Effectiveness of Mentoring for Improving Lived Experience Engagement in Research: A Pilot Study in a Higher Education Setting

We followed a realist evaluation approach to study design and analysis of the data, producing 5 Context-Mechanism-Outcome configurations. Overall, our analysis suggested that the program had strong effectiveness in building the confidence of mentees. Effectiveness was limited when mentees did not have a current or future project planned.

Success also seemed to be determined by the relational aspect of the mentoring. This study advances a realist account of mentoring by specifying how relational conditions function as generative mechanisms for researcher capacity building in lived experience engagement. Rather than treating trust and flexibility as background enablers, the analysis demonstrates how mechanisms activate under conditions such as epistemic alignment.

In doing so, the study contributes to evaluating relational interventions within research institutions, broadening attention from individual capacity building to explore the conditions under which epistemic change becomes possible. Our research suggests that future similar programs should be developed, implemented and evaluated in order to support lived experience engagement in research.<p></p>