An Evaluation of Novice Teachers' Perceptions of the Mentoring Experience in Knox County Schools.

Author

LaKisha L. Waters, East Tennessee State University

Degree Name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Program

Educational Leadership

Date of Award

5-2009

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Terrence A. Tollefson

Committee Members

Cecil N. Blankenship, James H. Lampley, Jasmine R. Renner

Abstract

Teacher retention is a growing problem in the 21^st century. Many veterans teachers are reaching retirement age and there are increasing numbers of new teachers entering school systems.

School administrators across the state of Tennessee realize that there is a significant number of beginning teachers who are leaving the teaching profession within the first 3 to 5 years of their teaching careers. Beginning teachers are being surveyed to determine why many leave the profession. After gathering input from beginning teachers across Tennessee, school officials began to develop teacher mentoring programs designed to retain beginning teachers.

The purpose of this quantitative study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Knox County Schools system's teacher mentoring program, New Teacher Induction (NTI), for beginning teachers.

The participants in this study were novice teachers (with 1 to 3 years of teaching experience). Two hundred novice teachers were invited to participate. Thirty-eight (19%) participants responded to the first survey. Efforts were made to increase the response rate through reminder emails. Reminders emails were sent 3 times. Hard copies of the participant letter and survey instrument were mailed to the novice teacher group during the 2nd data collection to increase the participant responses. Thirty-one responses were collected during the second data collection. Sixty-nine (34%) teachers participated in this study.

Findings of the study are congruent with the literature in terms of perceptions of beginning teachers regarding the effectiveness of their mentoring experience and recommendations for enhancing mentoring programs. Most of the novice teachers indicated that their mentoring experience was successful. Many of the novice teachers also said that they attribute their decision to return to their school the following year to their successful mentoring experience.

Document Type

Dissertation - unrestricted

Recommended Citation

Waters, LaKisha L., "An Evaluation of Novice Teachers' Perceptions of the Mentoring Experience in Knox County Schools." (2009). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1846. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1846

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.