The Role of Online Mentoring in the Success of Online Graduate Students
Location
Technology: Professional Development and Instruction - Boston 2/3
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
The concept of mentoring has its roots in antiquity. In the epic poem, The Odyssey, Odysseus, the hero of the poem, placed his old friend, Mentor, and his foster-brother, Eumaeus, in charge of his son Telemacheus. Their task was to provide guidance to the young Telemacheus in the absence of his father. Today, mentoring has moved into the workplace and into academia.
With the rise of online learning, mentoring in the online environment has become a key component of student retention and success. Wilbanks (2014) notes that online or e-mentoring is a relationship between a mentor and a student with the purpose of providing emotional support through electronic means which can include e-mail, texting, and other electronic methods.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of online mentoring in the academic success and retention of online graduate students. The theoretical framework for this study is constructivism (Kasworm, Rose, ross-Gordon, 2010), a theory that focuses on how we construct roles. These roles can include teaching through modeling as the mentor supports the mentee and provides the mentee a safe place to discuss ideas and receive feedback from the mentor through the use of electronic methods.
Keywords
mentor, mentee, online support
Professional Bio
Dr. Dianne F. Lawton is Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Leadership and Lifelong Learning in the College of Education at Troy University, Troy, AL. She works at Troy's Brunswick, GA Site, and teaches classes in Adult Learning in the online environment.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Lawton, Dianne F., "The Role of Online Mentoring in the Success of Online Graduate Students" (2019). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 3.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2019/2019/3
The Role of Online Mentoring in the Success of Online Graduate Students
Technology: Professional Development and Instruction - Boston 2/3
The concept of mentoring has its roots in antiquity. In the epic poem, The Odyssey, Odysseus, the hero of the poem, placed his old friend, Mentor, and his foster-brother, Eumaeus, in charge of his son Telemacheus. Their task was to provide guidance to the young Telemacheus in the absence of his father. Today, mentoring has moved into the workplace and into academia.
With the rise of online learning, mentoring in the online environment has become a key component of student retention and success. Wilbanks (2014) notes that online or e-mentoring is a relationship between a mentor and a student with the purpose of providing emotional support through electronic means which can include e-mail, texting, and other electronic methods.
The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of online mentoring in the academic success and retention of online graduate students. The theoretical framework for this study is constructivism (Kasworm, Rose, ross-Gordon, 2010), a theory that focuses on how we construct roles. These roles can include teaching through modeling as the mentor supports the mentee and provides the mentee a safe place to discuss ideas and receive feedback from the mentor through the use of electronic methods.
