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ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4505-1668
Date of Graduation
8-1-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Educational Specialist (EdS)
Department
Department of Graduate Psychology
Advisor(s)
Tammy Gilligan
Tiffany Hornsby
Deborah Kipps-Vaughan
Abstract
The James Madison University (JMU) School Psychology Program created the Students of Color Succeeding in Psychology (SoCS) Mentoring Program during the summer of 2022 with the help of school psychology professors and four racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) school psychology graduate students. The SoCS Mentoring Program was created to develop a mentoring relationship between current REM JMU school psychology graduate students and REM JMU school psychology alumni who were practicing school psychologists. The program hoped to provide mentoring to create community and professional relationships while also providing space for REM students and practitioners to converse about experiences that may occur surrounding ethnicity and background, such as racial discrimination and/or microaggressions.
The current study examined the SoCS Mentoring Program by giving the mentees and mentors the opportunity to describe their experience and provide recommendations to strengthen the program through a focus group with mentees and a separate focus group with mentors. All mentees and mentors were invited to participate in the study and consent forms were sent through email to those who agreed to participate and be audio recorded. Each focus group was approximately 45 minutes virtually through Zoom. Data analysis was conducted using an emergent thematic analysis to identify, analyze, and interpret patterns within the collected qualitative data from the focus groups. When asked about their hopes for the mentoring program, the mentors’ responses revealed the theme of guidance, while the mentees responses revealed themes of knowledge and reassurance. When asked about their experience within the mentoring program, the mentors’ responses revealed themes of opportunity, intersectionality, and collaboration. The mentees’ responses revealed themes of support and ambiguity. Lastly, participants suggested recommendations to strengthen the program, which revealed themes of skill development and communication per the mentors’ responses and revealed theme of directives and resources per the mentees’ responses. Also, an overarching theme of community emerged throughout both focus groups as participants discussed networking, problem solving, and building rapport.
Keywords: mentoring program, racially and ethnically minoritized (REM), mentees, mentors, focus group, school psychology
Recommended Citation
Moore, Sa'Mone, "Program evaluation of the James Madison University school psychology students of color succeeding mentoring program" (2024). Educational Specialist, 2020-current. 88.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/edspec202029/88
