Appendix A:
Interview Protocols for Student Participants and Mentors
FIRST INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR 1995 STUDENT PARTICIPANTS
DISTRIBUTED MENTOR PROJECT (edited 6/23/95)
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS
Can you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?
[Where they are from, size of high school, etc.]
What year in school are you? [If we don't already know.]
When do you expect to graduate?
QUESTIONS ABOUT SPECIFIC MAJOR/AREA
What is your major? Are you concentrating in a particular area?
What things played a role in your decision to go into that major/area?
What interests you the most about your major/area?
Do you have any concerns about going into this major/area?
Is there a graduate program in your area at your school?
FAMILY SUPPORT
Is there anyone or anything that has been particularly influential in your choice of major?
How does your family feel about your career choices?
What do the people in your family do?
(parents, siblings, grandparents - whoever has an influence) [Family support issues, and also degree of education of parents].
PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND TEAMWORK EXPERIENCES
How is research conducted in your field?
What is the value of research in your field?
[PROBE: Do they think that there is any value?]
Have you had any previous experiences with research?
What did you think of those experiences?
Have you ever worked as part of a team on a project?
What did you think of those experiences?
OTHER MENTORS
How have you gotten advice about your major - your classes, etc?
If you had to have someone give you a reference or write you a letter of recommendation, who would it be?
Why would you ask that person?
What if you needed other references or letters of recommendation?
Are there any people in your field that you particularly respect? What stands out about those people?
DEPARTMENT ATMOSPHERE
Do you feel like you are a part of the department?
Do you know many faculty in your department?
How did you get to know them?
Do you know many undergraduates in your department?
How did you get to know them?
Are most of your friends in school in your department?
Are there many women in your department?
How do you feel about this?
FUTURE PLANS
At this point, what are you planning to do during after you graduate? [Immediately and long term]
What kinds of things are important to you in making that decision? [What factors are playing a role in this decision?]
{If they are planning to go to graduate school at some point...}
How will you find out about different graduate schools?
What kinds of things are important to you in a school?
What area are you planning to go into?
What degree are you planning to get?
What aspects of graduate school appeal to you?
Do you have any concerns about graduate school?
What are you hoping to get out of graduate school?
Is there anything that has helped prepare you for graduate school?
{If they are planning to get a job...}
What kinds of things are important to you in a job?
How will you find out about different jobs?
What aspects of {whatever they're planning to do} appeal to you?
Do you have any concerns about {whatever}?
What are you hoping to get out of your job?
Is there anything that has helped prepare you for {whatever}?
Ask all interviewees
Are there benefits to working for a Master's Degree in your field?
Are there disadvantages?
Are there benefits to working for a PhD in your field?
Are there disadvantages?
Do you know any graduate students in your specific area?
What do you think of their experiences?
Do you know any other students in your area who did not go on to graduate school?
What do you think of their experiences?
PROGRAM INFORMATION
How did you hear about the mentoring program?
What aspects of the program interested you?
What are you hoping to get out of your experience this summer?
Why are those things important to you?
[PROBE: research, mentor, university culture]
Do you have any concerns about being in this program?
Why do you think that all of the mentors are women?
How do you feel about that?
Why do you think that the program is only offered to women?
How do you feel about that?
What would you have done this summer if you had not been in this program?
[Note: this will provide some basis of comparison for the control group.]
SECOND INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR 1995 STUDENT PARTICIPANTS
DISTRIBUTED MENTOR PROJECT (edited 8/08/95)
OVERVIEW
Overall, what stands out about the program for you?
[Probe, and get specifics.]
Did this program turn out to be what you had expected?
[Probe]
RESEARCH ASPECT
What kind of research does your mentor do?
Tell me about the project that you worked on.
[Probe for how much time they had to spend preparing to work on a project.]
Who decided what you would work on?
Did you work on a single project throughout the summer?
Was your research part of a larger project?
Did you work on your own, or with other people?
What was the role of your mentor in the research project?
When you had questions about the project, who did you turn to?
How available was that person to you?
Did you finish the project this summer?
What will you do with your research result for this project?
Will the results of your research be published, either on its own or as part of a larger project?
Before the program started, did you expect that you might end up with a publication?
Do you feel that the work that you did this summer was important?
Did you learn anything new about the process of doing research? [If so, what? If not, why?]
Now that you've completed the summer, what are your feelings about research?
[Probe about whether this is what she expected.]
MENTOR ASPECT
Tell me about your relationship with your mentor.
Was this what you expected?
How often did you see your mentor?
[Probe for the contexts in which she saw her mentor: in a group once a week, socially, etc.]
Did you talk to your mentor about her own experiences in graduate school and in her career?
[If yes, was talking to her about those kinds of things an important part of the program for you?]
[If no, would you have liked to have talked about these kinds of things with your mentor?]
Would you want to be like your mentor?
Was having a female mentor important to you?
[If so, why? If not, why not?]
UNIVERSITY ASPECT
Where are you living during the program?
Who arranged the housing?
Do you live with graduate students?
If yes, then are any of them in your area?
What do you think of the housing arrangements?
Did you meet many graduate students? How?
What did you think of them?
What did you think of their experiences at the university?
Did you meet many faculty members? How?
What did you think of them?
What is your impression of graduate school?
Has participating in this program changed your view of graduate school at all?
What do you think of {this university} as a place to go to graduate school?
OVERALL PROGRAM
Is there anything that would have made the program better for you?
Is there anything that you wish you had known about the program before you started?
Did this program affect your future career plans?
[If so, how? If not, why?]
Do you feel you can succeed in grad school? [PROBE]
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR 1994 STUDENT PARTICIPANTS
(edited 8/17/95)
BACKGROUND QUESTIONS
Can you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?
[Where they are from, size of high school, etc.]
What year in school are you? [If we don't already know.]
When do you expect to graduate?
QUESTIONS ABOUT SPECIFIC MAJOR/AREA
What is your major? Are you concentrating in a particular area?
What things played a role in your decision to go into that major/area?
What interests you the most about your major/area?
Do you have any concerns about going into this major/area?
[Concerns about the area or about going into it? Rephrase?]
Is there a graduate program in your area at your school?
FAMILY SUPPORT
Is there anyone or anything that has been particularly influential in your choice of major?
How does your family feel about your career choices?
What do the people in your family do?
(parents, siblings, grandparents - whoever has an influence) [Family support issues, and also degree of education of parents].
PREVIOUS RESEARCH AND TEAMWORK EXPERIENCES
Other than the program, have you had any experiences with research?
What did you think of those experiences?
Have you ever worked as part of a team on a project?
What did you think of those experiences?
MENTORS
How have you gotten advice about your major - your classes, etc?
If you had to have someone give you a reference or write you a letter of recommendation, who would it be?
Why would you ask that person?
What if you needed other references or letters of recommendation?
Are there any people in your field that you particularly respect? What stands out about those people?
DEPARTMENT ATMOSPHERE
Do you feel like you are a part of the department?
Do you know many faculty in your department?
How did you get to know them?
Do you know many undergraduates in your department?
How did you get to know them?
Are most of your friends in school in your department?
Are there many women in your department?
How do you feel about this?
FUTURE PLANS
At this point, what are you planning to do during after you graduate? [Immediately and long term]
What kinds of things are important to you in making that decision? [What factors are playing a role in this decision?]
{If they are planning to go to graduate school at some point...}
How will you find out about different graduate schools?
What kinds of things are important to you in a school?
What area are you planning to go into?
What degree are you planning to get?
What aspects of graduate school appeal to you?
Do you have any concerns about graduate school?
What are you hoping to get out of graduate school?
Is there anything that has helped prepare you for graduate school?
{If they are planning to get a job...}
What kinds of things are important to you in a job?
How will you find out about different jobs?
What aspects of {whatever they're planning to do} appeal to you?
Do you have any concerns about {whatever}?
What are you hoping to get out of your job?
Is there anything that has helped prepare you for {whatever}?
Ask all interviewees
Are there benefits to working for a Master's Degree in your field?
Are there disadvantages?
Are there benefits to working for a PhD in your field?
Are there disadvantages?
Do you know any graduate students in your specific area?
What do you think of their experiences?
Do you know any other students in your area who did not go on to graduate school?
What do you think of their experiences?
PROGRAM INFORMATION
How did you hear about the mentoring program?
What aspects of the program interested you?
What did you expect to get out of your experience?
. Why were those things important to you?
Did you have any concerns about being in this program?
Tell me about that summer.
[Probe: daily schedule]
RESEARCH ASPECT OF PROGRAM
What did you work on over the summer?
[Probe: was there one project or several?]
Who decided what you would do?
Did you work on your own, or with someone else?
Had you ever done anything like this before?
What did you think of the research?
MENTOR ASPECT OF PROGRAM
Did you know your mentor before the program?
How did you first get in touch with each other?
What did your mentor do over the summer?
[Probe: How often did they meet? Did she work on the project at all?]
What did you think of having a mentor?
Why do you think that all of the mentors are women?
How do you feel about that?
Why do you think that the program is only offered to women?
How do you feel about that?
UNIVERSITY ASPECT OF PROGRAM
Where did you live during the program?
Who arranged the housing?
Did you live with graduate students?
What did you think of the housing arrangements?
Did you meet many graduate at the university?
How did you meet them?
What did you think of them?
What did you think of their experiences at the university?
Did you meet many faculty at the university?
How did you meet them?
What did you think of them?
Why do you think the summer program takes place at a university?
What do you think of that?
OVERALL PROGRAM
What were the most positive aspects of the program for you?
What were the most negative aspects of the program for you?
Would you participate again?
If you did the program again, would you want to change anything?
What advice would you give to someone who was considering participating in this program?
What would you have done that summer if you had not been in this program?
[Note: this will provide some basis of comparison for the control group.]
Have you communicated with your mentor since the program ended? (Would you consider them a resource/reference?)
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR MENTORS WHO PARTICIPATED IN 1994 AND/or 1995 (edited 8/14/95)
BACKGROUND
Can you start by telling me a little bit about yourself?
[How they got started in their career, whether or not they are tenured and if that affects their work.]
What is your area?
What has been your experience in helping undergraduates to do research?
What has been your experience in mentoring undergraduates?
MENTORING PROGRAM
How did you hear about the mentoring program?
Why did you get involved? [PROBE: Was it important that it was only for female undergraduates?]
Why did you participate a second time?
What did you expect to get out of your experience when you first decided to participate?
Why were those things important to you?
Did your expectations change the second year? [If so, how? If not, why?]
In 1994, before the program started, did you have any concerns about participating?
{Did those things happen?}
Did you have any concerns the second time about participating? Did those things happen?
What was your role in the program each year?
RESEARCH ASPECT OF PROGRAM
Each year, how did you decide what the student would work on?
Why did you structure it that way?
Who supervised her research?
[If someone else supervised the student]
Did {whoever} volunteer to work with an undergraduate, or did you assign them?
How did the match work out for the mentee?
How did the match work out for the supervisor?
What did you think of the work that your student each year did?
In what ways were you involved with your student's research each year?
[Probe: How often did they meet? Did she work on the project at all?]
MENTOR ASPECT OF PROGRAM
What did you think of the mentoring aspect of the program?
OVERALL
[If not covered elsewhere]
Compare/Contrast your experiences from the two years in which you participated in the program.
What stands out about the program for you?
What would have improved the program for you?
Would you participate again?
If you did the program again, would you want to change anything?
What advice would you give to someone who was considering participating in this program as a mentor?
What advice would you give to an undergraduate who was considering participating in this program?