Describing secondary school mentor teachers' mentoring conceptions and motivations in preservice teacher education

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to describe secondary school (5th – 12th grade) mentor teachers’ mentoring conceptions and motivations. It is also aimed to examine relationship between mentoring conceptions and motivations. Lastly, the study aims to examine whether mentor teachers’ mentoring conceptions and motivations are differen tiated in terms of their subject areas, years of mentoring experience, school levels, and school types. The sample of the study was comprised of 141 secondary school mentor teachers in Istanbul. The data were collected by using the Mentoring Conception Scale (MCS), and the Mentoring Motivation Scale (MMS). Within the scope of this study, the MCS and the MMS were translated Dutch to Turkish and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed. The results of the study showed that mentor teachers tended to give high scores for each conception and motivation factors. While mentor teachers reported stronger agreement with a developmental mentoring conception than an in strumental mentoring conception, they reported almost equal agreement on personal learning and generative outcome motives. It was found that all of the relationships between mentoring conception and motivation factors were statistically significant and positive. The results also showed that mentor teachers’ conception and motivation factors were differentiated in terms of subject areas but not years of mentoring expe rience, and school types. Mentor teachers whose subject areas are in Language and Social Science group tended to give high scores for each conception and motivation factor than Science and Mathematics groups.