Impact of Mentoring Program on Faculty Performance in Institution of Higher Education: A Developing Country Study

Mentoring, as a social learning model, is based on the practice of broadly stressing the importance of positive reinforcement on behavior change (Bandura, 1977). Mentoring places emphasis on learning from other people through models of expected behavior norms (Mahoney, 1974; and Staats, 1975, Zachary, 2000). Social learning model finds strong relevance in building leadership skills among the disadvantaged to improve performance through synergy. In this study, the author defines mentoring as a process of consciously building a mutual relationship between two or more professional colleagues for the purpose of promoting personal and professional growth. The author investigates the impact of institutionalized mentoring program on the professional performance and growth of junior academic staff in a higher education institution in a developing country. The design used for this study was a mixed-method design. SPSS PAWS 18 and Amos 18 statistical analysis software were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The mentoring program produced gains in all the three domains of performance for the participants in the mentoring program. The focus-group reflections corroborate the findings of the quantitative data. The study also identifies some of the challenges of the mentoring program. Leadership and policy implications were outlined and suggestions for improvements were noted.