students4students Peer-2-Peer-Mentoring (s4s)

Students4students is a model that sorts out the causes and conditions that lead to students dropping out and which changes could be promising. This involves observing correlations, adapting concepts and making them transferable in order to anchor peer counselling as a sustainable offer in the curriculum.

Students in their 3rd semester, so-called "scouts", are available to students in their 1st year of study as contact persons. The student scouts organise their 1:1 peer support in the 1st and 2nd semesters, which for them is either linked to a seminar on case work/conversation management or is remunerated as a SHK activity.

During the course of their studies, the scouts (students) are qualified and organised for peer support by permanently employed study coaches. As a result, the scouts learn and practise methods for conducting conversations and counselling. In the first semester, students learn and reflect on how counselling is experienced – an essential experience for future counselling professionals.

In addition, this project aims to expand the area of service learning, in which students engage in helping other students and strengthen social cohesion as a scientific community in the department. In addition, special offers for students with corresponding needs (tutorials for non-German native speakers, academic work, etc.) are to be provided.

The project team of study coaches (mentors in accordance with Section 11 (5) of the FHP Framework Regulations) will guide the student scouts, provide individual study progress support if required and integrate scouting into teaching so that the curriculum can be structurally improved through the results of scouting.

The aim is to conduct scientific research into whether the individual reasons for dropping out can be reduced through support measures or structural changes. So far, there has been no analytical link between completion or dropout events and study progress indicators, such as course attendance or the receipt of ECTS credits. This link could provide valuable information about the areas of the degree programme where students experience difficulties, i.e. whether there are specific bottle necks due to the curriculum.