Validating the Identity-Based Mentoring Scales for Undergraduate Engineering Students With Minoritized Identities

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Abstract

Although mentoring has been proved to impact identity development and sense of belonging of STEM college students, we lack a scale that can measure high-quality mentoring behaviors that can benefit students with minoritized identities. This survey validation study’s purpose was to examine psychometric properties of two mentoring identity scales (for shared identity and cross-identity mentoring) and their corresponding subscales designed for undergraduate engineering students (n=217 responses) with minoritized identities in the field of engineering. Rasch measurement was used to analyze survey data. Strong response processes, internal structure, and relationship to other variables were found as validity evidence with good to excellent reliability. Findings imply overall scales, and their subscales can be used independently to measure varying aspects of identity-based mentoring.

Authors

• Rajashi Ghosh, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Toni A. May, Binghamton University - SUNY