The Moderating Effect of Age on Low-Income Students' Relationships With Mentors and Their Self-Efficacy Since COVID-19

Jaewon Lee; Jennifer Allen; Hyejung Lim; Gyuhyun Choi; Jiyu Jung

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.800385

The Moderating Effect of Age on Low-Income Students' Relationships With Mentors and Their Self-Efficacy Since COVID-19

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 8:13:800385. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.800385. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Jaewon Lee¹, Jennifer Allen², Hyejung Lim³, Gyuhyun Choi⁴, Jiyu Jung⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Social Welfare, Inha University, Incheon, South Korea.
² School of Social Work, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
³ School of Education, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea.
⁴ Integrative Arts Therapy, Dongduk Women's University, Seoul, South Korea.
⁵ Korea Development Bank Foundation, Seoul, South Korea.

Abstract

Purposes: This study investigates the moderating effect of age on the association between relationship with mentors and self-efficacy among low-income students.

Methods: A total of 255 low-income middle and high school students participated. The PROCESS macro 3.4 for Statistical Product and Service Solutions was employed to test the moderating effect.

Results: Quality of relationship between mentors and mentees was positively associated with mentees' self-efficacy. Students' age significantly moderated the association between quality of the relationship with mentors and self-efficacy.

Discussion: It is important to expand mentorship programs for low-income students during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to foster high self-efficacy among adolescents. Recruitment of high quality mentors and additional factors that may be helpful to a good relationship between mentees and mentors, such as mentor training, mentor screening, and mentor-mentee matching, should be prioritized to improve self-efficacy among low-income students since COVID-19. Early opportunities for mentoring from high quality mentors is particularly important to increase self-efficacy among younger students such as middle school students.

Keywords: COVID-19; age; low-income students; mentors; self-efficacy.