Mirroring and managing in electronic mentoring: factors in interactivity between student-scientist pairs

Mentoring has long been recognized as an effective process to help students and young professionals develop new skills and attitudes. This study analyzed the content of message exchanges between five professional scientists and five minority college students who were paired as part of the E-mentoring program developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Interaction was assessed both quantitatively and qualitatively, with the goal of providing a better understanding of the connection between interactivity patterns and perceived success of a mentor-student relationship. Several factors were identified as contributing to successful interaction, including structure of the exchange; balance of discussion topics; mirroring in content and message length; and limited overt "managing" by mentors