Online peer mentoring at scale: benefits and impacts from a student buddy perspective

Much has been written about the value of peer mentoring schemes for students; results suggest that these are beneficial (Motzo 2016). Less is known about the effects of being a student buddy (our term for peer mentor) and impacts on a buddy’s own development and employability.

This project is prompted by the move from paying student buddies on a pilot project to recruiting volunteers and the desire to roll out peer mentoring schemes across the School and beyond at all levels. This requires a sustainable model. It has the potential to support University strategy improving student success for both mentors and mentees, building learning communities of student buddies and developing their transferable skills.

Project team: Julie Robson and Chris Hutton

The project aims to evaluate student buddy experience on four Open University modules S112, S(XF)206, S209 and S390 to understand the drivers behind volunteering, impacts on employability and whether sustainable communities of buddies can be fostered. The research questions are:

1. Are peer mentoring schemes involving volunteer students sustainable and can they help build a student buddy community across modules?
2. What are the benefits of being a student buddy in terms of transferable skills acquisition?
3. How can being a student buddy contribute to their employability skills?

Data collection is now complete, and analysis is underway with the aim of writing up and sharing outputs in 2023.

Reference

Motzo, A. (2016). Evaluating the effects of a ‘student buddy’ initiative on student engagement and motivation. In C. Goria, O. Speicher, & S. Stollhans (Eds), Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing participation and collaboration (pp. 19-28). Dublin: Research-publishing.net. doi: 10.14705/rpnet.2016.9781908416322.