| The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a variety of mentoring methods on students' attitudes toward science, academic performance and retention of classroom science material. Subjects for the research were seventy-one biology students at Brevard Community College located in Cocoa, Florida. Two NASA mentors provided real world applications of academic concepts being learned in an introductory biology class. The mentors worked with one class via videoconferencing and with another class in a face-to-face mode. A third class served as a control group. The study took place in the fall, 2001. Results indicated students' attitudes toward science changed over time, with the mentored classes having the higher interest scores on four of five interest subscales. The electronically mentored class had the highest mean on three of the five interest subscales. Student performance was also positively affected in the mentored classes. No significant increased retention of assigned science material was found. |
