ABSTRACT
College can be a trying and difficult time for many students, and some experience increased levels of stress and mental health challenges during college. Finding opportunities that increase students' flourishing may assist with offsetting the stress of college. Flourishing is defined as having self-perceived success in supportive relationships, optimism, feelings of purpose and self-esteem (Diener et al., 2010). Emerging research suggests that serving as a mentor to youth within the community may be associated with college students' flourishing by promoting positive interpersonal connections (Maples et al., 2020). While theoretically promising, empirical research in this area is limited. The aim of this two-study dissertation was to address this gap in the literature by (a) examining the specific experiences of college students participating in a mentoring-based program (e.g., relationships with youth, staff, and peers, personal skill development) that contributed to flourishing (i.e., Study 1), (b) testing whether participation in a service-learning course where college students mentor youth within the community was associated with higher flourishing as compared to college students not enrolled in the course (i.e., Study 2), and (c) testing whether mental health challenges (i.e., anxiety and depression) moderated the effect of youth mentoring service-learning on flourishing (i.e., Study 2). Participants (N = 9;all female) for Study 1 were recruited from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities YMCA (UY) Y Tutors program, a voluntary youth mentoring program where college students from the University of Minnesota mentor youth in an after school setting. Following a descriptive qualitative mixed method phenomenological study, I identified aspects of the mentoring experience that appear to have contributed to college students' experience of flourishing. Specifically, participants in this study described positive relationships and active engagement, a sense of purpose, hope for their future and opportunities for personal and professional growth related to their experiences at the UY. Participants (N=563;17-41 years old;Mage=20.06) for Study 2 were recruited from a university service-learning youth mentoring program (Campus Connections;CC) at Colorado State University (CSU) and from a participant pool at CSU (psychology courses and HDFS courses). CC is an on-campus mentoring intervention that serves at-risk youth by providing mentoring relationships with college students at CSU, however in this study all mentoring was conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a pre-post, quasi-experimental design, I investigated the differences in post-intervention flourishing scores between college students enrolled in CC compared to college students not enrolled in the program controlling for identified covariates and baseline flourishing. Additionally, I explored whether baseline mental health challenges (i.e., anxiety and depression) moderated the impact of youth mentoring service-learning on flourishing. Findings indicate that participating in a service-learning youth mentoring program had a positive impact on flourishing scores, and mental health challenges (i.e., anxiety and depression) did not moderate the relationship CC had on flourishing. Future research should continue to investigate the relationships between participating in youth mentoring, flourishing and mental health challenges, as well as further understanding the unique components of youth mentoring programs that lead to flourishing. Together, these studies advance the understanding of how participating in a youth mentoring program impacts flourishing for college students and holds important implications for mentoring programs and university personnel. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)