Mentors, their preparation and their effectiveness in an undergraduate operations management course

Abstract

A core, junior-level operations management course was redesigned to more than twice the original size. One of the design changes in the course was to change the format from biweekly lectures from the instructor to a once a week lecture from the instructor and a once a week discussion-oriented seminars with a peer-mentor. The peer-mentor had previously completed the course and served to guide the students and help with homework. In this paper, in addition to describing the mentor preparation, three types of analysis are conducted to determine the usefulness of mentors. Firstly, seminar characteristics were analysed to determine whether they influence a seminar's overall performance as measured by average grade, median grade and passing percentage. Secondly, mentor characteristics were analysed to determine their effect on a seminar's overall performance. Finally, the student's perception of mentors was analysed.