Background

Originally founded in 1987, the Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) Program housed under Boise State University’s College of Engineering seeks to provide resources for students to improve performance in corporations, nonprofits, governments, and other workplace settings. OPWL has since evolved into an accredited fully online master’s degree and certificate programs educating the workforce in instructional design, e-learning, training, learning & development, human resources development, performance improvement, and consulting.

Previously, OPWL supported current students by connecting them with resources to obtain coaching and mentoring on specific topics on an as needed basis. In prior semesters, a Coaching course was offered. Although well perceived, the course is no longer offered.

Program & Stakeholders

Stakeholders Dr. Yonnie Chyung, Professor and Department Chair, and Jo Ann Fenner, Program Advisor, wanted to explore interest and potential structure of an OPWL mentorship program. The program could serve as another valuable resource for students currently enrolled or future enrollees in the OPWL program.  

Evaluation Purpose

Through a formative, front-end evaluation interest and potential structural foundations for creating an impactful formal or semi-formal mentoring program were examined. Potentially, a mentoring program would facilitate connection between volunteering OPWL alumni and current OPWL students. The mentoring program would provide professional mentorship in the burgeoning fields of organizational performance and workplace learning using the OPWL experience as a shared lens for mentees and mentors.

Methods

Implementing Chyung’s (2019) 10-step evaluation process coupled with Kellog Foundation’s Program Logic Model (Chyung, 2019), the team defined the full operational needs of a mentoring program.

The findings were parsed into two dimensions that stakeholders weighed by level of importance: interest & structure.

Dimension	Program Logic Model	Importance
Interest	Resources	More Important
Structure	Resources, Activities, Output	Important

To properly evaluate the interest and structure dimensions, the team collected applicable data through:

• Surveys gauging mentorship interest from both current students and OPWL alumni
• Unstructured Interviews of both current students and OPWL alumni to explore interests, needs, and structure of a mentorship program
• Semi-Structured Interviews of current mentoring program coordinators to explore current mentoring program coordination efforts
• Extant Data Review to further gather information on programmatic needs, best practices, and any other unnamed considerations.

Results & Recommendations

Based on the data collected, the team found that there was a high level of interest in the development of a mentoring program at OPWL, with emphasis on program design and function to mentor and mentee. While current students and alumni agreed on many areas of how the program should be structured, there was a notable difference between ideal program lengths and mentoring topics.

Based upon the findings of surveys, interviews, and extant data the evaluation team recommended the following mentor program recommendations to OPWL:

• Establish a professional mentoring program
• Create recruitment and establish processes that inform mentors and mentees of programmatic goals so expectations are aligned
• Develop adequate channels of communication between mentoring pairs and the program. Ensure there are intervention methods in place.

References

Chyung, S. Y. (2019). 10-step evaluation for training and performance improvement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.