Office of Undergraduate Research

Best Practices in Mentoring Undergraduate Student Researchers

While best practices in mentoring vary for individuals, there are patterns across the best mentors.  

Common best practices within the phases of mentoring include:

  1. Within Pre-Mentoring Phases:
    • Predicting roles within phases of mentoring.
    • Identifying responsibilities.
    • Projecting learning gains for mentees.
  2. Within Active Mentoring Phases:
    • Setting expectations and goals and evaluating progress towards goals.
    • Establishing clear communication and a supportive environment.
    • Balancing responsibilities (consider ownership, partnership, interdependence and independence).
    • Facilitating mentees' knowledge and skill development specific to the research experience and in general for professional development.
  3. Within Transitional Mentoring Phases:
    • Connecting present/past research experiences to future interests/goals.
    • Identifying your own growth as a mentor; adapting your own knowledge/skill gains to future mentees.

Key aspects of mentoring can be integrated into documents such as:

  • Mentee position description (if apprenticeship) or syllabus (if course-based).
  • Interview prompts and selection rubric (if apprenticeship) or prerequisites (if course-based).
  • Learning contract (if apprenticeship) or syllabus/assignments (if course-based).
  • Training plans and schedules.
  • Evaluations (if apprenticeship) and assessments (if course-based) of mentees' understanding.
  • Philosophy of mentoring.
Also consider alignment of mentoring within your research documents such as:
  • Research agenda and purpose.
  • Standard operating procedures.
  • Lab notes and journals.
  • Reporting and dissemination plans.
  • Promotion and tenure.

The best mentors continually improve their mentoring and the experiences of their mentees. When reflecting on your mentoring of undergraduate student researchers, also consider how are you:

  • Integrating mentoring into all professional roles (as a teacher, researcher, adviser, etc)?
  • Encouraging dissemination?
  • Acknowledging/rewarding successes?
  • Identifying and overcoming challenges?
  • Learning from mistakes?
  • Adapting your mentoring to people (including mentees and other mentors), the discipline(s), and the research?