Communications of the ACM
Secret to STEM Diversity May Lie in Peer Mentorship
Female students with female mentors showed more confidence and also exhibited greater motivation.
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Researchers found that peer mentorship positively affects female science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students from their undergraduate through postgraduate lives., according to a study published in Nature Communications.
The researchers paired 150 female engineering majors with 58 student mentors (32 women and 26 men) and tracked them for eight years. Female mentees with female mentors reported a much greater sense of camaraderie, motivation, and confidence after the end of their first year. They also obtained professional internships and were more likely to complete an undergraduate degree in a STEM field.
"From high-quality peer relationships within the academic environment, especially relationships with peers who share a common identity, comes the confidence and motivation to persist, which lasts for a very long time, powering that student through her academic and early professional career," concludes Nilanjana Dasgupta, the paper's senior author, and professor of psychological and brain sciences at UMass Amherst.
From University of Massachusetts Amherst
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