Examining Mentor Teacher Professional Success in a Value-Added Evaluation Framework

• In Event: 26.079 - Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: 26.079-4 - Efficacy and Effectiveness of Mentor Teacher Leaders: A Multiperspective Session

Abstract

Purpose

Researchers evaluated the effect of mentoring experience on mentor teachers’ career outcomes through longitudinal and cross-sectional designs to inform mentor program sustainability in low performance public schools. Specifically, researchers measured mentor teachers’ benefits from mentoring others in terms of 1) skill, knowledge and responsibility (SKR, mainly composed of classroom observation scores) score growth and 2) teacher valued added (TVA) to student achievement growth in 3 years; whereas comparing mentor teachers’ 3) SKR score growth and 4) TVA growth in contrast to career teachers.

Perspectives

Teacher mentoring programs serve as a vehicle to support and retain novice teachers. The positive outcomes of mentoring have been widely reported in educational contexts (Smith & Ingersoll, 2004), but the majority of research has focused on the benefits of novice teachers. Few studies have focused on mentors’ benefits (Ehrich, Hansford, & Tnnent, 2004), and even fewer have studied the effect of mentorship on mentors’ professional performance in a statewide educational accountability system.

Methods

This research includes nine Wave 1 schools from 2010-14, 32 Wave 2 schools from 2011-14, and 15 Wave 3 schools from 2012-14, involving 2022 total school staff members. Among them, 214 were mentor teachers. This study 1) described Wave 1 and Wave 2 mentor and mentee teachers’ SKR and TVA scores change over years; 2) used t-test to compare Wave 2 mentor teacher’s SKR and TVA score change from 2011-12 school year to 2012-13 school year ; 3) used t-test to compare mentor teachers’ SKR and TVA score change with career teachers’ SKR and TVA score change;

Results

After three years working in Wave 1 schools, 17.9% of the mentor teachers were promoted to master teachers or school administrators; after two years working in Wave 2 schools, 16.6% of the mentor teachers were promoted to master teachers or school administrators.

Within subject t-test shows that Mentor teacher’s SKR and TVA growth were significant from 2011-2012 school year to 2012-2013 school year, respectively, t (79) = 8.49, p<.05; t (31)=2.32, p<.05. Cross-sectional t-test shows that the SKR growth difference between mentor teachers and career teachers was significant, but the TVA growth difference between them was not significant.

Significance

The limited number of studies researching mentors’ benefits reported inconsistent results. According to Ehrich, Hansford, and Tnnent (2004), 47.8% of the mentor studies showed that mentor teachers benefited substantially from the mentoring experience, but 48.4% of the studies reported problems or difficulties with mentoring. Given these inconclusive results, more mentor centric evaluation remains demanded. Moreover, Chun, Sosik, and Yun (2012) found that most prior studies were cross-sectional studies failing to evaluate the unique effects of mentoring functions on mentors. It is essential to design a longitudinal study to measure the initial levels of mentors, and the outcome after mentorship at multiple points of time. This is precisely what the researchers did in this study by performing mentor centric evaluation with longitudinal and cross-sectional designs.

Authors

• Hongxia Fu, Arizona State University

• Wendy Miedel Barnard, Arizona State University