Date of Award

1-1-2011

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Leadership and Policies

Sub-Department

Educational Administration

First Advisor

Zach Kelehear

Abstract

The study examined the novice teacher's perceptions of success through the support of an assigned mentor, teacher colleagues, and the administration. The study specifically asked three questions which included addressing to what extent beginning teachers were exposed to best practices by their assigned mentor, by mentoring relationships with colleagues, and by mentoring interactions with principal(s) in their first year of teaching. The summary of the study highlights important outcomes of the research by looking at feedback of teachers with one to three years experience in the Olde English Consortium, Piedmont Region of South Carolina.

The survey instrument used in the research study is the Perceptions of Success Inventory for Beginning Teachers, PSI-BT, developed by Corbell, Reiman and Nietfeld. The PSI-BT inventory was used to assess the novice teacher's perceptions of mentor support, colleague support, and administrative support in their first year of teaching. The study utilized quantitative research methodology. Descriptive statistics were used through SPSS and Excel data analysis to determine the mean and standard deviation for each survey item and for each research question.

The findings revealed that novice teachers value and desire mentoring relationships with an assigned mentor, teacher colleagues, and principals. The data revealed a concern in relation to the required 2006 South Carolina Induction and Mentoring Program Implementation Guidelines, Section 59-26-30 of the Code stipulates that the State Department of Education is to provide formalized induction programs for teachers.

Recommendations for future research include utilizing the study data and providing a more detailed qualitative analyses through focus groups and interviews.

Rights

© 2011, Linda Larkin Blackwell

Download

Share

COinS