مشاوره آنلاین و ارتباطات با واسطه کامپیوتری: حرکتی جدید در پژوهش

While there has been a veritable explosion of online mentoring websites and opportunities within a wide variety of professions, very few academic articles to date have addressed this phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to remedy this gap in our knowledge by: (a) suggesting that the Internet can provide a viable context for mentoring within defined roles, (b) presenting a new typology of mentoring based on the computer-mediated-communication (CMC) literature, and in doing so suggest new opportunities and challenges, and (c) providing recommendations for researchers and practitioners to explore online mentoring. Past research has found that within the three functions of mentoring (psychosocial, vocational, and role modeling), a mentor can play a number of roles such as business coach, friend, counselor, and/or teacher to a protégé. We extend past research by assessing the major issues applicable to these mentor roles through an examination of CMC literature. We provide specific research propositions to inspire future research into online mentoring and its related contexts, roles, opportunities, and challenges.

Although the domain of mentoring is attracting increasing interest, the context of CMC offers a host of unexplored and intriguing possibilities. Throughout this paper, we have advanced a number of research propositions related to mentor roles, CMC mentoring typology, and challenges and opportunities. The research propositions (summarized in Fig. 1) can serve as an impetus for future research in this rapidly growing, yet woefully under-researched virtual context. It is important to also note that while the vast majority of online mentoring is burgeoning under the auspices of formal programs, anecdotal evidence suggests that mentors and protégés in spontaneously developed relationships are taking advantage of this medium as well. Future research needs to also carefully examine the key similarities and differences of online mentoring between formal and informally developed mentoring relationships. Mentoring researchers would be well advised to look to the existing literature on FtF mentoring as well as to the CMC literature to inform our research and practice related to online mentoring. The research propositions offer several suggestions to improve online mentoring relationships from the practitioner perspective. First, research proposes that the negative aspects of online relationships (including misunderstandings, flaming, and coldness of the medium) can be greatly reduced with training and education (Wallace, 1999). Providing information about techniques to overcome challenges unique to online relationships including the use of emoticons and impression formation techniques can greatly reduce communications problems between mentors and protégés. Not only can training improve online mentoring but online mentoring can also improve training. Providing ongoing support via an online mentor after the conclusion of a training program would be an excellent way to reinforce and improve transfer of learning. Second, we strongly advocate that whenever possible mentors and protégés use multiple methods of contact in communicating with each other as a way to increase comfort level and learn about each other in multiple contexts. Third, the effectiveness of online mentoring relies on the trust between individuals. Methods to protect confidentiality must be developed, maintained, and properly communicated to mentors and protégés engaged in online mentoring. In conclusion, we address an important gap in our knowledge by examining mentoring within a virtual context. Also, we suggest that our existing knowledge of FtF mentoring, CMC, and online relationships have important cross-over implications for online mentoring roles and relationships. We propose a new typology for mentoring relationships based on CMC and in so doing examine the opportunities and challenges of online mentoring and provide suggestions for future research via specific research propositions. The research propositions presented here can provide future mentoring researchers with the tools to explore this brave new world of mentoring and make a valuable contribution to this thriving, yet understudied arena.