Subject: [Mentoring-coordinators] Survey of mentees

From: Brian Haberman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:13:55 -0400

All,
     Several of us met on Thursday to discuss the mentoring program
going forward.  One of the topics raised was soliciting feedback from
the mentees to get their view of the program.  I was able to dig up the
survey we used for IETF 87.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sAtFmaWfyByiIXBB0PUC277gfhDMza2Ci9c0Cfk9EBA/viewform

     Are there additional questions we would like answered by the mentees?

Regards,
Brian

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From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:17:44 -0500

And are there questions here that didn't give us useful information?

I think we used these:
1) Did you meet your mentor in person in Berlin?
3) How much time did you spend in Berlin with your mentor?
7) Was your mentor able to answer questions that you had, or find other 
participants to answer them?
8) Do you think the mentoring program helped you understand the IETF and 
its work?
10) Would you recommend the mentoring program to other new participants?
12) What should be changed about the mentoring program to make it more 
effective for you and future participants?
13) What was the best part of the mentoring program experience for you 
so far?

I don't think we've used these and suggest removing them (yes, I see how 
they _might_ have been useful, but I assert they haven't been. Am I wrong?)
2) Did you communicate with your mentor prior to arriving in Berlin?
4) Did you attend any meeting sessions with your mentor?
5) Did you meet with your mentor at other times or for reasons?
6) Did your mentor introduce you to other IETF participants?
9) Was your mentor effective in your making your attendance at the IETF 
meeting productive?

I think we're sending mixed messages and gathering conflated (hence not 
so useful) data with this:
11) Have you been keeping in touch with your mentor since leaving 
Berlin, or are you planning to?

This is effectively asking if they've become friends. What I think we're 
after is whether they are going
to explicitly continue in the mentoring roles. And I think we're asking 
the wrong person - the mentor
will give us a better answer. Further, the question we really want to 
answer is "are you willing to take
on a new person for mentoring at the next meeting".

So, I think we should remove that one from the survey as well.

I propose that we add a question about whether the meet-greet session is 
working as a rendezvous mechanism (please wordsmith, and ignore if you 
don't agree that the results would be useful - my intent is to determine 
if the meet and greet is the right kickoff point).
*) Did you meet with your mentor at the newcomer's meet and greet 
session (Y/N)
*) Did the time at the newcomer's meet and greet session help you and 
your mentor get started on answering your questions? (Y/N)

RjS

On 3/11/14, 7:13 AM, Brian Haberman wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> mentoring-coordinators mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mentoring-coordinators

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From: Karen ODonoghue <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:20:18 -0400

So, I was wondering about a few things...

Are the results of the previous survey available somewhere? Did we do a 
similar survey for mentors? I'm curious how we used the answers 
(referencing Robert's second set of questions below).

Do we want a last more open ended question along the lines of "Do you 
have any other comments or suggestions about the mentoring program?" I 
know there is a whole science around constructing surveys, and this is 
probably a taboo question, but given that the sample size is fairly 
small, I'd be curious just what people are thinking about the program.

Otherwise, the questions all seem reasonable enough to me, and I'm not 
sure I have enough experience with the process or the previous results 
to provide substantive input.

Karen

On 3/11/14 11:17 AM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> 7) Was your mentor able to answer questions that you had, or find 
> other participants to answer them?
> 8) Do you think the mentoring program helped you understand the IETF 
> and its work?
> I don't think we've used these and suggest removing them (yes, I see 
> how they _might_ have been useful, but I assert they haven't been. Am 
> I wrong?)
> 9) Was your mentor effective in your making your attendance at the 
> IETF meeting productive?
>
> I think we're sending mixed messages and gathering conflated (hence 
> not so useful) data with this:
> This is effectively asking if they've become friends. What I think 
> we're after is whether they are going
> to explicitly continue in the mentoring roles. And I think we're 
> asking the wrong person - the mentor
> I propose that we add a question about whether the meet-greet session 
> is working as a rendezvous mechanism (please wordsmith, and ignore if 
> you don't agree that the results would be useful - my intent is to 
> determine if the meet and greet is the right kickoff point).