Posts

The golden years glow: Older adults draw more positivity from prosocial behavior

Bjälkebring, P., Västfjäll, D., Dickert, S., & Slovic, P. (2019). Greater emotional gain from giving in older adults: Age-related positivity bias in charitable giving. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1-8. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00846.       Summarized by Justin Preston   Introduction It has been well-demonstrated that prosocial behavior has positive benefits for both the recipient and […]

Mentors helping students prepare for college: More than just making the grade

Woods, C. & Preciado, M. (2016). Student–Mentor Relationships and Students’ College Attitudes. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 21(2), 90-103. DOI: 10.1080/10824669.2015.1127767 Summarized by Justin Preston   Introduction Research has demonstrated that low-income high school students are less likely to plan for college, apply to selective colleges and universities, and complete a […]

Social media survey has implications for mentoring

The American Psychological Association (APA) released a report that explores the impact of technology and communication on stress levels in the United States. In addition to the insight the report provides on broader trends in our relationships with technology, social media, and work, there are some important takeaway lessons for mentoring programs and mentors. While […]

Youth Engaged in Research: Why Young Investigators Are Important

By Shereen El Mallah, Reprinted from Youth-NEX In a recent Q&A I described what participatory research is, how it is important, and why more researchers should be using it. In this second publication of the series, let’s examine why engaging youth in participatory research can change the existing researcher-subject power dynamic as well as amplify […]

WT Grant Foundation: Learning Across Contexts: Bringing Together Research on Research Use and Implementation Science

By Lauren Supplee, Allison Metz, and Annette Boaz, reprinted from the William T. Grant Foundation Recent publications by implementation researchers underscore promising new directions in implementation science while also acknowledging potential challenges for the field to address in the years ahead (Beidas et al., 2022; Metz et al., 2022).12 At the same time, scholars in […]

WT Grant Foundation: Building Evidence Systems to Integrate Implementation Research and Practice in Education

By Norma Ming, reprinted from the William T. Grant Foundation Amid persistent and expanding inequities in education, the urgency of improving practice likewise grows, along with demands for better research use (ESSA, 2015).1 As a field, we need to improve not just the quality of research evidence (Ming & Goldenberg, 2021), but also the quality […]

The messenger matters: New research shows peers better than teachers at academic motivation

Posted by Andy Henion “Why do I have to learn this?” is a common question among young adults. New research suggests an answer from their peers has more weight than one from their teachers. University students who received a rationale for why learning is important from people similar to them—in this case actors posing as young professionals—wrote […]

WT Grant Foundation: Reducing Educational Inequality After the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Adam Gamoran and Richard J. Murnane, reprinted from the William T. Grant Foundation When President Barack Obama declared in December 2013 that the stifling combination of growing inequality and lack of upward mobility constituted “the defining challenge of our time,” he pointed to education as a pathway to economic opportunity (Obama, 2013).1 Nevertheless, the […]

Profiles in Mentoring: Aisha Griffith on afterschool mentoring

Interviewed by Cyanea Poon Dr. Aisha Griffith is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the development and function of supportive relationships between adolescents and non-parental adults within informal and formal learning contexts. She is particularly interested in the critical role of trust within youth-adult relationships […]

Do you have a teenage mentee who is anxious, worried, or stressed? Mindtrails is now recruiting!