Eastern Kentucky University

Motivated Mentorships

Grade Level at Time of Presentation

Senior

Major

Psychology

Institution 23-24

Eastern Kentucky University

KY House District #

81

KY Senate District #

34

Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Mentorship experiences involve a variety of motives at work simultaneously, and some of those are more effective than others. We hypothesized that personally-autonomous reasons (PARs, “for me”) and relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs, “for us”) for pursuing undergraduate research would be associated with better perceived and scholarly outcomes, whereas controlled reasons (CRs, “I have to”) would be associated with worse outcomes. Fifty-five undergraduate students who were presenting their mentored projects at university-hosted poster events completed surveys indicating their reasons for working on and completing their project, their perceptions of their project and their mentorship, and the number of past and planned future projects, presentations, and continued mentorship experiences. The results indicated that both PARs and RARs were associated with positive outcomes, but PARs were more commonly associated with the project and RARs were more commonly associated with the mentorship. Implications and practical applications for mentorship approaches are discussed.

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Motivated Mentorships

Mentorship experiences involve a variety of motives at work simultaneously, and some of those are more effective than others. We hypothesized that personally-autonomous reasons (PARs, “for me”) and relationally-autonomous reasons (RARs, “for us”) for pursuing undergraduate research would be associated with better perceived and scholarly outcomes, whereas controlled reasons (CRs, “I have to”) would be associated with worse outcomes. Fifty-five undergraduate students who were presenting their mentored projects at university-hosted poster events completed surveys indicating their reasons for working on and completing their project, their perceptions of their project and their mentorship, and the number of past and planned future projects, presentations, and continued mentorship experiences. The results indicated that both PARs and RARs were associated with positive outcomes, but PARs were more commonly associated with the project and RARs were more commonly associated with the mentorship. Implications and practical applications for mentorship approaches are discussed.