Phases of Mentoring
Numerous models exist for mentoring, many which are phase-based originating from Kram (1983, 1988).
For undergraduate research (UR), considering the breadth of UR types (e.g., creative, STEM, social science, humanities, and business case study) and the variety of UR models (e.g., apprenticeship, course-based, etc), plus the cycles of UR experiences, we see more phases within the proposed model shown below:
[View/Download Model as a PDF Handout]
This proposed model includes a pre-mentoring stage consisting of three phases:
- Planning: Steps taken by the mentor to prepare for the mentoring experience.
- Recruitment: Students become aware of undergraduate research opportunities through various methods. Formalizing recruitment helps all subsequent phases by ensuring mutual understanding and fit to an experience, including:
- For apprenticeships, sharing a position description and a formal application step to make the experience available to a diverse audience.
- For course-based experiences, creating effective course descriptions and sharing the syllabus.
- Selection: For apprenticeships, this phase consists of formalized selection among applications. It may include application review, interviews, recommendations, or other steps that help to identify students best fit to learn from and succeed in the experience. (Selection does not exist for course-based experiences.)
- On-boarding: This phase consists of any initial training, mentor-mentee partnership development, expectation setting (e.g., learning contract), and any other administrative steps required (such as payroll). Most on-boarding steps are one-time tasks that establish the general framework for success in the undergraduate research experience.
- Project-orientation: “Project” is used broadly within this model to include any type of UR experience. Project orientation consists of additional training (e.g., software) or access to resources (e.g., data, artifacts, articles, etc.) required for successful completion of a project.
- Project engagement: This phase is broadly when the mentee engages in time on research tasks, including support from the mentee.
- Evaluation: Occurring at the end of the project (or at key milestone within the project), this phase is the formal mentor evaluation of the mentee (and possibly mentee self-evaluation). During engagement, the mentor should offer feedback to guide the mentee through the project but this is a formal evaluation step for the mentee’s professional and personal development.
At some point, all mentoring partnerships go through a transition stage. The most common transitional phases include:
- Continuation: Many research experiences are cyclical within a project (e.g., stages of research), between projects, or over time (e.g., academic terms). Following evaluation, if the mentee is continuing, the phases of mentoring repeat accordingly.
- Separation: All mentor-mentee partnerships in undergraduate research must end. (e.g., graduation!) Following evaluation, if it is determined the partnership is ending, the separation phase consists of defining what is next for the mentor and mentee. For undergraduate students, this could be quite broad but often consists of networking, professional recommendations, or future collaborations (within a different partnership context).
Kram K. E. (1983). Phases of the mentor relationship. The Academy of Management Journal, 26(4), 608–625.
Kram K. E. (1988). Mentoring at work: Developmental relationships in organizational life. University Press of America.
