Relationship Between Mentoring and Career Development of Agricultural Education Faculty

Relationship Between Mentoring and Career Development of

Agricultural Education Faculty

The 1980s and early 1990s will likely be remembered as a period of economic

decline, financial cut-backs, and overall “belt-tightening” throughout much of American

society. This era of limited resources has resulted in a renewed interest in the importance

of individuals to organizational success (1986). Employees are being recognized

as valuable resources, and successful organizations are working to maximize their existing

human resources.

The corporate world has been bombarded with literature emphasizing the value of

people. Popular books by  (1982), (1983), (1982).

 (1985) stress the importance of human resource development to

organizational success. The renewed interest in capitalizing on human resources has not

escaped the academic world.  (1983) emphasized that the

effectiveness of a college or university is directly linked to the quality and vigor of its

faculty members. Today’s conditions of limited resources and ever-increasing demand for

accountability have made the optimum performance of a faculty a top priority in higher

education.

Faculty career development is recognized as an important factor in maintaining

faculty vitality ( 1984;  1984;1982; 1983)

Career development and advancement are believed to be influenced by a

variety of personal characteristics; however, evidence suggests that environmental and

organizational factors also play a significant part in the academic career development

process ( 1982). One such factor is that of mentoring. “Today one can find

mention of mentoring in almost every publication aimed at management, administrators,

educators, human resource professionals, and the general public” (1991);

however, its role in career development has received only limited study. Examples of

successful mentoring models are found more frequently in business than in education.

A major function of a mentoring relationship is to facilitate a person’s career growth

and success. Although  (1978) advocates that a mentor is fundamental to all

aspects of one’s development, other researchers and theorists view the primary benefits of

mentoring as those affecting performance in the workplace ( 1984;, 1985;1977)

 (1985) summarized mentoring functions into two broad categories that she

termed career functions and psychosocial functions. Career functions are those aspects of

a relationship that enhanced learning the ropes and preparing for advancement in an

organization, Psychosocial functions are those aspects of a relationship that enhance a

sense of competence, clarity of identity, and effectiveness in a professional role.

While career functions serve primarily to aid advancement up the hierarchy of an

organization, psychosocial functions affect each individual on a personal level by

building self-worth inside and outside the organization. According to (1985),

when a relationship provides both career and psychosocial functions, “it best

approximates the prototype of a mentor relationship.” The range of specific functions

provided vary from one relationship to another.

 (1984) described the most intense and useful function of mentoring as

sponsorship. The mentor puts his or her reputation on the line by actively promoting the

protege and by giving him or her important responsibilities. Kanter (1977) viewed

sponsorship as extremely important to organizational success. Sponsors hold positions

in organizations that enable them to stand up for the person being sponsored and to

promote that person for promising opportunities.

 (1985) described mentoring functions similar to those of

  (1984). Mentors

use their organizational influence to provide opportunity for the protege to gain exposure

and visibility in the organization. They also coach and protect their proteges. Among

the psychosocial functions described by Kram are role-modeling, counseling, friendship

and acceptance, and confirmation.

Purpose and Objectives

The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which the career development of

university agricultural education faculty has been influenced by mentors, and to examine

the relationship between mentoring and selected indicators of career development.

Secondary purposes of the study were to identify functions performed by mentors, and to

develop a profile of the mentors of university agricultural education education faculty.

Objectives of the study were to:

Determine the extent to which the professional career

development of university agricultural education

faculty had been influenced by a mentor or mentors.

Determine the relationship between mentoring influence

and selected indicators of career development.

Identify functions of persons serving as mentors to

university agricultural education faculty.

Identify characteristics of persons serving as mentors

to university agricultural education faculty.

Procedures

The accessible population for this descriptive study consisted of all agricultural

education faculty holding positions at four-year colleges or universities in the United

States. Faculty members in the population must have held a rank of assistant professor or

higher, and have been listed in the 1988 Directory of Teacher Educators in Agriculture, or

the 1987 Agriculture Teachers Directory. A total of 279 individuals were identified as

being eligible for inclusion in the study’s population.

A mailed questionnaire was used to collect data. A research instrument was developed

which consisted of four parts. The first part identified the functions performed by the

respondents’ mentors, and provided an indication of the respondents’ Perceptions of the

extent to which their professional careers had been influenced by a mentor. The 27

mentoring function items included in the instrument had been adapted from an instrument

developed by(1986) which was used to study the influence of mentoring on the

career success of business executives. Examples of these ideas are: “helped me set

realistic performance goals”, “expressed pride in my success”, “gave me objective

criticism”, and “helped me publish an article or book”. Responses to mentoring function

items were summed to generate an overall composite mentoring score. A post hoc

reliability coefficient was calculated, and yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of .88.

The second part of the research instrument provided descriptive information about the

individuals who had served as mentors to the respondents. The third part was designed to

generate information about the respondents’ career development. The items (listed in

Table 1) were objective measures of commonly accepted indicators of academic career

growth. Respondents were also asked to indicate their satisfaction with the current

professional position, and with their career progress. The final part of the instrument

contained questions intended to provide descriptive information about the respondents.

A panel of judges determined the content and face validity of the instrument. Three of

the judges were in the agricultural education profession and two were familiar with theories

of adult development.

A usable return rate of 78.66% (220 instruments) was achieved. A nonrespondent

follow-up was conducted. A series of t-tests revealed no significant difference between

respondents and nonrespondents.

Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences X (SPSSX).

Frequencies, means, standard deviations, and percentages were used to describe the data.

Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to examine the relationship

between the composite mentoring score, and selected indicators of career development.

Results

Nearly all respondents (93.66%) indicated that their professional careers had been

significantly influenced by one or more individuals. In this study, the term mentor was

used to describe these influential individuals. The definition of mentor was kept very

broad due to the exploratory nature of the study. The level of perceived influence by a

mentor on the respondents’ career development was determined by calculating a composite

mentoring score based on responses to 27 items pertaining to functions performed by

mentors. The possible range of composite scores was from 0 to 432. The actual range of

scores was from 197 to 423.

To examine the relationship between mentoring and career development, 11

indicators of career development were selected, and a Pearson product-moment correlation

coefficient calculated between respondents’ composite mentoring score and their

performance on each indicator of career development. As shown in Table 1, significant

relationships were observed between mentoring and only two of the career development

indicators, “grants received” and “master’s students advised”.

Table 1. Pearson product-moment correlations between composite mentoring scores and

selected indicators of career development

Indicator of

career development Coefficient Probability

Years to reach associate professor .02 .408

Years to reach full professor -.19 .069

Administrative positions held .12 .080

National leadership positions held .03 .382

National awards received .03 .382

Professional awards from state or local level .09 .162

Journal articles published .12 .080

Books authored or coauthored .02 .408

Grants received .20** .009

Doctoral students advised .07 .221

Master’s students advised .20** .009

aThis correlation was computed for full professors only, using the number of years

to move from associate to full professor.

Two career development measures were also correlated with respondents’ composite

mentoring scores. Respondents’ satisfaction with their current professional position, and

their satisfaction with their career progress were both positively related to the composite

mentoring score (see Table 2).

Table 2. Pearson product-moment correlations between composite mentoring score and

indicators of career satisfaction

Indicator of

career satisfaction Coefficient Probability

Satisfaction with current position .286** .001

Satisfaction with career progress .337** .001

Respondents were also asked to indicate the degree to which they agreed or disagreed

that their mentor had performed each of 27 selected mentoring functions. The most

important mentoring functions were the following: influenced my career in a positive

way, supported my efforts to advance in my career, took a personal interest in the

development of my career, expressed pride in my success, recognized my potential as an

effective educator, praised my efforts in the presence of others, been someone I could rely

on for support during critical times, and used his/her influence to assist my advancement

by recommending me for promising opportunities. The least important mentoring

functions were: insisted I stand on my own at all times, helped me publish an article or

book, assisted me by voluntarily taking on the role of teacher to improve my skills, and

cautioned me to avoid actions that might harm my career.

The mentors described by university agricultural education professors were, in many

respects, similar to their professors. The mentors and proteges were typically white males

of a similar social class, employed as university professors, and holding doctoral degrees

in agricultural education. Mentors were typically between eight and 20 years older than

their proteges, held the rank of full professor, and were considered by respondents to have

considerable influence in their professional field. Mentors provided the greatest

professional support during the early stages of the protege’s career, that is, during graduate

school and their first professional position following graduate school.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Most university agricultural education professors perceived their professional careers

to have been significantly influenced by another person or persons. The extent of

mentoring influence on the professional development of agricultural education faculty

varied widely, and only e few individuals appeared to have experienced intensive,

comprehensive relationships that are typical of “true” mentorships. The majority of

agricultural education faculty have experienced relationships that may more appropriately

be described as role modeling, counseling, or guiding.

Mentors of agricultural education professors provide many functions for their proteges.

Proteges considered functions pertaining to both career development and psychosocial

development to be important, Mentors of university agricultural education faculty were

similar to their proteges in race, social class, educational level and professional field.

They are considered by their proteges to be highly influential in their professional field.

Mentors of university agricultural education faculty were most important to their proteges

early in the protege’s professional career.

Mentoring was not found to be significantly related to the performance of university

agricultural education professors on most (9 of 11) objective indicators of career

development included in this study. However, mentoring was found to be significantly

related to an individual’s feeling regarding his or her satisfaction with his or her career.

Professors who experienced higher levels of mentoring were more satisfied with their

current jobs and with their career progress. It is possible that the emotional support

gained through a mentoring relationship provides agricultural education faculty with the

security of knowing they have a person to whom they can turn for advice or guidance.

Such support may result in confidence regarding one’s competence and performance.

The following recommendations were made to the agricultural education profession:

Agricultural education faculty are influential in the career development profess of younger

professors and graduate students. All faculty should recognize the potential impact of

their behavior and attitudes on the profession. Efforts should be made by each individual

to develop and maintain realistic but positive attitudes regarding the agricultural education

profession. High professional standards should be upheld by each faculty member.

Agricultural education professors benefit from a variety of functions performed by

mentors. Many of these functions that benefit the psychosocial development of the

protege are also considered to be important. Agricultural education faculty who find

themselves in mentoring roles should recognize the importance of the quality of the

mentoring relationship, and strive to develop those aspects of the relationship that

benefit both the professional and personal lives of their proteges.

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