Date: Sunday, July 26, 2026
Hello AEA365 community! I’m Eunice Oduro, a PhD student in the Educational Research Methodology Program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
“What really counts as mentorship?” As an emerging evaluator, I have been reflecting on this question. Although mentorship is often encouraged in professional spaces, its meaning is not always clear in practice. Mentorship may include guidance during graduate training, support through collaborative projects, sponsorship in professional spaces such as conferences, and other kinds of encouragement that shape professional growth.
Across the literature and professional resources I reviewed, one idea stood out: mentorship is more than occasional advice. It is a developmental relationship that can shape how mentors and mentees learn, grow, and navigate the evaluation field.
Mentorship is developmental. Mentorship is not simply about giving advice or helping someone complete a task. At its best, it is a mutually supportive relationship that helps mentors and mentees to learn, reflect, and grow over time. Through dialogue, guidance, and reflection, mentorship can strengthen skills, build confidence, and support professional identity development. In evaluation, this may involve working together on real evaluation tasks, discussing professional decisions, connecting academic training to practice, and reflecting on strengths, areas for growth, and future aspirations.
Culturally responsive mentorship matters. Effective mentorship should also be culturally responsive. Identity and context shape academic and career development, and mentors should move beyond “colorblind” approaches toward practices that acknowledge the lived experience, belonging and opportunity. Montgomery and Page’s work on multi-mentor systems reminds us that culturally relevant mentoring should attend not only to the individual relationships but also to the broader institutional and social contexts that shape access and inclusion. This matters because mentorship is notexperienced the same way by everyone. Culturally responsive mentorship calls for greater awareness of how identity, context, and inequity shape trust, growth, and professional opportunity.
Mentorship can take many forms. Mentorship is multifaceted rather than monolithic. Mentors may serve as teachers, sponsors, counselors, guides, and exemplars. This broader understanding shows that mentorship extends beyond providing advice. At times, mentorship may involve encouragement and affirmation; at other times, it may require constructive challenge, honest feedback, critical questioning, advocacy, or opening doors to new opportunities.
Mentorship supports career growth. Mentorship matters not only for encouragement but also for long-term career development. There are several ways mentors can support mentees, including skill development, problem-solving, decision-making, goal-setting, strategy, and networking. For mentees, this support can make career pathways more visible and easier to navigate. For mentors, it is a reminder that their influence may extend beyond immediate advice and shape how someone prepares for their future in the field.
Mentorship is part of evaluator professional development. The American Evaluation Association’s Guiding Principles, particularly Principle B4 under Competence, emphasize that evaluators should engage in ongoing personal and professional learning through formal and informal education, training, and practice. This suggests that evaluator growth occurs not only through coursework or structured training, but also through relationships, dialogue, feedback, and shared experience. Mentorship offers a meaningful pathway for evaluators to strengthen competence, reflect on practice, and develop their professional identity.
Trust and intentionality matter. Meaningful mentorship depends on trust and should not be left to chance. Strong mentorship requires clarity, openness, commitment, and mutual investment from both mentors and mentees.
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