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

YFP/4-H Mentoring Evaluation
school students by providing education, service, and development activities, one component of
which was mentoring (Maxfield, Schirm & Rodriguez-Planas, 2003). The results for this
program were not so positive, with costs outweighing benefits by more than $15,000.
Summary
Although the findings of large-scale experimental evaluations of the effectiveness of
youth mentoring programs have been mixed, meta-analyses and systematic reviews generally
show modest but statistically significant improvements resulting from well-run programs. Youth
at all ages seem to benefit socially, emotionally, behaviorally, and academically from mentoring
programs. Programs exhibit considerable variability in their effectiveness, however, and the
literature suggests that programs that implement a careful selection and matching process for
mentors and closely supervise and support mentors during their mentoring relationships are most
likely to show positive effects.
Since mentoring programs rely heavily on volunteers who donate their time, and may
also obtain other resources from larger organizations of which they are a part, such programs
tend to cost relatively little compared with other youth programs. The cost-benefit of mentoring,
however, remains difficult to determine, given the variability in effectiveness of mentoring
programs.
Previous Evaluations of 4-H/YFP Mentoring
The YFP program has been subject to previous evaluation efforts. The program was
collecting its own data during the 2003 and 2004 school years. Higginbotham et al. (2007)
examined data on about 500 youth and parents who participated in the program during those two
school years. The data came from questionnaires completed at the end of the school year that
included youth and parent ratings of their own levels of academic achievement, social
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