GEAR UP

In considering the key takeaways from the research on this program that other mentoring programs can apply to their work, it’s useful to reflect on the features and practices that might have influenced its rating as “Promising” (that is, a program that has some evidence that it achieved several of its justice-related goals).

Over the years, one of the common trends in the mentoring space is that programs have become quite sophisticated and complicated in what they offer young people. We see programs utilizing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing as part of their services, programs providing highly specialized teams of individuals to work with students, and programs using multimedia, technology, and specialized curricula to teach mentees or influence their future behavior.  While these types of programs have often produced positive results, they have also suffered from challenges with volunteer mentors being able to deliver interventions with fidelity, a lack of emphasis on relationship-building, and an inability to address root environmental causes. But that has not stopped many practitioners from taking a “more is better” approach to program design, stuffing their services with as much theory and borrowed interventions from other disciplines as they can find.

Within this context, reading the evaluation and program design of GEAR UP is a bit of a breath of fresh air. This is a fairly straightforward program in which college students work with students struggling in math, offering them a blend of direct tutoring support within a mentoring relationship. Instead of placing a hard separation between mentors and tutors, as many programs do, this program embraces the reality that tutors can form deeper relationships with the students they are working with and that mentors will often find themselves doing some direct academic teaching and support. This program also isn’t afraid to hang its hat on a small number of targeted outcomes (e.g., improved math performance, confidence in math and school generally) rather than assuming that their mentors are going to hit life-altering homeruns in a wide variety of areas. Sometimes less really can be more.

Beyond just running a simple and focused program, there are a few things that this program did that other practitioners can likely learn from and apply to their own work:

1. Supporting academic success is likely to benefit from some direct involvement by mentors – One of the interesting things about this program’s approach to academically-focused mentors was the degree to which they equipped them for success. Yes, they recruited college students who had the requisite math skills to teach them to others (although the mentors themselves noted needed some refreshing of concepts they hadn’t used since high school). But the program also really set them up to know exactly why and how students were struggling. They embedded mentors in the classroom so that one-on-one and small group tutoring support could directly intervene if some students were not understanding concepts and falling behind. This also allowed mentors to see how the content was being taught and perhaps devise alternate ways of teaching or explaining tricky concepts. Being embedded likely gave them a direct understanding of exactly how students were struggling. The program also provided tutors with all the materials and textbooks that students were using, which likely helped them illustrate concepts in alignment with the curriculum and approach of the teachers. They also had monthly meetings with the teachers to see how upcoming content would be taught and prepare appropriate tutoring activities and teaching points.
   
   While these activities gave mentors direct insight and access to the classroom experience of mentees, they didn’t stop there. The mentors, because they were in a paid role, were also available to mentees before and after school and of the weekends during special open tutoring times.
   
   While mentors in programs are often asked to support academic success in abstract ways, it was nice to see a program really asking mentors to be engaged in the school experience and making time for mentees’ learning both during and outside of school hours. This type of coordination between in- and out-of-school-time support has long been a hallmark of quality out-of-school-time or supplemental academic programming, but we rarely see it so thoroughly facilitated in the school-based mentoring space.
   
   
2. Addressing both sides of the identity/achievement connection – One of the big questions when trying to support minority youth who are struggling in a subject like math is whether their struggles are related to their actual abilities or their academic attitudes and beliefs. In GEAR UP, the researchers speculate that having a mentor who is in college and also of the same background as them (in this case, predominantly Hispanic) allows young people to view them selves as also being potentially good at math, which in turn inspires them to engage more in learning and eventually get better grades. The other side of the “chicken/egg” debate here would suggest that actually starting to do better and having some improved results might convince the young person that negative stereotypes and views on their identity perhaps don’t matter.
   
   The nice thing about GEAR UP’s programming and design is that it essentially sidesteps the debate and works on both. No doubt that many of the youth in the program improved their math grades because they were receiving extra (and perhaps better) instruction on the content of their class and likely putting in more time building their skills. But having a mentor who had a similar background, and who also may have felt at one time like they were someone who inherently couldn’t succeed academically, also likely inspired youth to focus more on math, rather than giving up or fully discounting their abilities. The evaluators speculate that working with college students who look like them allowed these students to envision their “future selves” reflected in their mentors. No doubt other tutors could have improved those math scores, but it’s unclear if they could have facilitated some of the other impacts noted in the evaluation, such as confidence in their ability or belief that they could succeed in college.
   
   When recruiting mentors, programs may want to consider the role that challenges like stereotype threat and self-perception play in academic success. Becoming good at math is really hard. It’s even harder if you feel like people who look like you can’t and shouldn’t strive for that.
   
   

The somewhat unanswered question… – As noted above, this program addressed both issues of academic proficiency and academic identity, which begs the question of which of those was more powerful? Was it the tutoring or the relationship? There were several issues methodologically that prevented the evaluators from directly testing that question. But another missed opportunity was not measuring relationship quality more directly. The program did ask youth if their relationship was meaningful and did find that kids appreciated their mentors caring about them as whole people and not just students. They particularly appreciated mentors asking about how they were doing and engaging in other caring conversations.

But the program did not administer a dedicated relationship measurement tool that may have further uncovered exactly how mentors were building these relationships and many different ways they could have been inspiring youth, serving as a mirror to the future self, or modelling good academic behaviors and attitudes. The evaluation report offers a nice section on all the theories and mechanisms of change that might be happening in the program. But they then failed to ask about many of those things at a deep level in the qualitative data they collected, nor did they administer a validated relationship measure that might have unearthed more insight into exactly how these mentors were building relationships and how much of an “active ingredient” that was in the program’s ultimate success. Programs are always encouraged to assess the qualities of the relationships they are making and supporting to learn more about why (or why not) these relationships contribute to eventual positive results.

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Note: The National Mentoring Resource Center makes these “Insights for Mentoring Practitioners” available for each program or practice reviewed by our Research Board. Their purpose is to give mentoring professionals additional information and understanding that can help them apply reviews to their own programs. You can read this program’s full review on the CrimeSolutions.gov website.  

For more information on research-informed program practices and tools for implementation, be sure to consult the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™ and the “Resources for Mentoring Programs” section of the NMRC site.