Keeping Our Teachers! Investigating Mentoring Practices to Support and Retain Novice Educators
Source: Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, Volume 17, Issue 4 (November 2009) , pages 329 – 341.
In this study, the researchers investigated the possible relationship between mentoring and intentionality with respect to beginning teachers' intentions to remain in the profession.
For this study, the researchers used data from the 2006 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions survey. The sample consists of 8838 teachers who were mentored during their first two years of teaching.
To determine whether the quality of mentoring is related to teachers' intentions to stay or leave the profession, mentor matching, degree of support, and frequency of interactions were variables examined.
Beginning teachers who were matched by grade level, who received assistance with the supports investigated, and who met with mentors at least once monthly for the specified activities were more likely to commit to remaining in the profession than their peers who had received less support.