A crucial aspect of the iMentor program is recruiting and retaining high quality mentors.  High quality mentors not only adhere to iMentor’s philosophy and structure, but also utilize the curriculum and available resources from program staff.  More information on the qualities and actions of a great mentor can be found here.  Each year in the early spring, staff evaluate the quality of each mentor using the Mentor Quality Rubric.  This article outlines this process.

Why We Use the Mentor Quality Rubric

After examining the aggregated data from the 2015-2016 program year, the Research and Evaluation (RE) team found that mentors who are meeting benchmarks in participation (emailing and in-person meetings) are more likely to be rated higher on the remaining six behaviors in the mentor quality rubric.  Essentially, mentors that participate more are higher quality across the board.  This may seem obvious, but using rubric data to triangulate the appropriateness of engagement benchmarks helps reaffirm that programmatic efforts to increase pair interaction is well spent.  Additionally, simply looking at the percentage of mentors meeting/exceeding and not meeting expectations can help inform the development of more effective training and/or resources to set mentors up for success.

The chart below shows the differences in average mentor online communication frequency between mentors not meeting and meeting/exceeding expect ions in each Mentor Quality Rubric category.

The following chart shows the differences in average number of pair meetings between pairs with mentors not meeting and meeting/exceeding expect ions in each Mentor Quality Rubric category.

How to Use the Mentor Quality Rubric

Prior to evaluating mentors using the rubric, RE will host a brief orientation to the process, including norming on the definitions of not meeting, meeting and exceeding expectations in each category on the rubric.  

The Mentor Rubric is accessed via the hamburger menu under "Participation and Pair Support. 

The Mentor Rubric includes a summary of each category mentors are evaluated on as well as clear definitions of what it means to not meet, meet and exceed expectations.  Details for each category can be accessed by navigating through the tabs on the page.

The first step to successfully completing the Mentor Quality Rubric is selecting the correct program year.

Once the correct program year is selected, the class filter is used to populate the interface with the right mentors.  (Multiple classes can be selected simultaneously if preferred.)

NOTE: For returning cohorts that have had mentor quality ratings assigned in the past, this drop down can be used to see historical mentor ratings from previous program years.

Now that the Rubric is populated with the correct mentors, each must be scored across the 4 categories.  "2" or "meeting expectations" is the default setting for all categories in order to streamline the process - meaning that it is the responsibility of program staff to simply indicate whether a mentor is not meeting or exceeding expectations for any given category.  If a mentor is meeting expectations for a category, no change to the value is necessary.  After finishing the evaluation of a mentor, the submit button must be clicked in order to complete the process.  The submit button will then turn green and display that the record is saved.

If a category is edited after submitting a mentor's evaluation, it must be resubmitted.

If you have need assistance with the Mentor Quality Rubric or have any questions, comments or concerns, click here to contact the Research and Evaluation team.