Service-learning through mentoring. Design and evaluation of a training strategy among university students in guidance.

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of a study whose overall objective is focused on presenting a service learning experience linked to mentoring at the University. For this purpose, at the same time that the development of competences linked to the decision making of students in the Degree in Pedagogy is promoted, professional competences are developed in the students of the Master of Secondary Education, who are specializing in Educational Guidance. This formative experience stems from the need to include Professional Guidance in the University context, responding to needs that are not always met in the curricula of the Degrees.

The evaluation of the mentoring program in career guidance, as a service learning strategy, is proposed under a mixed design of predominantly quantitative cut through a pre-experimental pre-posttest design, which is complemented with a phenomenological approach, qualitative in nature, which allows us to deepen in the assessment made by mentors and mentees about the initiative. The results show that participation in the training program favors a competence improvement in the participants. The mentors consider that they have not only acquired knowledge, but have also developed competencies linked to the helping relationship established in the satisfaction of a need manifested in the students of the Degree in Pedagogy, concretely and in the satisfaction of the needs of the students.