Evaluating the Effect of an Educational Session on Nursing Faculty's Willingness to Serve as Mentors

The U.S. nursing shortage is exacerbated by high turnover among faculty and a lack of qualified mentors for novice nurses. Mentorship has been shown to improve clinical competency, faculty retention, and job satisfaction but remains underutilized due to barriers such as heavy workloads, mismatched work styles, and unclear expectations. This project assessed the impact of an educational session on nursing faculty's willingness to participate in mentoring relationships. A quasiexperimental, before-and-after design was used, with 39 faculty members from an accelerated nursing program in Arizona completing pre- and postintervention surveys. Data were analyzed using paired t-tests and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results showed a statistically significant increase in willingness to mentor following the intervention (M = 45.26, SD = 4.115) compared to preintervention scores (M = 43.00, SD = 5.031), with a mean difference of 2.256 (p=0.009). A large effect size (η ² = 0.166) indicated a meaningful change in faculty perceptions. Normality tests confirmed the data met assumptions, and nonparametric analysis supported the results (p=0.013). These findings suggest that educational interventions highlighting the benefits of mentoring can significantly increase faculty's willingness to mentor. This could enhance faculty retention, improve student outcomes, and address the nursing shortage by promoting mentoring relationships in nursing education.