The Experience of the Mentoring Process and the Sense of Self-Efficacy, Difficulty, and Satisfaction of Mentors Working With Immigrant Youths in the Shadow of the Coronavirus

Because of the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in the mentoring process of immigrant youths were needed to maintain contact and educational continuity and prevent learning loss. The research question was: How do mentors working with immigrant youths in a time of crisis, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, describe their experiences with the mentoring process, feelings of empowerment, difficulty, and satisfaction? And how do they perceive the mentor's role and support for the youths in various areas? This was a quantitative study involving 119 mentors. The study was conducted in Israel in 2021. The results show that mentors who reported high self-efficacy felt that they helped the youths to a great extent, both personally and professionally, and that they managed difficulties when they arose. For mentors who expressed low self-efficacy had trouble, the means of all parameters checked were significantly lower. The mentors’ sense of self-efficacy influenced the type of support they offered their students.


Introduction
The spread of the COVID-19 epidemic has led to emergency situations, closures, isolation, and social distancing. Because of the spread of the epidemic, changes in teaching and learning at various stages of education have been necessary (Donitsa-Schmidt & Ramota, 2020;Lancker & Parolin, 2020;Kreis et al., 2020;Nasri et al., 2020). Mentors who worked with immigrant youths organized themselves to work with their mentees to maintain contact and academic continuity, to identify in a timely fashion those students who cannot muster the energy to learn and have special needs to prevent excessive or hidden dropout and a state of learning loss. Mentors took the opportunity to reduce gaps and prevent the widening of gaps because of changes in the way of learning (Engzell et al., 2021;Grewenig et al., 2020;Huber & Helm, 2020;Zilka, 2021a;Zilka et al., 2021).
Adolescence is considered a period characterized by a process of identity formation, during which physiological, emotional, mental, and social changes occur. Studies (Birch & Ladd, 1997, 1998Romi et al., 2007;Zilka, 2015Zilka, , 2017bZilka, , 2020 indicate that adolescents' well-being may be affected by immigration. Their learning abilities, skill acquisition, their self-esteem, and social bonds may be impaired. These situations may lead to dysfunction and social deviance. Therefore, mentors working with these adolescents must create an environment for them that allows for feelings of belonging, protection, growth, competence, meaningful interactions, positive experiences, and accomplishments to emerge, and foster a sense of self-worth, of being needed, and of contribution to the environment (Birch & Ladd, 1997, 1998Romi et al., 2007;Zilka, 2015Zilka, , 2017b.
The purpose of the present study was to explore the experiences of mentors working with immigrant youths during a time of crisis, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, to explore feelings of empowerment, difficulty, and satisfaction, and to explore perceptions of the role of mentoring and support for immigrant youths in a variety of settings. environments, many immigrants see the transition from their country of origin to the new country not as a sharp change, but as one that allows for contact with those who remained behind. Adolescent immigrants see digital environments as a door to a global world that is open and full of opportunity and information. They use them to compensate for the inadequacy and difficulties they encounter in the new country, as well as for the physical distance that has been created between them and their friends and loved ones who remained abroad. Thus, in both difficult and good times, they have someone with whom they can share their experiences in their native language. Adolescents feel that communication alleviates feelings of longing, and allows for intimate conversations, sharing of feelings, and venting of frustration and anger (Moore & McElroy, 2012;Zilka, 2017bZilka, , 2019aZilka, , 2020.

Mentors of immigrant youths
Mentoring is an interpersonal relationship based on motivation and trust between two people, where learning takes place in the process of building the relationship (Feiman-Nemser, 2012). The term "mentor" originates in the name of Mentor, who appears in Homer's Odyssey. Mentor was Telemachus's tutor, who educated and guided him in the transition from childhood to adulthood. Mentor was the tutor who took responsibility for Telemachus's learning and development.
The mentoring process has various goals (Ellis et al., 2020;West, 2016;Zilka, 2017b). Mentoring includes interpersonal processes, trust, empathy, empowerment, critical thinking skills, reflexivity, and listening. Different conceptions of mentoring guide the role and behaviors required to build the reciprocal relationship between mentor and mentee (Orland-Barak & Wang, 2015;Barnett & Friedrichsen, 2015;Zilka, 2014Zilka, , 2018cZilka, , 2021bZilka, , 2022. Daloz (1987) argued that the role of the mentor is holistic; the mentor must be involved in the mentee's life and attentive to it, working with the mentee to create a work plan that meets the mentee's needs and concerns. The program must address the mentee's emotional and social difficulties. Daloz characterized the ideal mentor as someone whose job was to help the mentees become aware of their problems and desires, to motivate them, and help them deal with difficulties and fears, creating for the mentees a process that leads to change and influences their identity and personality. The mentors must build their way of working with the mentees by taking several aspects into consideration (Daloz, 1987;Kagan, 1982;Winnicott, 1965;Zilka, 2017b): trust between the mentee and the mentor, identification of goals, continuous dialog, and the creation of a protected space that gives the mentee a sense of security.

The mentor's feelings of self-efficacy, difficulty, and satisfaction
Researchers (Bandura, 1986;Goddard et al., 2004;Schunk, 1984Schunk, , 1989) defined self-efficacy as individuals' assessment of their ability to organize and successfully perform tasks and actions. Researchers noted that self-efficacy affects a person's choice of activities, effort, and persistence. Those who have a concept of self-efficacy exert more effort and persevere than those who doubt their abilities. Self-efficacy results from past experiences, feedback, and physiological arousal. When individuals feel that they can perform a task, their self-efficacy increases, and when they do not have this feeling, their self-efficacy decreases (Bandura, 1995;Schneider & Preckel, 2017).
According to Lazarus (1988Lazarus ( , 2000, in the encounter between the person and the environment, the person can perceive the situation as "positive" or as "stressful." This cognitive process is influenced by three factors: the characteristics of the situation, the extent to which the situation is familiar or murky; and factors related to one's personality. Researchers (Brown et al., 2015) claim that the online learning environment is an emotionally charged space. Learners report frustration, anger, rage, joy, enthusiasm, satisfaction, boredom, envy, hatred, love, and affection in relation to the experience of learning in this environment. 1. Self-efficacy, difficulty, satisfaction. The statements are listed in Table 3. The questionnaire is based on previous questionnaires (Bandura, 1986;Lazarus & Folkman, 1988). With this questionnaire, we explored how mentors experienced their abilities, the extent to which they experienced difficulties, and the degree of their satisfaction with the mentoring process. Mentors were asked to rate their level of identification with each statement on a scale from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent).
2. Questionnaire on the perception of the mentor's role, feelings, and emotions from the point of view of the mentor. The statements are listed in Table 2. The questionnaire is based on TALIS OECD (Kasalak & Dagyar, 2020).
Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with each statement, from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent).
3. Assistance to the immigrant questionnaire. The statements are listed in Table 1. The questionnaire explores the extent to which assistance is provided to immigrants in particular aspects, as stipulated in the mentor's role definition. The questionnaire is based on TALIS OECD (Kasalak & Dagyar, 2020). Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with each statement, from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent).

Statistical analysis
We dichotomized the ability and difficulty scales for high and low scores and set the cut-off value for determining the level at the median of the scale in the sample.
To characterize the difference between high and low scores on the ability and difficulty scales and responses to other questionnaires, we used a two-sample t-test.
A p-value of 0.05 was considered significant.
Statistical analysis was performed using SAS for Windows version 9.4.

Results
We describe first the results related to assistance to immigrants, next the results related to the perception of the role of the mentor; ability; the correlation between the sense of difficulty and other aspects; and the correlation between the sense of self-efficacy and the other aspects.

Assistance to immigrant adolescents
The questionnaire examined the extent to which immigrant adolescents were supported aspects. Mentors were asked to rate how much they agreed with each statement, from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent). The questions were divided into two main groups: Academic assistance: statements 1, 13, 14; the distribution of average scores ranged from 1.33 to 5.00, with a mean score of M = 3.24 and SD = 1.05.
Personal support: statements 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12; the distribution of average score ranged from 2.45 to 5.00, with a mean score of M = 3.78 and SD = 0.64. Table 1 summarizes the distribution of mentor agreement (%) with each statement in the questionnaire. A score of 4 and higher indicates strong or very strong agreement with the statement.  Table 1 shows that the majority of mentors (over 50%) thought that extensive support was provided in most aspects; 94% of mentors thought that they have succeeded in developing a relationship between them and their students; 79% and 81% of mentors, respectively, felt that they have adapted teaching methods to a great extent to students' needs (statement 3), have assessed students, and monitored their progress (statement 4); 73% and 71% of mentors, respectively, thought that they provided extensive help to students in overcoming learning difficulties (statement 6) and in addressing differences between students (statement 7).
In the following aspects, only half the mentors agreed that ample help was provided: subject knowledge, getting to know the school culture, creating a sense of belonging, integrating into the school, acquiring 21st-century skills needed to study in digital environments, and studying in a hybrid, online, and face-to-face learning environments.
Only 43% of mentors agreed that much support was provided in managing the classroom, and only 31% in the development of educational initiatives.

Perception of the role of the mentor
Mentors were asked to rate how much they agreed with each statement, from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent). The average score for the questionnaire ranged from 2.38 to 5.00, with a mean of M = 4.28 and SD = 0.55. Table 2 summarizes the distribution of mentor agreement (%) with each statement in the questionnaire. A high score of 4 indicates strong or very strong agreement with the statement.  Table 2 shows that there is a high level of agreement with the statements. Over 70% of respondents fully agreed with the statement that was presented to them.
The highest level of agreement was with the following statements: "How much do you think you listen to your students?" (99%), "To what extent do you feel that interpersonal communication with you advanced your students?" (94%), "How well do you think you understand your students?" (87%), and "Do you think that you succeeded in getting to know your students personally?" (86%). There was less agreement with the following statements: "Did you feel you were able to give your students an opportunity to express their expectations and concerns?" (73%), "How well do you feel you are in control of your emotions?" (71%) and "To what extent do you set goals for each day you work with your students?" (70%). Seventy-nine percent of mentors agreed that they were able to match the expectations regarding the work process with their students.

Ability
With this questionnaire, we explored how mentors experienced their skills, the extent to which they encountered difficulties, and how they dealt with those difficulties. Mentors were asked to rate how much they agreed with each statement, from 1 (Not at all) to 5 (To a great extent).
The questions can be divided into two main groups.
The ability section included statements 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. The mean score of self-efficacies ranged from 2.38 to 5. The higher the score, the more capable the mentor considers herself to be, with a mean of 4.15 and a SD = 0.69.
The median difficulty score ranged from 2.17 to 4.83. The higher the score, the more positively the mentor dealt with difficulty. Mean score was 2.40, and a SD = 1.02.
The positive way of dealing with difficulty section included statements 4, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. This was an informative questionnaire about coping skills, therefore the mean score had no meaning. Table 3 summarizes the distribution of the mentors' agreement (%) with each statement in the questionnaire. A high score of 4 indicates strong or very strong agreement with the statement.  Table 3 shows that many respondents in the sample considered themselves to have high levels of self-efficacy.
Eighty-seven percent of mentors believed they possess the skills and knowledge needed to be successful at mentoring (89%); 74% believed to be highly flexible and creative; 71% believed they could think of many ways to achieve mentoring goals. About 70% asserted they were strong and could handle difficulties; 67% agreed they could adapt to any mentoring situation.
In questions related to dealing with difficulties, 81% of the mentors largely did not ignore the difficulties, only 56% agreed that there an effective solution was available by contacting various parties, only 37% felt that they had a good way of letting off steam, only 53% turned to other mentors to talk about the difficulties, and only 53% asked for professional help to a great extent. By contrast, 84% shared their difficulties with others to help themselves cope.
In questions related to difficulties, 34% believed to a great extent that mentoring caused stress, and only 5% believed to a great extent that they have no way to deal with the situation.

Correlation between the feeling of difficulty and the other aspects
The "difficulty" scale was divided into two values: high and low. The intersection between the two values is the median (2.33). Table 4 shows a characterization of the mentors who expressed more difficulty compared with those who expressed less difficulty.  Table 4 shows that mentors who expressed difficulty were less likely to identify with the statements regarding the conception of the mentor's role. They were less able to get to know students personally, to understand them, to listen to them, were less likely to allow students to express their expectations, less likely to think that interpersonal communication with them benefited students. Mentors who had trouble had lower scores in all areas of self-efficacy as a mentor. They have significantly low mean scores on all indicators of the mentoring perception questionnaire, as well as on all questions regarding self-efficacy.
Mentors who experience difficulties are less likely to feel that it would be beneficial to turn to the authorities; they are more likely to ignore the problem.

Correlation between self-efficacy and the other aspects
The self-efficacy scale ranges from 2.38 to 5, with M = 4.15 and SD = 0.70. To distinguish those who feel high self-efficacy from those who feel low self-efficacy, the scale was divided into two values: high and low. The cutoff point between the two scores is the median (4.93), that is, half of the mentors felt self-efficacy higher than 4.93. Table 5 shows the characteristics of the mentors who expressed higher vs lower self-efficacy.  Table 5 shows that the mentors who consistently expressed high self-efficacy felt that they were better at helping immigrants both personally and professionally, that they were better at fulfilling the role of mentor, that they were less worried about the mentoring process, and that they felt they were obtaining an effective response from other parties and were better at coping with difficulties.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of mentors working with immigrant youths in a time of crisis, in the shadow of the COVID-19 epidemic, to explore feelings of empowerment, difficulty, and satisfaction, as well as the perceptions of the role of mentoring and support for immigrant youths in a variety of settings.
In general, most mentors rated themselves as highly self-efficacious. Mentors who expressed high self-efficacy felt that they helped youths better both personally and professionally, worried less about the mentoring process, and coped better with difficulties. Mentors who expressed difficulty felt that they were less able to get to know students personally, understand them, and listen to them, were less likely to allow students to express their expectations, and less likely to feel that their interpersonal communication helped students. Mentors who experienced difficulties showed a low sense of self-efficacy. Mean scores on all parameters of the mentoring perception questionnaire and on all questions concerning self-efficacy were significantly lower for mentors who experienced difficulties.

Perception of the mentor's role and assistance to new immigrant adolescents from the point of view of the mentors
Assistance to students. For most aspects (Table 1), most mentors (over 50%) felt that they provided a great deal of support to their students; 94% thought that they invested large amounts of time in nurturing the relationship between themselves and their students. The mentors thought that they helped their students by adjusting teaching methods (79%) and monitoring their progress to prevent learning loss (81%). Most mentors felt that they provided extensive support for their students in overcoming learning difficulties (73%). About half the mentors felt that they had helped their students in various areas, such as subject knowledge, getting acquainted with school culture, and fostering a sense of belonging. Compared to the studies conducted before the COVID-19 epidemic (Zilka, 2017b(Zilka, , 2018c(Zilka, , 2021b(Zilka, , 2022, during this period more time was allocated for tutoring, the students were more available because the studies for all students were disrupted, therefore the mentors felt that they developed a strong bond with the students. The COVID-19 period raised challenges that required special attention. Mentors had to combine face-to-face and distance mentoring of their students. At a certain stage of the epidemic, schools decided to bring new immigrants to the school to avoid learning loss, but all other students (not immigrants) were largely studying remotely. Mentors assisted their students in synchronous and asynchronous distance learning and participated with the students in synchronous learning in the adolescents' classrooms. Researchers (Riva et al., 2020;Wiederhold, 2020;Zilka, 2021a) found that in synchronous instruction, students experienced difficulties with concentration and felt overwhelmed. The characteristics of a synchronous lesson differ from those of a face-to-face lesson, for example, in that orientation takes place in two-dimensional space, and therefore there is difficulty locating the source of the voice, understanding facial expressions and interpersonal interaction, making eye contact, understanding messages, and generally perceiving that individuals have their own space. As a result, many students complain of fatigue, difficulty concentrating, a sense of being overwhelmed, and blurred boundaries (Zoom fatigue). Researchers (Mulenga & Marban, 2020;Zilka, 2021a) found that online learning during the COVID-19 crisis was positive when the educational environment was characterized by meaningful learning, student guidance, motivation, persistence, and academic independence. Previous studies (Al-Fraihat et al., 2020;European Commission, 2020;Pfefferbaum & North, 2020) found that the proper organization of online learning (the use of the right technology, the quality of instruction, and the relationship with students) contributed to the success of the learning process. This study showed that mentors spent a great deal of time interacting with students, helping them participate in synchronous lessons, and completing the asynchronous assignments (Table 2). To avoid learning loss (Table 1), they provided students with flexible educational regularities such as good time management, schedule flexibility, keeping in touch with students, and more. Similar results were found in previous studies (Pfefferbaum & North, 2020;Al-Fraihat et al., 2020). In addition, they also took the opportunity to narrow the gaps between their students. During closures, when their students were not in school, they organized face-to-face and group meetings on Zoom, to stay in touch, and encouraged participation in synchronous and asynchronous lessons with the students' "home class." Taking advantage of opportunities to reduce gaps that may widen because of the change in the manner of learning during the COVID-19 period has been described in other studies as well (Grewenig et al., 2020;Huber & Helm, 2020;Zilka, 2021;Zilka et al., 2021).

Integration of digital environments in work with new immigrant adolescents during the COVID-19 period.
We found ( Table 1) that some mentors invested in everything related to acquiring 21st-century skills required for the learning processes in digital environments (46%) and for coping with learning in hybrid, online, and face-to-face learning environments (45%). Researchers (Choi, 2012;Foti & Mendez, 2014;Rossing et al., 2012;Schugar et al., 2013;Warschauer, 2011;Zilka, 2018aZilka, , 2018bZilka, , 2019b found that integrating digital environments into adolescents' lives increases motivation to engage socially and academically and allows for intriguing and diverse learning environments. It helps illustrate study content and makes learning accessible through images, animations, simulations, and videos that are available to students on the Internet. Digital environments are becoming more accessible, with expanding functionality and a variety of apps that allow access anytime, anywhere (Cohen et al., 2015;Dahlstrom, 2015;Sung et al., 2016;Zilka, 2019b).

Perceptions of the mentor's role.
We found ( Table 2) that there was a high level of agreement with statements regarding the perception of the mentor's role. Over 70% of mentors fully agreed with the statements presented to them. The statements with the highest level of agreement were listening to students (99%), establishing positive interpersonal communication with students (94%), successfully understanding students (87%), and getting to know students (86%). Lower agreement characterized the statements that the mentor was able to let her students express their expectations and concerns (73%) and that the mentor felt she was in control of her emotions (71%).
In previous studies conducted during the COVID-19 period (Zilka, 2021a(Zilka, , 2022, it was found that there was a need to change the focus of goals and objectives of each of the partiesstudents, mentors, and teachers. In this study, we found that some of the mentors were aware of the importance of this issue and set goals for themselves each day of work with their students (70%), coordinating expectations of their work process with their students (79%).

Personal ability
We examined how the mentors experienced their self-efficacy, the extent to which they had trouble, and the ways they dealt with the difficulties. We found ( Table 3) that most mentors considered themselves to have high self-efficacy, to have the skills and knowledge needed for mentoring (87%), and to be successful in mentoring (89%). They believed that they were flexible and creative to a great extent (74%) and that they could think of multiple ways of achieving the mentoring goals (71%). About 70% agreed that they were strong and could cope with difficulties, and 67% agreed that they could adapt to any situation in mentoring.
Mentors who expressed high ability (Table 5) generally felt that they helped immigrants to a great extent personally and professionally and that they fulfilled the role of mentor well. These mentors were less worried about the mentoring process and thought that they had received effective responses from other actors and coped better with difficulties. Mentors who expressed difficulties (Table 4) felt that they were less able to get to know the students personally, understand them, listen to them, and that they allowed the students to express their expectations to a lesser degree. They also felt less strongly that interpersonal communication with them advanced their students. Mentors who experienced difficulties felt a low sense of self-efficacy. Their averages of all indices of the mentoring perception and self-efficacy questionnaires were significantly lower.
Mentors who reported difficulties felt self-critical about their dealings with the new immigrants. Greenberg and Watson (2006) noted that self-criticism may serve as a person's springboard for change in areas such as taking res.ccsenet.org Vol. 15, No. 3; responsibility, professionalism, perseverance, and success. But when the criticism turns into self-punishment, self-condemnation, a negative attitude of the person toward self, a judgmental, unforgiving attitude, self-criticism may make a person feel weakened, and scared. It may cause anxiety, feelings of helplessness and low self-efficacy, and not pave the way for self-awareness, openness, development, and change in human behavior. The mentor's self-awareness of her conduct may bring her to a decision to change her behavior patterns, her approach to students, change her behavior management, self-management, and cause her to accept responsibility, be more aware of emotions, and express and navigate them wisely. The findings of this study, consistent with those of previous research (Chittooran, 2015;Husaj, 2016;Saperstein et al., 2015), show that in the process of working with adolescents, the mentors must consider their own emotional and social aspects and demonstrate these skills in their interaction with the youths to cultivate these skills in their students.

Review of European Studies
In conclusion, the mentoring work with new immigrant youths in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis required changing the way of studying. On one hand, more mentoring time was freed up for working with the students, allowing them to engage in meaningful interactions, but on the other hand, it presented them with many challenges. This study showed mentors who had a high sense of competence were attentive to students, listened to them, and developed interpersonal communication that advanced their students, allowed them to voice their expectations and concerns, and managed their emotions. Attentive mentors cultivated students' sense of belonging and protection, encouraged meaningful interactions, positive experiences, success, and relationships. They were likely to elicit feelings of being needed and appreciated in their students and provide them with feedback.

Educational implications
The mentors' sense of self-efficacy affects their perception of their role and the assistance they provide to new immigrants. In situations of uncertainty, such as during the COVID-19 period, mentors with a sense of low self-efficacy found it difficult to cope with the complexity of the role.

Research limitations and future research
The current study examined the issue from the point of view of the mentors, but not from that of view of the students. Follow-up studies should examine the relationship between the mentors' sense of self-efficacy and the students' feelings regarding the mentoring process and the achievement of its expected goals.