Peer mentoring works better when students co-design it, and mentors are properly supported

Updated Jun 11, 2026

student supportstudent voice

Peer mentoring is often presented as an obvious retention fix. In practice, it fails quickly when universities design it around assumptions rather than the lived experience of the students who need support, and the students asked to provide it. That is why Catherine Thompson, Chenelle Ashun, Caroline Knowles and Eve Binks' Innovations in Education and Teaching International paper, "Using co-creation to explore important aspects of peer-mentoring for undergraduate students", matters for UK institutions trying to strengthen transition, belonging, and student support. For teams reading induction surveys and early open comments, the paper reinforces a pattern we also see in new students' belonging and wellbeing feedback: support systems work better when they are designed with students, not just offered to them.

Context and research question

Peer mentoring is attractive to universities because it promises social integration, practical guidance, and a relatively low-cost way to support continuation. Yet those schemes can be built too loosely. A programme may look helpful on paper while leaving students unclear about what mentoring is for, how to access it, or whether it is meant for "people who are struggling". In the UK context, that matters because belonging, support, and retention risks often show up together in first-term feedback.

Thompson and colleagues approached that problem through two qualitative co-creation workshops at Liverpool Hope University in February and March 2024. The project involved nine undergraduate students and four staff members from a psychology setting, using activity-based workshop tasks and thematic analysis to surface views on academic and pastoral support. The practical research question was straightforward: if a university wants to build a peer mentoring offer students will actually trust and use, what values and design choices should shape it?

Key findings

The most useful finding is that peer mentoring should not be designed only around what mentees need. Participants repeatedly focused on what mentoring asks of the mentors themselves: emotional labour, boundary-setting, and the risk of being pushed beyond their competence. That is a valuable corrective for UK teams, because mentoring schemes are often judged by uptake or goodwill while giving too little attention to whether mentors are trained, supported, and protected.

Students and staff wanted mentoring to stay genuinely peer-based, not drift into informal tutoring or quasi-counselling. Participants emphasised equal-status interactions, honesty about limits, and the need to avoid hierarchy between mentors and mentees. The point was not to reduce mentoring to a transactional service. It was to protect the trust that makes peer support useful in the first place.

"it's important to remain on the same level with the mentor"

Communication quality mattered as much as warmth. Participants wanted mentors who were informed, respectful, and clear about what they could and could not do. They also warned against over-sharing, blurred communication expectations, and mentors trying to solve problems that should be signposted to formal services. In other words, compassionate support was valued, but only when paired with clarity and appropriate escalation.

The paper also identifies practical design choices that can reduce stigma and increase use. Participants favoured an early start during induction, a blend of academic and pastoral mentoring, and an opt-out model rather than making students actively opt in. That recommendation matters because a support offer that appears remedial or niche will often miss the students who could benefit most from routine early contact.

Co-creation was not just the method, it was part of the message. The workshops surfaced issues that a top-down scheme could easily miss, especially mentor wellbeing, power balance, and the practicalities of communication. The conclusion is not that every mentoring programme needs a large redesign exercise. It is that student voice should shape the architecture of support before universities start measuring satisfaction with it.

Practical implications

For UK higher education teams, the first implication is to treat peer mentoring as part of transition design, not as an optional bolt-on. If the aim is retention and belonging, start early, ideally during induction, and make the route into support easy and normal rather than exceptional. That aligns with wider evidence that early introductory activity can strengthen peer belonging, even if belonging still needs follow-up across the semester. The benefit is earlier connection and less stigma around asking for help.

Second, universities should define the mentor role tightly and train for signposting, boundaries, and safeguarding. Mentors need enough preparation to respond well without being treated as counsellors, tutors, or unofficial caseworkers. That means covering communication expectations, referral routes, confidentiality, and reflective practice. The practical gain is a safer, more consistent support offer for both mentors and mentees.

Third, institutions should collect open comments on mentoring alongside wider support and wellbeing evidence. A simple rating on whether support was "helpful" will miss the important detail: whether students felt judged, whether the right support was easy to find, and whether mentoring reduced isolation or simply duplicated other services. This is where Student Voice Analytics fits naturally. It helps universities group repeated comments on signposting, confidence, belonging, and support access across surveys and check-ins, then compare those findings with a broader evidence picture like King's joined-up student feedback system. The payoff is a clearer basis for acting before dissatisfaction hardens into withdrawal risk.

Finally, universities should keep co-design going after launch. The paper is clear that support offers are easier to trust when students help shape them. Repeating light-touch workshops, focus groups, or open-text reviews with different cohorts can show whether a scheme still fits commuter students, international students, mature students, or students with changing wellbeing pressures. The benefit is a mentoring model that adapts to real student experience instead of fossilising around its first design.

FAQ

Q: How should a university pilot peer mentoring after reading this paper?

A: Start with one school or one transition stage, usually the first year, and give the scheme a clear scope from day one. Train mentors in boundaries, signposting, and communication, decide whether they are offering academic support, pastoral support, or both, and build in two short open-text check-ins. One useful pattern is to collect feedback after induction and again around the first assessment point, because belonging and support needs often shift at specific moments rather than steadily across term.

Q: What should teams keep in mind before generalising from this study?

A: This is a small qualitative study from one UK institution, with 13 participants in total and no participants drawing on direct prior experience as mentors or mentees. Its value lies in surfacing design principles and hidden risks, not in estimating how common each view is across the sector. Universities should treat it as strong practice-oriented evidence, then test the same questions in their own local student feedback.

Q: What does this change about student voice practice more broadly?

A: It strengthens the case for using student voice before a service is finalised, not only after it has gone live. Support systems are easier to trust when students can shape them, recognise their own concerns in the design, and later see what changed. That sits closely with wider evidence that student voice builds trust when students can see what changed. For student experience teams, the lesson is simple: co-design and feedback analysis should work together, not in sequence.

References

[Paper Source]: Catherine Thompson, Chenelle Ashun, Caroline Knowles and Eve Binks "Using co-creation to explore important aspects of peer-mentoring for undergraduate students" DOI: 10.1080/14703297.2026.2681744

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