Analysis of On-Line Communication in a Mentoring Project

Telementoring potentially extends opportunities to§many more students and will allow mentors to§participate, who otherwise would find the time§investment prohibitive (Muller, 1997). The§integration of telecommunication opportunities has§removed many of the obstacles, such as time and§space, which have doomed mentoring relationships that§did not employ telecommunications technology (Noe,§1988). Understanding the nature of communication§between participants involved in telementoring§programs requires the systematic study of said§communication. This research focused upon the nature§of on-line communications in a curriculum-based§project that involved secondary students who§electronic mail to mentor middle school students. §On-line communications included character count, word§count, and sentence count of electronic mail§correspondence. One purpose of this study was to§determine whether there are significant differences§in the on-line communications of middle school§students with regard to gender and grade level. §Another purpose of this study was to determine if§significant differences existed between middle school§and secondary school participants.