Gifted Students Report High Satisfaction With University Mentoring—and the Reasons Why Matter

Martínez-Izaguirre, M., Peña-San José, J., & Álvarez-González, A. (2026). A preliminary study of satisfaction with university mentoring in high-intellectual-ability secondary students: Instrument validation and association with key learning processes. Education Sciences, 16(6), 817. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16060817

Introduction

Students with high intellectual abilities (HIA) are often underchallenged in traditional classroom settings, and specialized academic support for this population is rare. Martínez and Álvarez-González (2026) examine whether a structured extracurricular mentoring program can fill that gap, and whether student satisfaction with mentoring is a significant indicator for deeper outcomes including psychological well-being, intellectual engagement, and academic growth.

Methods

Ninety secondary school students with HIA (ages 13–17; 70% male, 30% female) completed a 17-item satisfaction questionnaire after participating in ZUR-EKIN, a four-month extracurricular program pairing students with university faculty across engineering, law, psychology, and education. Students attended five two-hour sessions in combined in-person and online formats. The instrument measured four dimensions: mentor support, student experience, teaching methodology, and program infrastructure. Confirmatory factor analysis tested two structural models—one organized around program dimensions, one around four learning pillars: improvement-oriented learning, personalization, feedback, and practice tasks.

Results

Students reported high overall satisfaction (M = 4.34 out of 5). The mentor relationship dimension scored highest (M = 4.57), outpacing teaching methodology and program infrastructure. Students’ most consistent criticism was that the program was too short. Ultimately, in a mentoring program for academically advanced youth, the quality of the human relationship matters more to students than curriculum design or program logistics.

Discussion

The authors highlight when a student feels satisfied with their mentor, it fuels motivation, builds perseverance, and helps students begin to see themselves as genuinely capable in their domain. Students with high intellectual abilities often struggle to find peers who think like them or share their level of curiosity—a form of social isolation that can undermine academically accomplished young people. By bringing gifted students together within a shared mentoring context, the ZUR-EKIN program seemed to address that isolation in a way that purely individual interventions cannot. This points to the value of designing mentoring experiences that create community rather than just one-on-one connection.

Implications for Mentoring Programs

Mentor selection and training matter enormously. Matching students to mentors based on shared interests, rather than convenience or availability, appears to make a difference in how students experience the program. Additionally, students high satisfaction with their mentoring experience prove that the program is doing what it’s supposed to do. For program administrators and practitioners alike, building in regular, meaningful ways to hear from students about their experience may be one of the most useful tools available for keeping a mentoring program on track.

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