Quantitative study of leadership self-efficacy and peer mentorship at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Abstract

This quantitative study was conducted to examine peer mentoring, gender, and leadership self-efficacy of students at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UW-La Crosse). Using the 2009 Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership instrument, a random sample of 4,000 students at UW-La Crosse were invited to participate in the study. A two-tailed t-test was used to examine if peer mentoring relationships made a significant difference in the leadership self-efficacy of UW-La Crosse students. This study found that students who engaged in peer mentoring relationships did have a significantly different leadership self-efficacy score than their peers who did not engage in peer mentoring activities. Additionally, a univariate analysis of variance was used to examine the differences that peer mentoring and gender had on leadership self-efficacy. While peer mentoring was found to have a significant difference, gender did not. The mean self-efficacy scores and standard deviations for the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse were compared against the averages of several comparison categories. The averages were very close, indicating that UW-La Crosse is on par with similar institutions regarding the leadership self-efficacy of their students.