Supporting Mutually Beneficial Near-Peer Mentoring Relationships Within Computing Education Programs

Abstract

Near-peer mentoring has proven to be an effective strategy for supporting students from underrepresented groups in computing. In this paper, we present results from Rise Up and Sisters Rise Up to examine the experiences of mentors in near-peer mentoring programs. Rise Up and Sisters Rise Up are mentoring program initiatives that help secondary students from underrepresented groups succeed in their Advanced Placement Computer Science courses and exams. Drawing on the results from a mixed-method study, we focus on the experiences of mentors to address the following research question: How do near-peer mentoring experiences impact mentors' competency beliefs related to programming, mentoring, and culturally responsive teaching? Findings from the analysis of survey and interview data indicate that serving as a near-peer mentor reinforced mentors' prior programming knowledge, increased their programming self-efficacy beliefs, and prompted self-reflection on the purpose of mentoring relationships. In addition to these benefits, the results also revealed the need to provide mentors with continued opportunities to build mentoring competencies and practice culturally responsive teaching strategies. We conclude by discussing future work to improve our mentor training and further develop a mutually beneficial near-peer mentoring model for computing education that supports the development of mentors, as well as mentees.