Authors:
Manuel Hopp | Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg | Germany
Albert Ziegler | Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg | Germany
Heidrun Stoeger | University of Regensburg | Germany
Longitudinal communication network and evaluation data was analyzed to get a better understanding of the interplay between peer influence and the outcome of online mentoring. These data contain detailed information about the communication networks and relevant outcome variables of mentees participating in the online mentoring program CyberMentor. To distinguish selection and influence processes a method (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses, SIENA) was used in which network formation and changes in the outcome variables are simulated simultaneously within the context of other network processes.
The online mentoring program CyberMentor has the goal of effecting a lasting increase in the participation of girls in STEM (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics). In this program, more than 600 12- to 18-year-old girls are assigned a personal female mentor each year. The mentors are all STEM experts, either graduate students doing advanced degree work in STEM or university-educated professionals with careers in a STEM field. Mentors communicate with their respective mentees on a weekly basis for at least one year. Together, mentors and mentees discuss interesting STEM topics and work on joint projects. Communication takes place on a secure web-based community platform with internal email, chat, and forum systems. Several outcome variables (among others: interest in STEM, elective intentions, certainty about carrier goals, anxiety towards STEM) are assessed by online questionnaires in three points in time (beginning of mentoring, after 6 months, after 12 months).
We analyzed multiple subsets of mentees (N > 100), who communicated with each other by email. By conducting a dictionary based corpus linguistic analysis (LIWC) with the email data, we could create several different topic related communication networks, e.g. a STEM-related network and a leisure time related network, each in three points in time (beginning of mentoring, after 6 months, after 12 months). In the longitudinal network analysis we utilized several outcome variables for the coevolution of mentee network and behavior. First analyses with a subset of the data show promising results of peer influence on anxiety towards STEM in the STEM topic related communication network of mentees.