Feasibility of Technology-Enhanced Faculty Mentorship Use to Increase Retention of Minority Nursing Students.

Abstract

Mentoring can enhance retention of academically at-risk students. The purpose of this project was to determine the feasibility of technology-enhanced faculty mentorship use in retention of minority undergraduate nursing students. The project consisted of a unique, blended (face-to-face and tablet-based) mentoring approach. Eight faculty mentors and 29 nursing student mentees participated across two cohorts. We used descriptive statistics instead of inferential statistics; therefore our findings are observational instead of inferential. We observed that after participation, the semester passing rate of the students was 100% in the first cohort and 90.5% in the second cohort. Another observation was that the overall program retention rate was improved compared to the preceding year, and that mentee satisfaction ranged from 90.9% to 100%.