Predictors of Academic Performance in a National Mentoring Program: The Roles of the Mentor-Youth Alliance, Parental Attachment, and Youth Self-Efficacy
Relationship-based prevention interventions such as youth mentoring have been found to improve academic performance among youth at high risk for school failure. Little is known, however, about the qualities of the mentoring relationship and how it may impact other relationships in the lives of mentored youth (Lawner, Beltz, & Moore, 2013). This study sought to identify specific pathways by which mentoring relationship impacts academic domains.
Methods
Data from the nationwide, multi-site evaluation of the SAMHSA-funded “Project: Youth Connect” mentoring intervention were analyzed regarding randomly assigned, treated youth (n = 230) aged 9-16 (M = 12.09, SD = 1.55) who met with one mentor and at 8-month follow-up completed the Mentor-Youth Alliance Scale (MYAS) and other measures of parental attachment, self-efficacy, and self-reported grades. Mentor-youth pairs met for an average of 6.8 months at follow-up; on average, youth met with their mentor 5.63 times per month (SD = 5.34) with meetings lasting an average of 1.38 hours (SD= 1.32). AMOS 21.0 structural equation modeling software was used to test a hypothesized path model, bootstrapping was further used to test the significance of the mediational paths, and the model demonstrated a good fit to the data: χ² (29, N=230) = 30.316, p = 0.398, RMSEA = 0.014 (90% CI = 0.000, 0.053), CFI = 0.997, IFI = 0.997, and TLI = 0.995.
Results
Findings revealed that parental attachment mediates the effect of youth mentoring on self-efficacy, and self-efficacy in turn predicts academic achievement. As hypothesized, mentoring was found to have positive effects on parental attachment (1.668, p = .002) and self-efficacy (0.591, p = .002) at T2 (8-months), controlling for baseline levels. These findings indicate that greater reports of mentoring were associated with greater reports of parental attachment and self-efficacy. Parental attachment was found to have positive effects on self-efficacy (.072, p = .031) at T2, indicating that youth who reported high levels of parental attachment also tended to report high levels of self-efficacy. Finally, self-efficacy was found to have positive effects on academic achievement (.095, p = .056) at T2, indicating that students who report higher levels of self-efficacy also tended to report high levels of academic achievement.
Conclusions and Implications
Previous research has consistently found that youth-adult (mentor/parent/teacher) relationship quality does not significantly affect academic achievement. Thus, the present findings suggest that self-efficacy may be a potentially novel or previously overlooked mediator linking positive youth-adult relationships with academic outcomes. Moreover, youth with a stable mentor in this sample were able to form a productive relationship relatively quickly (by 8-month follow-up) when contact was fairly intensive. Social interventions for youth mediated by relationship such as mentoring may have feasible timeframes (e.g. within one school year) but likely require stable, consistent implementation (e.g. with the same mentor over time) to be effective.
Reference
Lawner, E., Beltz, M., & Moore, K. A. (2013, March 28). What works for mentoring programs: Lessons from experimental evaluations of programs and interventions. (No. 2013-14). Retrieved from: http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Child_Trends-2013_03_28_RB_WWMentor.pdf. Washington DC: Child Trends.