A Process and Outcome Evaluation of the 4-H Mentoring/ Youth and ...

YFP/4-H Mentoring Evaluation
satisfaction. In their meta-analysis of mentoring studies, DuBois et al. (2002) found that
demographic characteristics of youth or mentors, including gender, were unrelated to the strength
of program effect.
Specific Outcomes of Mentoring
As noted above, mentoring programs claim to have a variety of positive effects, and
therefore researchers have assessed a number of different outcomes when attempting to
determine whether programs are effective. Some of the more common outcomes that have been
examined are discussed below.
School Performance
Since so many mentoring initiatives are school-based, it is not surprising that research on
mentoring has included a number of school-related outcomes, such as grades, attendance, and
school-related (mis)behavior. One of the largest studies of school-related outcomes was
conducted by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), which has done a great deal of work in mentoring
program development and assessment. Carla Herrara and her P/PV colleagues evaluated the
BBBSA school-based mentoring program, which at the time served over 100,000 students
nationwide (Herrara et al., 2007). The study included 1,139 youths in 71 schools across the
country, half of whom were randomly assigned to a mentor, while the other half was placed on a
waiting list. According to teacher reports, students improved in overall academic performance, as
well as in the specific subjects of science and written and oral language. Quality of class work,
number of assignments completed (both in class and homework), and serious school infractions
all showed positive changes. The students themselves reported feeling more competent
academically and skipping school less often, the latter outcome being confirmed by teacher
records (Herrara et al., 2007). A subsequent analysis of these data, focused on the one-half of
15