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Evaluating the effects of mentors and trained mentors on the classroom performance and overall teaching performance of beginning teachers
Abstract
The use of experienced teachers to help beginning teachers has been suggested by many researchers as being particularly helpful to beginning teachers. This approach is often called "mentoring." While there have been some indications that "mentoring" improved beginning teachers' classroom performance, no evidence was found in the literature to establish that. Having the mentors trained to perform the function of mentors has also been strongly recommended. However, no studies were found that established whether or not mentors need to be trained. This study had two purposes. One was to determine if assigned mentors were successful in helping beginning teachers improve classroom performance and be more successful in their overall teaching performance. A second purpose was to determine if trained mentors were more successful in helping beginning teachers improve classroom performance than untrained mentors. The study was conducted in a large midwestern urban school district. Three groups of beginning teachers (a total of 26) were included in the study. One group had trained, assigned mentors that attended a ten-hour training course. Another group had assigned untrained mentors. A third group had no assigned mentors. Each beginning teacher was observed four times. Observers used the Stallings Time Off Task Classroom Observation Instrument to determine on task percentages for each observation. Building principal evaluations were used as a second method of measuring teacher performance. Analysis of results showed no significant differences between the groups. There were no differences in the beginning teacher performances as evaluated by building principals. The data from the classroom observations by trained observers showed that the group with trained mentors had a slightly higher on task percentage (91%) than the group with untrained mentors (90%). The group with no assigned mentors had a slightly lower percentage than the other two groups (89%). In this study assigned mentors did not significantly affect beginning teacher classroom performance or overall teaching performance, and trained mentors had no significantly greater effect than untrained mentors on the classroom performance and overall teaching performance of beginning teachers.
Subject Area
School administration
Recommended Citation
Faber, Howard Hale, "Evaluating the effects of mentors and trained mentors on the classroom performance and overall teaching performance of beginning teachers" (1989). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8918548.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8918548