The Survey of Mentoring Attitudes and Behaviors

Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior has been used to develop instruments for a variety of purposes. In this study, the researchers developed a measure to examine the factors that influence and predict mentoring behaviors with children using Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (1991). The researchers were interested in factors that not only influenced mentoring behavior but also a person’s choice to become a mentor for young children. To achieve this purpose, an instrument was developed, reduced using exploratory factor analysis, and then analyzed for its psychometric properties. A sample consisting of mainly freshmen and sophomores (N =293) at large, research intensive university in the Southwest participated in the study. The findings indicate that factors revealed mirror key aspects of the Theory of Planned Behavior and that instrument could be used to develop better mentor traing potential mentors.