Literature Review: Current State of Mentoring in Brief
While numerous studies have individual and family differences relating to the entry into and retention of women in S&E, Hanson (2001) found that very few family variables have an impact on the decision to pursue a career in science. Rather, the gender disadvantage seems to be that women tend to have less access to mentoring and mentor relationships.
Meinholdt and Murray (1999) found that male engineering students receive more support from peers and mentors than do women. It was further found that males are more confident about their success in engineering due in part to their network of mentors.
Other studies have replicated these types of findings. A study of self-efficacy in women and minorities found that women did not rely totally on skill to succeed in careers in which women are typically under represented; instead, women relied on people with whom they had positive relationships ( Coyle, 2001) .
Not only do faculty interpret having mentors as invaluable, but research shows that women faculty believe that the success of female students is more tied to aligning themselves with the proper faculty than is due to skill (Fox, 2003) . Women are more likely to act as primary advisors to female doctoral students, have more female students on research teams, and see advisors as a mentor, as compared to men (Fox 2003) . Unfortunately, surveys of female faculty indicate that the current network of mentors for women is severely lacking (Riger et al. 1997) .