Diversity Activity Surveys

LAESE - Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy
Undergraduate Engineering Mentor Surveys
Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Surveys
Undergraduate PDQ Surveys

An online SurveyMonkey version of the surveys is available for export. To find out more contact AWE.

Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Surveys

Description | What do the instruments measure? | Sample Survey Items | Can the instruments be modified? | When is it best to administer the surveys? | IRB approval | Using the Results | Download the Instruments

Downloads: Bridge to College Mentee Pre-Participation Survey | Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Pre-Participation Survey | Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Post-Participation Survey | Instrument Instructions

Description

The Undergraduate Engineering Mentee surveys are used to measure the impact of peer mentoring (or similar peer support activities) on the undergraduate women students who are the recipients of the mentoring – the “mentees”.

There are three versions of this survey: the Undergraduate Pre Mentee, and the Undergraduate Post Mentee.

• Administer the Bridge to College surveys to mentees who are just entering college before the event in other to collect baseline data on each participant.

• Administer the Undergraduate Pre Mentee surveys to mentees before they begin participation in order to collect baseline data.

• Administer the Undergraduate Post Mentee survey after or towards the end of participating in the mentoring program in order to collect data on the impact of the activity on participants.

Recommends:
Use both the pre and post surveys in order to see how participant’s responses change from one time to the next. Although you cannot directly attribute these changes to the mentoring program, these changes do provide some evidence of the program's effect.

To measure the impact on the peer mentors, use the Undergraduate Engineering Mentor Surveys.

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What do the surveys measure?

Using the AWE Mentee surveys you can determine whether the mentoring program met its objectives and use this information to improve the activity and make evaluation decisions. Specifically, the instrument assesses the following topics that are the most common objectives of mentoring programs:

• Feelings of isolation/inclusion,
• Impact of role models,
• Influence on Academic/social behaviors and
• Participant satisfaction with the activity.

The Mentee Post survey also collects “formative” data designed specifically to determine the extent that the respondent participated in the activity and her overall satisfaction with the program. Formative items on the Mentee surveys in particular address:

• Perceptions of the mentor
• Extent of contact with the mentor
• Suggestions for improving the activity

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Sample Survey Items

The following item is taken from the Post Mentee survey and is an example of an item designed to collect formative data – that is data designed to help improve your activity. Note that the items are designed not to lead the students to positive answers but rather to allow them to express a nuanced opinion in the first and report real measures of mentor behavior in the second.

The following is a sample item that is designed to measure one of the objectives of mentoring activities–the respondent’s feeling of inclusion/isolation with the engineering community. This type of item is included on both the pre and post versions of the survey. Items are present in both survey versions so that we may determine the change in student responses from the beginning of the activity (Pre Survey) to the end (Post Survey).

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Can the surveys be modified

The survey questions have been tested and validated, thus they are not changeable in the downloadable documents. If you do change them, they are no longer validated, nor are they valid for national comparative data. However, in order to meet your specific objectives, you may add additional questions to the survey such as institutional information and specific, activity-related questions.

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When is it best to administer the surveys?

Administer both the pre- and post- participation surveys to assess the impact of your activity.

• Administer the Mentee Pre survey before the mentoring program activities begin.
  [tiny logo]AWE Recommends: Administer the Mentee pre instrument on site (rather than via mail), as you will get a better survey return rate in this manner. Be sure to allow time in your schedule for completing the survey.
• Administer the Mentee Post survey at the conclusion of mentoring activities.

Use the following table of estimated completion times to help plan your data collection.

Whenever you use any AWE surveys, you are responsible for the well-being and the privacy of all respondents. Therefore ..

Recommends:
Before collecting any data using AWE surveys, we strongly suggest you obtain IRB approval.

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Does this instrument require me to get Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval?

Contact the IRB at your institution - they must answer this question for you. As with all AWE instruments, a complete review and approval from your institution’s Institutional Review Board may be required prior to implementation of this survey. A good rule of thumb is that if you any data that will be reported outside your organization, you need IRB approval.

IRB requires that when you administer surveys, you must educate participants about possible risks and benefits involved in taking surveys, obtain their consent before involving them in your research and keep them informed about how data will be used. This is called the "informed consent process."

Visit The Institutional Review Board (IRB) Process page for more information about the informed consent process and to see examples of informed consent documents.

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Using the Results

The instruments contain both "formative" items - that is items designed to help you improve this activity, and "summative" items that are designed to ascertain if the activity is meeting its intended objectives. Using both types of items, you may use the survey results in the following ways.

Recommends:
Use your mentee survey results in conjunction with other AWE tools to gain a more complete understanding of impact!

The AWE Mentee surveys measures the impact of the activity on participants and collects formative data on quality of the activity organization and implementation--both of which help you to further develop the activity. You can get even more benefit from your mentee survey results if you use them in conjunction with results from other AWE instruments and tools: LAESE, Students Leaving Engineering, and Students Persisting in Engineering.

Use ADAPT– which allows you to track student participation in all of your activities – with your mentee survey results to determine whether students continue to participate in the activity and/or whether students who do continue to participate are recruited or retained at a rate higher than those who don't.

Use the mentee survey results in combination with the self-efficacy results you obtain from the AWE LAESE instrument. Looking at the two sets of results together can help to measure whether continued participation impacts engineering self efficacy.

Lastly, compare the mentee data with profiles of "leavers" from the Students Leaving Engineering Survey can tell you what percentage of leavers did or did not participate in the activity. Taken together, all of these assessment measures provide a powerful set of tools for evaluation of the activity.

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Download the surveys

• Download Survey Instructions
• Bridge to College Mentee Pre-Participation Survey
• Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Pre-Participation Survey
• Undergraduate Engineering Mentee Post-Participation Survey

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