New Scoping Review on How Mentoring Shapes Educational Attitudes, Beliefs, and Behaviors

Davis, A. L., Koide, J., Simpson, S. B., McQuillin, S., & Lyons, M. D. (2026). The influence of mentoring on educational attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (EABBs): A scoping review. Education Sciences, 16, 549. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16040549

Introduction

School success depends on more than academic skills. Students’ educational attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (EABBs) shape whether young people stay engaged, persist through difficulty, and ultimately thrive. EABBs include constructs like school belonging, growth mindset, academic self-efficacy, and goal-setting behaviors. Despite widespread interest in mentoring as a youth development tool, relatively little research had systematically examined whether formal mentoring programs specifically move the needle on EABBs. Davis and colleagues (2026) set out to fill that gap.

Methods

The authors conducted a scoping review in May 2025, searching PsycINFO using Boolean strings pairing “mentoring” with nine EABB-related terms (e.g., school connectedness, grit, self-regulated learning). The search was limited to peer-reviewed studies published between 2000 and 2024. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, two independent author teams screened 156 records; 17 studies met inclusion criteria. All focused on formal, program-sponsored mentoring with K–12 youth.

Results

Across the 17 studies, mentoring showed small to moderate positive effects on EABBs. School belonging and connectedness improved following mentoring in multiple studies. Academic self-efficacy gains were documented when mentors demonstrated attunement to mentees’ needs. A randomized controlled trial found significant increases in grit among eighth-graders assigned to mentoring (Destin et al. 2018). Self-regulated learning improved with sustained program exposure, with effect sizes growing over time. The clearest takeaway: relationship quality is not merely a nice feature but a mechanism. When instrumental strategies like goal-setting were used without a strong relational foundation, outcomes sometimes turned negative.

Discussion

The review confirms that mentoring programs hold real promise for EABB development, but heterogeneous effects signal that program design matters considerably. Mentor empathy, cultural humility, and structured goal-related practices all appear to shape outcomes. Family engagement emerged as a largely untapped lever for amplifying effects.

Implications for Mentoring Programs

Programs should screen and train mentors for relational skills alongside content delivery. School practitioners can partner strategically with community-based programs, using school climate data and individual student interviews to target specific EABB needs rather than applying one-size-fits-all approaches.

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