EXPERIENCES IN HIGHER EDUCATION - LESSONS LEARNED FROM A TUTORIAL PROGRAM

The challenges faced by the European Higher Education Area over the last two decades, namely those presented by the Bologna Process, have placed an important emphasis on tutoring processes. It is suggested that tutoring, as an implicit function of learning and teaching, can address a number of academic, social and personal issues (Leidenfrost, Strassnig, Schabmann, Spiel, & Claus-Christian, 2011). As defined in the literature, tutoring is a type of developmental relationship that includes peer dyads composed of senior (teachers/tutors or older students/mentors) and junior individuals (undergraduate students/mentees), and focusses on the academic advancement and personal and social growth of the latter (Lunsford, Baker, Griffin, & Johnson, 2013). The interaction between tutor/mentors and mentees can assume a variety of forms and when implemented in the context of higher education have been found to be a win-win process with positive effects for mentees, as well as for mentors and tutors (Leidenfrost et al., 2011). The tutoring relationship is first and foremost one that inspires individual and systematic attention to the mentee as a whole person, and aims to humanize the students' workplace by facilitating integration and participation in all the activities that involve students' educational and personal development (Bean, Lucas, & Hyers, 2014). The Tutoring Program of the University of Aveiro (PT-UA), Portugal, implemented in 2011, was designed to ensure the comprehensive integration of new undergraduates with a view to enhancing academic success and personal well-being, while providing an effective and prompt response to those at risk of early drop-out and academic failure. Within this framework, the PT-UA was planned as a peer tutoring process where first-year students (mentees) are mentored by senior students (mentors) under teachers' (tutors') supervision. This program includes a set of workshops, talks and other sessions, oriented towards the development of transversal competences and the involvement of first year students in academic life. The purpose of this paper is to examine and contribute to knowledge about tutoring and mentoring processes in higher education, by detailing and disseminating this academic experience. It makes an empirical contribution based on the case of the PT-UA. Data was gathered based on document analysis and semi-structures interviews made to tutors, mentors and mentees. The results of the study recognize the benefits of the PT-UA, both in terms of added value for mentees, mentors and tutors and in terms of prevention of early drop out.