Mentoring Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: Evaluation of Role-Specific Workshops for Mentors and Mentees

Using a convenience sample of faculty and staff available on the Florida International University campus, participants from across several departments (n = 31) were recruited voluntarily using flyers and emails distributed throughout campus during summer 2018. Of all recruited mentors, 74% were females (n = 23), and 77% of mentors were employed in a staff/administrative capacity on the university campus (n = 24). Informed consents detailing a two-semester commitment (one academic year) were obtained and background checks were completed. Mentors received a stipend of $400 each semester. Mentors were required to: 1) meet with their assigned  student mentee once a week for an hour on campus, with a specific focus on helping mentees work towards academic and career goals as identified in the student’s STAR (Students Transitioning to Adult Roles) Person-Centered-Plan (PCP), which is explained in detail later (Hayes and Muldoon 2013; aim 1 of the EMP), and 2) attend six mentoring workshops as scheduled throughout the academic year (aim 2 of the EMP).

All students with IDD enrolled in the EMP (n = 35) during fall 2018 and spring 2019, consented to participate in the mentoring program and this study, and were matched with a faculty or staff mentor (four mentors were assigned two mentees, respectively, to ensure each student had a mentor). Mentees were also required to 1) meet with their mentor once a week for an hour on campus (aim 1 of the EMP), and 2) attend six mentoring workshops as scheduled throughout the academic year (aim 3 of the EMP).

Four workshop topics were selected for both mentors and mentees, respectively. This was determined through an extant review of mentoring literature, the needs of students with IDD transitioning from high school to a post-secondary environment, and the goals of the mentoring program. Given the likelihood that many mentors may not have experience with providing mentorship, or have experience working closely with a student with IDD specifically in regards to providing academic and career support, it was imperative that mentors be offered training on four specific topics: Program Basics, Disability Awareness, Essential Mentor Skills, and Communication and Employability.

Content within each workshop topic was also purposefully selected. For example, the decision to include Person-First Language (PFL) versus Identity-First Language (IFL) was made on the premise of a few factors. To a large extent, student mentees in the EMP program have a primary diagnosis of intellectual disability with only a few students presenting with an additional diagnosis of a developmental disability, such as autism. Given that preferences for PFL versus IFL differ within disability groups, with IFL gaining prominence largely within the autistic and deaf communities, and individuals with intellectual disabilities preferring PFL (Ferrigon 2019; Lieboweitz 2015), a decision was made to provide training related to PFL.

Workshop topics and content for student mentees with IDD were designed to enhance communication and self-determination skills (Brown et al. 2010; Dipeolu et al. 2015), as deficits in these areas could impede the mentoring relationship. As a result, workshops for student mentees included: Program Basics, Goal Setting, Essential Mentee Skills, and finally, Communication (Brown et al. 2010; Dipeolu et al. 2015).

Both mentor and mentee workshop topics and content were aligned to ensure that dyads could use and reinforce each other’s knowledge during dyad meetings which would improve the mentoring relationship and enhance outcomes. For example, mentors learned the importance of asking their mentee for eye-contact if they were not, while mentees were taught the importance of giving their mentor eye contact. Please see Table 1 for more information on the content of each workshop.

At the beginning of the academic year (fall 2018), both mentors and mentees attended an orientation session, which involved the initial introduction of mentoring pairs, ice-breaker activities, a brief description of the program, and an outline of program expectations as suggested by Jones and Goble (2012). In the following ten months (over two academic semesters due to scheduling limitations of campus space and time), mentors and mentees attended workshops that encompassed didactic presentations, role-playing, and small-group activities. At the end of the academic year (spring 2019), dyads attended a closing ceremony where they were each awarded the Embrace Mentoring Program certificate of completion.

Each workshop lasted between one to two hours and was conducted in the following sequence: administration of a pre-knowledge acquisition test, workshop presentation, open discussion/activity, and post-knowledge acquisition test. The matched pre- and post- knowledge acquisition tests developed for this pilot study had ten questions, followed a true/false format (except for eight questions across all the knowledge acquisition tests which used a multiple-choice format) and were available for participants to complete via a link to an online, secure (HIPAA compliant) platform. Pre- and post-tests were conducted at all workshops except the orientation and closing ceremony which were held as joint sessions.

In addition to pre- and post- knowledge acquisition tests, quantitative and qualitative data were collected at the end of each semester (fall 2018 and spring 2019) from both mentors and mentees. The end-of-semester survey for mentors and the end-of-semester survey for mentees were designed to gather feedback on both components of the EMP: dyad meetings and workshops. Closed-ended quantitative questions for mentees included: “I knew what was required to do as a mentee,” “I received enough training through the workshops to be a good mentee,” and “Please rate the quality of the workshops you attended.” The first two questions were rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree), and the latter was rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Poor) to 4 (Excellent). Closed-ended questions for faculty and staff mentors included: “I was clear about the expectations of my role,” “I received sufficient training through the workshops to fulfill my role,” and “Please rate the value of the workshops you attended.” The first two questions were rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 4 (Strongly Agree), and the last question was rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Poor) to 4 (Excellent). Finally, both mentors and mentees were asked the following qualitative, open-ended questions: 1) “Is there anything we could do to improve the workshops?” 2) “Are there any other areas/topics you would have liked to receive training in?” 3) “Which was the most valuable workshop for you?” and 4) “Which was the least valuable workshop for you?”.

After dyads attended the orientation session, the weekly hour-long mentoring meetings commenced. These ideally took place at the faculty/staff mentor's office on campus. However, if the mentor did not have an office space that was conducive to the meeting, dyads could meet at a campus location where a professional conversation could be undertaken given the focus on academic and career support.

To ensure that mentors had background information on their mentee, program staff provided them with the academic and employment goals of their respective students identified during the STAR PCP (Hayes and Muldoon 2013) process. The STAR PCP allows students with IDD to identify goals with the support from their families and program staff, at the time of enrollment into the post-secondary program. Mentors had significant flexibility regarding the style and strategies employed during each mentoring session to help the mentee accomplish these goals, and as a result, each dyad relationship was unique. However, common activities during meetings included helping students with emails, follow-up and creation of weekly tasks to ensure progress with the STAR PCP goals, and support with building a resume and interviewing. With simultaneous attendance in mentoring workshops, meetings evolved and strengthened over the academic year with the incorporation of knowledge from workshops such as disability etiquette, active listening, providing and receiving feedback, setting SMART goals, and the utilization of resources related to employment support.

Data were collected via the online survey platform Research Electronic Data Capture (RedCap) and quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences V.20 (SPSS; IBM Corp. 2017) For analyzing knowledge acquisition from each workshop, a degree of correctness score was created by coding the correct answers for each question within each workshop (10 questions per workshop) and generating an average pre-workshop score and a post-workshop score. Eight paired sample t-tests were then conducted to examine if knowledge increased from before and after each of the four mentee and four mentor workshops, respectively. The Bonferroni correction was applied to paired sample t tests to control for multiple comparisons. Data related to participant feedback on mentoring workshops were analyzed using descriptive statistics, frequencies, and a one-sample t-test also using SPSS.

Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). Investigator triangulation (Denzin 1973) was achieved with two authors who independently coded the data into themes and sub-themes. Discussions were held between the coders to share findings, and address discrepancies. Consensus was attained, and a third coder reviewed the final analysis. If disagreements remained or arose, a fourth coder would have been involved as per the study protocol.

Responses to the open-ended questions from the end of semester survey resulted in three major themes across mentor and mentee feedback regarding workshop elements. The three themes identified were workshop content, workshop-style, and logistics.

Faculty and staff mentors showed improvement in knowledge from before and after the Disability Awareness workshop. These findings indicate that mentors significantly improved in their knowledge of general disability awareness, such as using the correct terminology when speaking with someone with a disability, and having a greater understanding of invisible and intellectual disabilities. This is important as learning the appropriate form of language when talking with an individual with a disability can potentially improve the behavior and attitudes of mentees towards mentors (Feldman et al. 2002). Studies have also shown the need for mentors to be trained on encouraging mentees to talk about their disability, to dispel biases and assumptions (Rhodes et al. 2009), which can hamper the quality of the relationship (Daughtry et al. 2009). Having more knowledge of their disability can aid this process. Improved disability awareness will ultimately limit mentor bias, and thus enhance the potential for establishing positive and meaningful dyad relationships.

Faculty and staff mentors did not show improvements in knowledge after the workshops covering Communication, Program Basics, and Essential Mentor Skills, while student mentees did not demonstrate an increase in knowledge from before and after any of the four workshops they attended. This indicates that, on average, the responses were the same on the pre- and post-survey for these workshops. These non-significant findings may be the result of some program limitations inherent in a pilot study, which will be discussed below along with recommendations for future programs.

Results from this study indicate that for some workshops, mentors and mentees did not differ significantly in their responses on the pre- and post-test. There may be a few explanations for this. First, it is possible that for students with IDD the sentence structure and language used in the surveys were too complex. As a result, they may have consistently responded with the incorrect answer. Alternatively, some questions were perhaps too basic, and mentees responded with the correct answer both before and after the workshop. Finally, it is possible that student mentees may have simply lost interest in answering the same set of questions two hours apart and chose the first response option for both pre-posttests. While there is a lack of research identifying best practices for collecting data from students with IDD, mentoring programs looking to assess knowledge acquisition among students with IDD should look to use different methods of data collection (e.g., focus group sessions or interviews). In addition, attention should be paid to language and sentence construction to ensure student comprehension.

For mentors, on the other hand, content and questions on the workshop pre- and post-tests may have been too simplistic, or instructions unclear leading to no added knowledge acquisition. Some mentors, however, chose the incorrect answer on both pre-posttests, which indicates that future mentoring programs assessing knowledge acquisition must ensure that questions are clear and pertain to content specifically covered in the respective workshop. Additionally, it is possible that the small sample size for faculty and staff mentors who attended the workshops (15–18 pre- and post- respondents) may have also contributed to the null findings.

Next, findings from the qualitative data should also be incorporated to address changes to workshop content, style, and logistics. In particular, future mentoring programs should consider providing mentors access to workshops through a consolidated one-day training or as a series of webinars, before the first dyad meeting. Workshops related to disability awareness should be prioritized and expanded. In addition, mentors should be provided with information on the disability type of their mentee, specific strategies, and activities to utilize during dyad meetings, a list of available resources, recommended books to read, and a mentoring handbook.

This would lead to two benefits as suggested by the feedback from mentors: mentor participation in workshops may increase, and may also allow mentors to apply all the knowledge and skills from the outset. Keeping in mind the feedback for increased interaction, it would be conducive for future mentoring programs to schedule open forums for mentor discussions, and the opportunity for dyads to interact socially outside of the weekly meetings throughout the academic year. This is an essential component for building a trusting and meaningful mentoring relationship (Griffin et al. 2016; Jones and Goble 2012; McCallum 2018).

In-person workshops should be designed with more interactive methods of learning. It is evident that more hands-on, active methods are necessary, especially for mentees with IDD (Azar et al. 2016; Evmenova et al. 2017; Stavroussi et al. 2010) as it facilitates learning amongst this student population (Stavroussi et al. 2010; Wishart et al. 2007). Future mentoring programs should also ensure that workshop topics and content selected for the dyads align with the purpose of the mentoring program (such as employment and academic support for the EMP), and with the disability population they serve. For example, the decision to provide training on PFL, IFL, or both will have to be considered in light of current literature and group preferences.

Overall, feedback from both mentors and mentees highlight the benefit of workshop attendance. Having clear expectations about their respective roles, sufficient training, and expressing value in the workshops reinforces the need for future mentoring programs to incorporate dyad training. The EMP and the mixed methods used to evaluate the program can be undertaken by other organizations to support students with IDD navigate post-secondary education environments. However, additional research should be conducted on similar mentoring programs that address the above recommendations, using a larger sample size.

In summary, this paper describes the development, implementation, and evaluation of a pilot mentoring program designed to help students with IDD transition into a post-secondary education environment, and meet academic and career-related goals. Workshops were developed to enhance the role-specific knowledge and skills of both mentors and mentees, to build effective partnerships. While pre- and post-test findings demonstrated knowledge improvement among mentors in only one core mentoring concept, findings from the study highlighted areas for future improvement in respect to language and clarity of questions in surveys, increased interaction amongst mentors and dyads, online delivery of mentor workshops, enhancements to workshop content, and provision of additional resources for mentors. Changes informed by this feedback have the potential to optimize the mentoring experience and facilitate mentor and mentee learning.