Exploring the Interactions and Influences of Mentorship in Marine Science and Engineering Internships for High School Students: A Three-Article Dissertation

This dissertation explores mentoring relationships between STEM professionals and high school students during four and six-week summer internship experiences. The articles qualitatively examined mentoring relationships from the perspectives of mentors and mentees. The first two articles used a hermeneutic phenomenological narrative approach focusing on student perspectives, while the third used a multiple-case study design focusing on mentor and student perspectives. Article one examined how mentors influenced the development of soft skills such as interpersonal communication, public speaking, time management, and help-seeking. Findings from the thematic analysis suggested that mentors influenced interns’ skill development by facilitating team communication, providing public speaking practice, normalizing help-seeking, modeling effective time management strategies, and fostering nurturing environments. Article two explored how mentors influenced high school students’ STEM career aspirations and work-related feelings and emotions. Findings from the thematic analysis identified two main ways mentors influenced the interns' attitudes toward STEM: demonstrating passion, enthusiasm, altruism, and a strong work ethic. Article three investigated mentors’ planning strategies before engaging in mentoring relationships, how they enacted and monitored their functional behaviors during interactions, and how they adapted their plans and behaviors in response to mentees. The findings suggest that mentors planned to align mentoring with mentees' interests and establish effective communication. Mentors aimed to help mentees develop career-related skills and enacted various functions during their interactions, such as role modeling, counseling, sponsorship, and coaching. After interactions, mentors used monitoring methods to identify areas needing adaptation and gathered feedback to influence their adapted strategies. Implications for STEM education and future research directions are discussed in each article and the conclusion.