This document presents research that expands on tailored mentoring knowledge through the use of a large dataset that was collected by gathering answers to five carefully designed questions from a wide range of mentoring programs; it reports on the research study design, analysis, and findings, and discusses implications for practice and future research.
This technical report describes the research methodology and findings as the authors address five research questions using data collected from 1,741 mentor-mentee pairs that were part of the Mentoring Enhancement Demonstration Program (MEDP). The questions are: if mentors are responsive to youth needs in specific domains; if mentoring tailored to presenting youth needs in specific domains is associated with positive change in those domains; if the mentoring is associated with positive change in youth assets; if mentor characteristics and program practices are associated with the use of tailored mentoring; and if caregiver satisfaction and mentor-mentee relationship quality were associated with the effectiveness of tailored mentoring. The authors used descriptive and path analyses with data from multiple measures to answer those questions. The report provides a discussion of the study design and framework, study sample and survey instruments, measures for addressing the research questions, and an analysis of results. Results indicated that tailored mentoring was linked with greater improvements than untailored mentoring if mentees had academic needs, but they were associated with a negative effect on conduct problems when mentees had emotional or peer relationship problems. The authors close with some recommendations for practice, based on their findings.