in assisting engineering students’ in their transition period to graduate school

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Zhong, Shujin (author)

Core Title The effectiveness of a peer mentorship program: a mixed methods study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Master of Education

Degree Program Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs

Publication Date 04/22/2016

Defense Date 03/17/2016

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag engineering graduate students,OAI-PMH Harvest,peer mentorship

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Venegas, Kristan (committee chair), Tobey, Patricia (committee member), Tran, Binh T. (committee member)

Creator Email shujinzh@usc.edu,zhongshujin@ucla.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-239804

Unique identifier UC11276524

Identifier etd-ZhongShuji-4350.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-239804 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ZhongShuji-4350.pdf

Dmrecord 239804

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Zhong, Shujin

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA