FRI Peer Mentor Mindsets Guide
Introduction
Welcome First-year Research Immersion (FRI) Peer Mentors! Thanks for serving the next cohort of students as a mentor during the FRI Semester 1 (Research Methods: HARP 170) course at Binghamton University.
As a peer mentor, you will discover your purpose, adopt a unique mentoring style to support mentees, and develop leadership skills to support your research team. Great mentoring starts with self-awareness: knowing your own mindsets and styles/preferences so you can adapt to your mentee and team. Each week follows a simple three-step rhythm: a brief mindset lecture or activity during the weekly peer mentor meeting, reflection on your score from your Qualtrics survey responses, and a journal entry that turns the reflection into a weekly goal.
Every score, table, and figure now uses real pretest data from the 65 peer mentors who completed the Qualtrics survey. Post-semester results will be added once that survey is collected.
A Guide for You
This guide is your companion throughout the semester. Each week, you will learn about a new mindset related to peer mentoring, review your score on that mindset, and discuss how to answer the big question of the week. Each chapter has the distribution for that week’s measure and a password lookup table where you can find your own score(s).
| Week | Mindset | Big Question |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mentoring Style | Does my mentoring style focus on structure or support? |
| 2 | Motivational Style | Is my motivational approach to promote or prevent for my mentees’ academics or social connection? |
| 3 | Leadership Focus | Is my leadership style to promote or prevent for the team? |
| 4 | Feedback Orientation | Is my feedback preference supportive or corrective? |
| 5 | People Orientation | What is my view of people? |
| 6 | Leadership Role | What is my leadership role? |
| 7 | Communication Style | What is my communication style? |
| 8 | Inclusive Mentoring | Is my mentoring inclusive? |
| 9 | Conflict Style | What is my conflict resolution style? |
| 10 | Goal Preference | What is my goal orientation? |
| 11 | Facilitator | How will I facilitate my team’s discussion with caring communication? |
| 12 | Facilitator Reflection | (no mindset; reflect on your facilitation) |
| 13 | Self-Awareness | What is my self-awareness type? |
How to find your scores
At the end of the anonymous survey you created a password. Each chapter contains a table where you look up your password to find your composite scores for that week’s measure.
Your password is the key to your individual scores all semester. Keep it in your phone notes. To change it, contact the course instructor.
How to interpret your scores
Each measure produces a composite score from your responses to a set of related items (usually their average; for the two point-budget measures, their total), after adjusting any reverse-coded items so all point the same way.
- Find your score in the password lookup table.
- Locate it on the class distribution. The dashed lines mark the 33rd and 67th percentiles, and the shaded bands show the Low / Mid / High thirds of the class.
- Compare where you fall relative to your peers.
- Reflect using the two prompts at the end of each chapter.
These measures capture orientations and styles, not ability. The purpose is self-awareness.
Every score, table, and figure now uses real pretest data from the 65 peer mentors who completed the Qualtrics survey. Post-semester results will be added once that survey is collected.
The first numbered chapter, 1. Mentoring Style, begins the weekly measures.