Empowering Mentors: The Impact of Peer to Peer Mentoring Relationships on Mentors' Prosocial Attitudes

“Más Allá de 11” is a one-to-one mentoring program that aims at building bridges between high school students (mentees) from disadvantaged backgrounds and university students (mentors), thereby introducing a potential role model from a different socio-economic background into the high school students’ social network. The intervention is designed to last from 9 to 12 months, during which mentors accompany students through their final year at school. Mentors and mentees are matched, taking into account career interests and gender. After the matching, the program kicks off with a first group meeting where all mentors and mentees participate, giving the pairs a chance to get to know each other in a more regulated environment but also to learn techniques to work together on the mentee’s goals. After this first meeting, mentors and mentees are incentivized to meet on a biweekly basis, which allows them to tailor the sessions to the individual needs and preferences of the mentee and guarantees a high level of flexibility. The program offers monthly subsidies to cover the costs of the meetings. The subsidies vary depending on the number of meetings registered by each pair each month. “Más Allá de 11” is implemented in three cohorts, starting in 2021 and ending in 2024, and is part of a research project analyzing its impact on mentees’ outcomes. The study was pre-registered at the AEA RCT registry on October 18, 2021 (RCT ID: AEARCTR-0004709). The impact of this mentoring program on mentors’ outcomes is measured only for cohort 2 and cohort 3 (2022-2023; 2023-2024). A subsample of mentors is randomly assigned to receive a mentee (treatment) or not (control). To recruit mentors, the program is advertised at different universities in Bogotá. Interested parties should register their contact information and field of study on an online platform. Registered mentors are invited to a training session in which the structure of the program and course of action in emergency situations are explained. Only mentors attending the training session are eligible to be randomized.

2023-11-15

2024-12-31

-Generosity towards low-income individuals
-Inequality aversion
-Support for redistribution policies
-Beliefs about the trustworthiness of low-income individuals

-Generosity: share given to poor recipient in a standard dictator game.
-Inequality Aversion: indicator for choosing the more egalitarian option in a binary choice dictator game.
-Support for Redistribution Policies: Index of preferences for redistribution, following the approach in Anderson (2008). Support is measured on a 1 to 7 Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.
-Beliefs about the trustworthiness of the poor: estimated likelihood of return promises in a binary trust game with promises.

Perceptions of poverty rate in Colombia
Perceptions of income distribution in Colombia
Perceptions of upward and downward mobility
Fairness Views
Perceptions on the Unfairness of Inequality and the Role of Effort
Support for financial aid policies for low-income students
Risk Aversion

Step 1: the mentoring program is advertised at universities in Bogotá. Interested mentors should register for the program, using an online survey in which the following information is asked:
1. Whether they are currently working, and if yes, in which sector
2. Their current study field and level of education
3. Number of semesters that they have been at the university studying 4. If they have already completed a degree, and when
5. The number of courses they are currently taking
6. The university where they are studying or have graduated
7. Whether they have a scholarship to finance their studies
8. Their motivation to be a mentor
9. Whether they have volunteered before in any other program
Step 2: Eligible mentors are invited to training sessions. Mentors are eligible if:
-They are less than 35 years old
-They are based in Bogotá and will be living in Bogotá for the next 12 months
Step 3: Several training sessions are offered, both online and in person.
For the first cohort of mentors (2022-2023), 18% of the mentors were trained in physical meetings, and 82% were trained in virtual meetings. For the second cohort of mentors (2023-2024), 20% of the mentors were trained in physical meetings, and 80% were trained in virtual meetings.
Step 4: Order the mentors who attended a training session by gender and type of university where they study. Remove mentors who registered but never attended a training session.
Step 5: Randomly select into treatment the number of female and male mentors needed to match with available male and female mentees.

Not available

Done in office by a computer

Individual (Mentors)

No

0

522 mentors

327 in treatment group
195 in control group