Impact of an integral mentoring program on the development of personal competencies

Abstract

Integral mentoring refers to the process by which an expert mentor accompanies the student in the harmonious growth of all their dimensions through the development of personal competencies. Competencies such as personal knowledge and acceptance, search for meaning in life, proactivity, self-management and achievement orientation. This research seeks to contribute theoretically and empirically to the debate on the concept of mentoring and its effectiveness in developing personal competencies by offering results from the application of an integral mentoring program in a Spanish university. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study was carried out with a control group. The sample consisted of 610 university students from Madrid. A reliable and valid questionnaire on competencies was used as a measurement instrument. The results show significant differences in the level of acquisition of intrapersonal competencies in favor of the university students who received the integral mentoring program. This article also proposes best practices for the design of integral mentoring programs.