Date of Award

4-1995

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Dr. Douglas V. Davidson

Second Advisor

Dr. Donald T. Thompson

Third Advisor

Dr. Lewis Walker

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived effectiveness of the mentoring relationship on the leadership behavior of female mentees in a community leaders program. More specifically, the researcher was concerned with what effects do the variables age, residence location, and family position have on aggressiveness, amount of influence, respect of knowledge, parental substitute and supportiveness components of leadership behavior among adolescent female mentees.

The target population consisted of 47 African-American adolescent females ages 14 through 18 years old attending the Community Leadership Program (CLP) based in Battle Creek, Michigan. The major data-gathering scale used, The Mentoring Leadership Survey, was designed and developed by the researcher. Scale one of the Mentoring Leadership Survey consisted of thirty-eight items under five subscales. The second scale of the survey contained three demographic items.

Inasmuch as the instrument yielded interval scaled data for the independent variable, and nominal or ordinal scaled data for the dependent variable, a parametric procedure was used. The parametric procedure employed in this study was the One-Way Analysis of Variance. If a difference was found among the sample means, the Scheffe' Method, a Post Hoc test used to determine whether the difference can be attributed to random sampling fluctuation (Pinkel, Wiersman & Jurs, 1994). All hypotheses were tested at the .05 Alpha level or better.

The data revealed that older African-American female mentees exhibited more favorable perceptions toward the effectiveness of a mentoring relationship on various components of leadership behavior than their younger counterparts. Another important finding of the study was the lack of total influence of the variables family position and residence status on the leadership behavior of African- American female mentees.

Discussion of the results includes implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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