A subset of students in a large-lecture first semester introductory biology course were offered special mentoring sessions by two undergraduate students skilled in facilitating mentoring sessions as part of the Science Talent Expansion Program (STEP). Four mentoring sessions were held each week of the semester. We hypothesize that students attending more sessions will perform better in the course. Also, students starting in more advanced math courses will do better in the course because of their better preparation for college work. We will also investigate how STEP students compare to the larger group of non-STEP students in the course who are not enrolled in a math course. Mentors kept attendance records while the instructor collected student reflections on the effectiveness of sessions. Data were analyzed to determine the effect of mentoring sessions and to see if any effects matched student perceptions of the effect of sessions.
Results/Conclusions
Student attendance at mentoring sessions was a major predictor of student success in the course. An ANVOA indicates that number of sessions attended (P < 0.0001) and STEP math course the student was enrolled in (P < 0.0001) were significant factors in predicting course grades. A post hoc Tukey’s test indicates grades in the course for students enrolled in calculus and pre-calculus were significantly higher than students enrolled in college algebra. However, the course grade for college algebra students was not significantly different than course grade for the larger group of non-STEP students in the course. We believe these differences are largely indicative of student preparation for college work. We also believe that sessions are very helpful to college algebra students who as are group are generally less prepared for college-level work than are students in the other two STEP math classes or the general student population in the course. Student perception of the value of attending sessions as obtained from four student evaluations of STEP sessions matches up with the ANOVA results.
