When perceived similarity overrides demographic similarity: examining influences on STEM students’ developmental mentor networks

International Journal of STEM Education

Table 1 Summary of descriptive statistics for mentees (n = 322) and mentors (observations = 822) characteristics (reported by the mentee)

	White (n = 155)		Hispanic/Latino(a) (n = 167)		Chi-square difference test
Variable	n	(%)	n	(%)
Mentee characteristics
Mentee Gender
Woman	76	49.0	94	56.3	1.70
Man	78	50.3	72	43.1	1.67
Other	1	0.65	1	0.60	.003
Mentee Race/Ethnicity (Choose all that apply)
African American/Black	0	0	1	31	.93
Asian	6	3.9	5	3	.19
Hawaiian/Pacific Islander	1	.6	1	.7	.003
Hispanic/Latino(a)	11	7.1	167	100	280.66***
Native American/Native Alaskan	0	0	3	1.8	2.81
White	155	100	14	8.4	258.87***
Other (Please Specify)	5	3.2	1	0.6	3.03
Multi-Racial/Multi-Ethnic	19	12.3	23	13.8	.35
Major
Science	72	46.5	82	49.1	.23
Computer Science	14	9.0	15	8.98	.0002
Engineering	50	32.3	52	31.1	.05
Mathematics	8	5.2	12	7.2	.57
Software Engineering	8	5.2	3	1.8	2.76
Non-STEM/STEM-Related	3	1.9	3	1.8	.01
Class Rank
Junior	29	18.7	21	12.6	2.31
Senior	114	73.6	130	77.8	.81
5th Year	12	7.7	16	9.6	.34
First Generation	39	21.2	120	72.9	70.12***
Undergraduate Research Experience	84	54.19	106	63.47	2.86
Internship Experience	64	41.29	84	50.3	2.63
Mentor Network Size

Students were nested within 12 universities (7.8% university 1, 7.8% university 2, 18.1% university 3, 13.3% university 4, 8.7% university 5, 12.9% university 6, 7.1% university 7, 3.3% university 8, 6.3% university 9, 4.2% university 10, 5.3% university 11, 5.4% university 12)
^*p ≤ .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001