Abstract

Mentoring is an essential component of the student teaching experience. The support provided by highly prepared and effective mentors contributes to the success of student teachers during this high stakes period of professional development. Findings from this mixed-methods study support five mentoring factors as valid and a useful framework for measuring the impact of the mentoring received by student teachers in the student teaching experience. The five factors are: personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modeling, and feedback (Hudson, 2007). The Mentee Perceptions of Student Teaching survey was given to student teachers upon the conclusion of their student teaching experience at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Convergence of quantitative and qualitative data showed that mentoring practices implemented by the mentors supported the development of student teachers. Although no statistically significant differences were found between mentoring in the co-teaching and non-co-teaching sub-groups, results revealed important details of the student teachers' views. Themes emerged that add credence to the five mentoring factors that are well supported in current literature. In addition to verifying what has been done during student teaching, the five factors also serve to identify the specific responsibilities of mentor teachers and should be used to articulate the goals and outcomes for their role as a mentor.

Advisor

Ginger L. Zierdt

Committee Member

Daria Paul-Dona

Committee Member

Maureen Prenn

Date of Degree

2012

Language

english

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

College

Education

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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In Copyright