Impact of Mentoring Relationships on Perceived Quality Of Life among Engineering Graduate Students

Abstract

Graduate students’ experiences bring on unprecedented challenges, influenced by physical, psychological, social, and environmental factors. Through a productive and authentic mentor-mentee relationship, it was hypothesized graduate students would be more satisfied with their graduate experience. An instrument was developed using the 26-item World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire consisting of four health domains (physical, psychological, social relationships, environmental) and additional questions on psychosocial help and the graduate student’s satisfaction with their advisors and overall graduate school experience. Overall, graduate students who were satisfied with their mentoring experience had a higher quality of life (QoL). Graduate students’ QoL was lower in social relationships (p=0.009) and psychological domains (p=0.000), similar to medical school students. Second- and third-year graduate students had lower QoL than those in the first or fourth+ year. Graduate students were satisfied with their overall mentoring experience, and better mentoring experience tended to have better QoL.