ABSTRACT

The number of students with disabilities attending higher education has been soaring. Support centres in the institutions provide assistance in the form of assistive technologies, private tutoring, meetings with counsellors, and workshops. Still, many students express lack of confidence and low self-esteem that extend beyond the academic sphere into their personal and social life. Using qualitative methods, this study examines a peer mentoring program in which the mentors are students with special needs, who, based on their strengths, provide assistance and mentoring to other students. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with these mentors. The analysis of the interviews sheds light on the participants’ narratives about the effect of mentoring on their academic success and their emotional and psychological well-being. Three central themes emerged from the interviews that describe the students’ transformation and improvement: (1) self-esteem; (2) self-efficacy; and (3) empowerment. These themes correspond with the significance and impact that students attribute to peer-mentoring. Thus, the study indicates that mentoring could be used as an additional therapeutic tool when working with students with special needs.

摘要

接受高等教育的残疾学生人数一直在猛增。机构内的支持中心以辅助技术、私人辅导、辅导员会议和研讨会等形式提供援助。尽管如此，许多学生仍表现出缺乏自信和自卑，这超出了学术领域，延伸到了他们的个人和社交生活中。本研究采用定性方法，研究了同伴指导计划，其中导师是有特殊需要的学生，他们根据自己的优势向其他学生提供帮助和指导。对这些导师进行了半结构化访谈。对访谈的分析揭示了参与者关于辅导对其学业成功以及情感和心理健康的影响的叙述。访谈中出现了三个中心主题，描述了学生的转变和进步：（1）自尊；(2)自我效能感；(3) 赋权。这些主题与学生认为同伴辅导的重要性和影响相对应。因此，该研究表明，在与有特殊需要的学生一起工作时，指导可以用作额外的治疗工具。