The perceived costs and benefits of mentoring college students with intellectual disability on stereotype consistent and inconsistent tasks.
Frame college peer mentoring for students with ID around academic tasks to boost mentor buy-in and perceived value.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Pettingell et al. (2022) asked college mentors to rate the costs and benefits of helping a peer with intellectual disability.
The survey compared two kinds of help: academic tasks like editing a paper and social tasks like eating lunch together.
All mentors were students in inclusive post-secondary programs.
What they found
Mentors saw bigger personal and relational pay-offs when the work was academic.
They still liked social time, but the classroom-linked roles felt more useful and rewarding.
The study found positive results for academic framing.
How this fits with other research
Smit et al. (2019) already showed that one semester of mentoring lowers discomfort and raises willingness to interact. Pettingell et al. (2022) extend that idea by pointing to which tasks make mentors stay engaged.
Dall et al. (1997) tracked grades and class work of elementary peer helpers and saw real academic gains for the helpers. The new college data echo the same helper-benefit pattern, showing the effect survives across ages and settings.
Sarrett (2018) reports that autistic students want more peer mentorship on campus. Pettingell et al. (2022) supply the practical tip: make those campus roles academic first to keep mentors on board.
Why it matters
If you run or supervise inclusive college programs, lead with academic pairings. Ask mentors to co-review lecture notes, share study guides, or rehearse presentations before you schedule purely social outings. This small shift can raise mentor satisfaction, cut turnover, and still give students with ID the full campus experience.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: According to the stereotype content model, individuals with intellectual disability are perceived as having greater warmth-related traits (e.g. sociable and humorous) and fewer competence-related traits (e.g. independence and intelligence). METHODS: We examined college students' perceived costs and benefits of mentoring peers with intellectual disability on stereotype-consistent (i.e. socially oriented) or inconsistent (i.e. academically oriented) tasks. Participants read about peer mentoring programmes that helped college students with or without intellectual disability on socially or academically oriented tasks before reporting their perceived costs and benefits of peer mentoring. RESULTS: Mentoring students with intellectual disability was associated with greater benefits (i.e. connectedness between mentors and students, student utility and mentor benefits) on academically oriented tasks but greater costs for mentors on socially oriented tasks. Additionally, participants reported that they would experience greater positive feelings if they were to mentor a student with an intellectual disability. However, the perceived benefits to the student and some costs (i.e. discomfort, paternalism and costs to student) were not influenced by whether the student had an intellectual disability and the type of mentoring task. DISCUSSION: Results indicate individuals find greater rewards working with individuals with intellectual disability on stereotype-inconsistent tasks and offer suggestions for postsecondary education peer mentoring programmes.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2022 · doi:10.1111/jir.12960