Program Profile: Academic Mentoring Program for Educational Development (AMPED)

This is a school-based, mentoring program designed to improve academic performance and life satisfaction and reduce absences and behavioral infractions. The program is rated Promising. Participants had a statistically significant decrease in unexcused absences and higher math and English grades, compared with the control group. However, there were no effects on school-reported behavioral infractions, science or history grades, positive affect, negative affect, coping, or overall mental health.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

Program Goals/Target Population

Academic Mentoring Program for Educational Development (AMPED) is a one-on-one mentoring program. The goals are to improve academic performance, improve life satisfaction, and decrease absences and behavioral infractions by promoting academic behaviors, enhancing academic motivation, and increasing subjective well-being. The intervention targets middle school students.

Program Components

AMPED consists of eight, 45-minute mentoring sessions that take place in designated mentoring rooms within the middle school during a student’s nonacademic electives or periods (e.g., homeroom) once per week. The sessions follow a mentoring curriculum that targets four sources of self-efficacy (mastery experience, social persuasion, vicarious experience, and positive affective states) and behavioral change through cognitive dissonance and using motivational interviewing (MI) techniques.

Mentors receive training on how to implement the mentoring curriculum via direct instruction, role playing, and performance feedback, using MI (see Implementation Information for more information). To facilitate behavior change through cognitive dissonance, mentors help mentees sort various values (e.g., “making my parents proud”, “being happy”, “making good decisions”) into very important, important, and not important categories and use those values identified as very important to help mentees set goals. Mentors encourage mentees to explore and resolve any inconsistencies between their values and their behavior in a non-confrontational manner, using MI conversational techniques and affirming mentee actions that are consistent with mentee values.

To facilitate mastery experiences, mentors help their mentees set achievable goals connected to their values and teach them academic skills (e.g., study skills, organization) to maximize their chances of reaching their goals. Mentors provide feedback and guidance as mentees pursue their goals and provide vicarious learning by sharing current and previous personal challenges and successes. Mentors also use free time, affirmations, casual conversations, and play to promote positive affective experiences with their mentees.

Mentors complete a checklist of each session’s procedures that include specific agenda items and tasks pertinent to the activities expected of the mentors during that session. Mentors receive brief, onsite supervision prior to each session to review the curriculum and following each session to check for compliance.

Program Theory

The program is based on a brief mentoring model (Spencer and Rhodes 2005) and grounded in the following theories of behavior change: social–cognitive theory (Bandura 1997), cognitive–dissonance theory (Draycott and Dabbs, 1998), and theory of motivational interviewing (Miller and Ross 2009). Consistent with these theories, the program aims to enhance students’ self-efficacy and outcome expectations by including structural goal-setting and performance feedback, creating opportunities for identifying and resolving inconsistencies between their attitudes and behaviors, and using a client-centered model that encourages a flexible and reciprocal relationship between mentor and mentee while also accommodating goal-focused activities for the mentee such as academic skills training. Further, mentor training and supervision are based on the augmented Kilpatrick model of training, which proposes that successful knowledge and skill transfer is promoted using the following four levels of evaluation: reaction (appraisals of how useful the training is), learning (transfer of knowledge), behavioral performance (transfer of skill), and results (transfer of competency; Alliger et al. 1997).

Key Personnel

Mentors are undergraduate students recruited from classes in departments linked to helping professions such as social work, human development and family studies, and psychology. Site supervisors are doctoral students in school psychology who conduct the matching process and lead all training and supervision sessions using the structured pre- and post-meeting protocol. Supervisors receive training and practice in supervising mentors. Each supervisor also had previously served as a mentor in the program (McQuillin and Lyon 2016).

Additional Information

This program is a revised version of a previously reviewed program called Brief Instrumental School-Based Mentoring Program . The revised program, which includes enhancements to mentor training and supervision and to the program curriculum, was different from the previous version, therefore it was reviewed as a new program. For example, the revised program expands mentor training to include an initial online training module, two in-person training sessions, and three supplemental online trainings. In the revised program, mentor training is based on the application of social–cognitive theory and cognitive–dissonance theory, in addition to the theory of motivational interviewing, and incorporates a training model proven effective for successful knowledge and skill transfer (the augmented Kirkpatrick model of training).

Study

McQuillin and Lyons (2016) evaluated the Academic Mentoring Program for Educational Development (AMPED), formerly called the Brief Instrumental School-Based Mentoring Program–Revised, in a pre- and posttest randomized controlled evaluation. Study participants were 72 seventh- and eighth-grade students at a large urban public charter middle school in Houston, Texas. Thirty-six participants were randomly assigned to the mentoring program, and 36 were assigned to the school-as-usual control group. Most the study participants were female (57 percent), and most were Latin American/Hispanic (89 percent). The average age was 12.54 years, and all students received free lunch. Mentors ( n = 36) were undergraduate students and on average were 20.34 years old. Most mentors were female (86 percent), 12 were white, 10 were African American/Black, 5 were Asian, and 9 were Hispanic/Latin American. Mentors and mentees were matched based on mutual interests. Whereas all female mentees were matched with female mentors, some male mentees were matched with female mentors because of the disproportional numbers of male and female mentors.

Outcome measures were collected from school academic records, school behavioral records, and youth self-reports. Academic records provided data on students’ grades in math, English, science, and history, which were in the form of percentages that could range from 0 to 100. School behavior records provided data on numbers of unexcused absences and officially documented misconduct violations reported by school staff (e.g., disruptions, foul language, and disobeying adult instructions). Baseline academic and behavioral records were obtained prior to randomization and follow-up records were obtained 1 month following study completion, each from separate grading periods. Self-report surveys were administered to students at baseline (prior to randomization) and 2 weeks following their final meeting with their mentors (12 weeks after baseline assessment). The surveys collected data on life satisfaction, using the Student Life Satisfaction Scale. Items assessed student agreement with statements about their life as they experienced it over the several weeks prior to assessment using a 6-point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) and included items such as “My life is going well” and “I wish I had a different kind of life”. Responses to the seven items were averaged to yield a score.

Multiple regression analyses were used to test for the effects of the intervention on outcome measures, controlling for gender, grade level, and pretest scores on the outcome measures. Participating students did not vary significantly on race or free lunch status; therefore, these variables were not included in the analyses. At baseline, there were no observed differences between the treatment and control groups on grade, age, gender, or all pretest covariates. There were also no statistically significant differences in pretest outcomes by mentee demographic characteristics. No subgroup analyses were conducted.

Study

Anderson (2019) conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the AMPED program with a sample ( n = 100) of low-income middle school students in Houston, Texas. The students who consented to participate were randomly assigned to either the treatment group ( n = 66) or to a wait-list control group ( n = 34). Of the study sample, 61 percent of the students were male, and their average age was 12.5 years. About 53 percent were in the sixth grade, 37 percent were in the seventh grade, and 10 percent were in the eighth grade. With regard to race/ethnicity, 88 percent identified as African American, 10 percent identified as Latino, and 2 percent identified as biracial. All students in the sample were English-speaking, and all qualified for free lunch, indicating low socioeconomic status (SES). At baseline, there were no observed statistically significant differences between the treatment and control groups in gender, ethnicity, SES, grades, or in the dual-factor model classification of overall mental health (described below).

The outcomes of interest included life satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, coping, and overall mental health. Survey instruments administered to youth before and after the mentoring program included the Brief Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner et al. 2006), the Positive Affect and Negative Affect for Children Scale (Laurent et al. 1999), and Causey’s Self-Report Coping Scale (Causey and Dubow 1992). These instruments were used to calculate overall mental health according to the dual factor model. Participants were coded as high or low on psychopathology and well-being and classified as follows: 1) complete mental health (low psychopathology and high well-being; 62 percent); 2) symptomatic, but content (high psychopathology and high well-being; 7 percent); vulnerable (low psychopathology and low well-being; 18 percent); or troubled (high psychopathology and low well-being; 13 percent). Multiple-linear regression was used to examine the impact of the intervention on each of the outcomes for treatment group participants, compared with the wait-list control group. Subgroup analyses were not conducted.

Potential mentors complete an electronic application followed by a 30-minute online training module, which provides an overview of the mentoring program and the conversational style of the curriculum. Mentors who pass a quiz on the content of the online training are eligible to complete the in-person training, which consists of two, 1.5-hour training sessions involving direct instruction, role playing, and performance feedback using motivational interviewing (MI). The first training session covers the relational component of the intervention (open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, summarizations). The second training session covers the MI protocol. Additionally, mentors receive training in academic- enabling activities (e.g., agenda keeping, planning book-bag and locker organization). Mentors who pass knowledge (i.e., paper and pen) and performance (i.e., role-play) tests are matched with mentees based on mutual interests.

Mentors are provided with a curriculum manual that contains instructions for mentoring sessions, including a description of and checklist for each mentoring session. The checklists, which include specific agenda items and tasks pertinent to the activities expected of the mentors during that session, help mentors monitor their progression through the curriculum. Mentors meet with a supervisor, either one-on-one or in groups of up to three, before and after each weekly mentoring session. Pre-session supervision meetings provide an opportunity for mentors to review the checklist with their supervisors and clarify areas of concern. During post-session meetings, supervisors review mentors’ completed checklists with them to check for fidelity, address any mentor questions, and direct mentors to additional online training modules as needed. Additional training opportunities include 15 to 20 minute modules on setting goals, having healthy conversations, and providing feedback. Mentors are also encouraged to schedule phone supervision if they encounter issues that require more involved supervision (McQuillin and Lyons 2016).

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

Following are CrimeSolutions-rated programs that are related to this practice:

Mentoring for Youth Development

This practice provides youth with a positive and consistent adult or older youth relationship to promote healthy youth development and social functioning and to reduce risk factors. The practice is rated Effective in reducing delinquency and improving educational outcomes; Promising in improving psychological outcomes and cognitive functioning; and No Effects in reducing substance use.

Evidence Ratings for Outcomes

	Crime & Delinquency - Multiple crime/offense types
	Education - Multiple education outcomes
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Psychological functioning
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Cognitive functioning
	Mental Health & Behavioral Health - Social functioning
	Drugs & Substance Abuse - Multiple substances

Why might a practice's outcome ratings differ from the ratings of specific programs encompassed by that practice?