ABSTRACT:
Difficulties in adapting to the university context often influence freshmen’s motivation to persist. A mentoring program can promote persistence by easing the difficulties in the transition to the University. Based on this, a exploratory study was carried out in a mentoring program in a physics teacher training undergraduate course, in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). For this, a questionnaire was applied and interviews were carried out based on the Vincent Tinto’s Model of Student Motivation and Persistence. The research was guided by the following research question: How the actions promoted by a mentoring program influence the motivation for the persistence of undergraduates in Physics? It was identified that the mentoring can influence freshmen’s motivations to persist especially when mentors: prepare them for assessments; provide course and institution information; and inspire and motivate the freshman to continue on to graduation.
Keywords:
Mentoring; Student Persistence; Physics Teacher Training