Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a mentor-mentee programme which employed infusion lessons to enhance lower high school students’ interests in STEM and English language. 431 students from eight schools participated in the programme which was carried out by twelve undergraduates guided by five ESL instructors.

The students were required to complete two sets of questionnaire:
1) a pre and post survey assessing their perception of the content, activities, and skills emphasised and developed in the programme, and
2) a five-point Likert scale questionnaire measuring their perceptions of their mentors’ roles and the impact of the programme.

The paired-samples t-test conducted on the collected data yielded a significant t-value (t(430) = 20.05, p<.05) which reflected a significant improvement in perception score at the end of the programme. The computed effect size was large indicating the practical importance of the mean difference noted. The means calculated for items on mentors’ roles and the impact of the programme were high (i.e., above 4.0).

For the mentors’ roles, the item highlighting mentors as the students’ guides and teachers had the highest score while for the programme impact, the highest calculated score was for the item asking students if they think the programme should be continued because it was a good one. In conclusion, the results of the analysis seem to indicate that the participants of the STEM mentor-mentee programme perceived the programme to be an effective one.

Keywords:

Infusion, interest, mentor, mentee, programme, roles, STEM.