A systematic review of school based mentoring interventions and an exploratory study of using Video Interaction Guidance to support peer reading mentors

Abstract

This piece of work consists of three parts; a systematic literature review, bridging document and research article. The systematic literature review investigates the effectiveness of school based peer mentoring initiatives on the academic, social/emotional and behavioural outcomes of mentees. The review explored nine studies with the majority demonstrating significant short term effects for mentees related to at least one outcome. One of the studies explored long term effects for mentees but gave no evidence of significant gains for long term outcomes. The results of the review highlighted the need for further exploration of peer mentoring interventions in UK schools and specifically revealed a gap relating to the benefits and experiences of peer mentors.

The bridging document explains the rationale for the research focus, methodology, method and data analysis. Ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives are discussed and ethical principles explored. The research explores how peer reading mentors can be supported in their role using Video Interaction Guidance. A case study method was used to explore how VIG could support two peer mentors work with their mentees over six peer mentoring sessions. Three films of each peer mentor were taken and three shared review sessions were transcribed. Pupil view templates were used to further explore the reflective dialogue of the peer mentors after video shared review sessions. The themes that emerged from the data were reflecting and evaluating self, attunement and body language, video as a learning tool, mentor skills and collaborating. The findings suggest that VIG was valued by the peer reading mentors and the types of learning they experienced are discussed with reference to future research recommendations