Student teacher expectations of the role mentor lecturers play in developing teacher identity

Abstract

Mentoring has been acknowledged as an important foundation of teacher education worldwide and is pivotal to the development of student teachers’ teacher identity, especially during teaching practice. Despite this, mentorship seems to fall short of its intended objectives and student teachers frequently seem to perceive mentors are critical evaluators rather than as mentors. The current descriptive case study forms part of a broader research project, the Peer Enhanced Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, focused on the development of a mentorship intervention for student teachers. To determine the role student teachers expect mentor lecturers to play in the development of their teacher identities, semi-structured, open-ended questionnaires were completed anonymously by 170 student teachers after they had completed their teaching practice. These questionnaires were then analysed using an interpretive approach by means of inductive thematic analysis. Previous work, including Hudson’s Five-factor Model for Effective Teaching, acknowledged the need for mentor lecturers to integrate system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, feedback and personal attributes in order to perform important mentorship roles. These included mentor lecturers being experts (in subject didactics and pedagogy), models/guides, reflective practitioners, coaches, companions, motivators and change agents. These factors and roles were identified as significant in the current study, although the need for a caring and encouraging relationship between the student teacher and mentor lecturer was also highlighted. The implication is that mentor lecturers should view student teachers more holistically and offer both personal and professional support during their teaching practice, thus indicating the need for a possible sixth factor, namely the context of a safe and nurturing relationship which may aid teacher identity development.