New Perspectives in Science Education

Edition 13

Accepted Abstracts

Paired Mentoring: Making it Work! - The Effectiveness and Affective Value of Pairing Students Aged 16 with Undergraduate Students in England

Rachael Sharpe, University of Lincoln (United Kingdom)

Nikolaos Fotou, University of Lincoln (United Kingdom)

Ian Abrahams, University of Lincoln (United Kingdom)

Abstract

There is a growing focus within England to improve the lives of secondary school students who are defined as disadvantaged as well as supporting these students’ attainment and attitudes to secondary school science. This funded project by the Education Endowment Foundation was based on a pilot project that was led by the authors. The project was designed to support disadvantaged students who were taking their compulsory public General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) science examination in their final year of secondary education in England (Year 11 – aged 15 to 16). Students were paired with undergraduate mentors from a university. The study, set up as a randomized control trial, involved disadvantaged students across secondary schools, at five universities (University of Liverpool, University of Leeds, University of York, University of Lincoln, University College London). Mentoring lasts for 23 weeks with an intensive six-hour mentoring session just prior to their GCSE examinations. The results from the pilot study found that mentored students did statistically better in terms of their attainment both in mock and actual GCSE examinations as well as a statistically greater improvement in their attitudes to science than un-mentored students. These findings have therefore led to this nationally funded project that will be discussed to demonstrate the impact and value of academically asymmetrical paired mentoring projects.

Keywords: Paired Mentoring; attitudes; summative assessment; secondary school.

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