creator Savage, Catherine M. advisor Ayman, Roya Higher education institutions, particularly those who specialize in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), are experiencing high turnover rates among their students. In work settings, mentors have been instrumental in the engagement and retention of employees. Therefore, we examined mentoring effectiveness and its utilization to help increase student retention and engagement for 118 students in a university in the Midwest. Also, we examined how perceived similarity between the protégé and mentor on surface- and deep-level characteristics (e.g., gender and gender role orienation) can influence both the perceived effectiveness of the mentoring relationship, as well as the protégé’s level of engagement. The results from this research found that surface-level variables, such as sociodemographic gender, were not related to the mentoring relationship or a student’s level of engagement. However, perceived similarity between the mentor and protégés on masculinity and femininity increased the protégés perceived effectiveness of the mentoring relationship. Further, perceived similarity and dissimilarity on protégé and mentor femininity increased levels of student engagement. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed. Submitted by Liana Khananashvili (khananashvili@iit.edu) on 2013-10-10T20:44:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Catherine Savage - Thesis (After Defense) copy.pdf: 765530 bytes, checksum: 9a4076bfb293ef8f5a6a090e62d086a3 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2013-10-10T20:44:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Catherine Savage - Thesis (After Defense) copy.pdf: 765530 bytes, checksum: 9a4076bfb293ef8f5a6a090e62d086a3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05 M.S. in Psychology, May 2013 2013-04-22 2013-05 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3090 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department