A seminar on proposed research that concentrates on the measurement and analysis of the short-term effectiveness when mentoring African-American STEM doctoral students using relational agents compared to other forms of telementoring media.
This research would include the development of a relational agent and studying the effects that the agent has on student participants. The results collected should be compared to the results collected from participants using other forms of telementoring media such as video recordings, audio recordings and electronic documents. Because the scope of this research focuses on African-American STEM doctoral students, it is important to define their unique mentorship needs as well as their specific needs and barriers. In order to produce empirical results, an evaluation methodology must be defined. The results collected from this study aim to suggest effective and ineffective ways to electronically mentor this unique population.
