Andrew J. Hobson

Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school‐based mentoring in teacher education

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to identify and examine root causes of the failure of school‐based mentoring to realize its full potential.Design/methodology/approach – The article draws on the re‐analysis of data from two major mixed‐method empirical studies carried out in England. It focuses on data generated from interviews with beginner teachers and mentors in both primary and secondary schools.Findings – The findings point to a failure to create appropriate conditions for effective mentoring in England at the level of the mentoring relationship, the school, and the national policy context.Practical implications – Implications of the findings include the need to achieve a greater degree of informed consensus on the meaning and purposes of mentoring in teacher education, and to ensure that mentors of beginner teachers are appropriately trained for the role.Originality/value – The article identifies the practice of judgemental mentoring or “judgementoring” as an obstacle to school‐based mentori...

Student teachers’ experiences of initial teacher preparation in England: core themes and variation

Drawing on data generated via large‐scale survey and in‐depth interview methods, this article reports findings which show that being a student teacher in early‐twenty‐first‐century England is a demanding personal experience which requires considerable engagement and commitment in the face of built‐in challenges and risks, and which engenders, for many, highly charged affective responses. Student teachers are centrally concerned during this time with their (changing) identities, their relationships with others and the relevance of course provision. Findings also indicate that, in some respects, student teachers’ accounts of their experiences are systematically differentiated according to a number of factors, notably the initial teacher preparation route being followed, their age, and their prior conceptions and expectations of teaching and of learning to teach. These findings are situated in the broader literature on teacher development and some implications for teacher educators are discussed.

Head to Head: A Systematic Review of the Research Evidence on Mentoring New Head Teachers.

This article reports findings arising from a systematic review of literature relating to mentoring new head teachers. The review found that all major studies of formal mentoring programmes for new heads reported that such programmes have been effective, and that the mentoring of new heads can result in a range of perceived benefits for both mentees and mentors. However, the nature of the research evidence presented to support such findings is inconclusive and there are notable gaps in the evidence base. With a view to advancing academic knowledge in the field, the authors highlight those areas where further research is most needed.

On Being Bottom of the Pecking Order: Beginner Teachers' Perceptions and Experiences of Support.

This article presents findings from a large‐scale, longitudinal study of teachers’ experiences of initial teacher preparation and early professional development in England. Data were generated via annual surveys, in‐depth interviews and email communications. The study established that beginner teachers’ perceptions of the support they received were a major factor shaping their experiences of becoming and being a teacher. This article examines the importance of support to beginner teachers, what they understand by support, their perceptions of their support needs, and apparent successes and failings in the support provided to beginning teachers. The findings are situated in the broader literature on beginner teacher support and a number of implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Mentoring in Teacher Education

This article begins by tracing the modern roots of mentoring in teacher education, major themes supported by recent perspectives on professional learning, and the evolving relationships between these two strands. It then outlines, under three different headings, what growing research in this area is beginning to yield: effectiveness and benefits of mentoring, conditions for effective mentoring, and potential negatives in mentoring. While this demonstrates that research has begun to offer useful findings, the authors express the hope that while respecting the complexities involved, future research should help progress investigation of the effectiveness of mentoring and mentoring strategies.

Teacher fabrication as an impediment to professional learning and development: the external mentor antidote

This paper reports findings from a study of the work of ‘external mentors’ associated with three programmes of support for the professional learning and development (PLD) of secondary science teachers in England. Focusing on outcomes from analyses of data derived from interviews with 47 mentees and 19 mentors, the paper supports and extends existing research on the construction and maintenance of fabrications in schools, and identifies omissions in the evidence base relating to teacher PLD. It is argued that the kinds of fabrications revealed by the teachers interviewed for this research present a serious impediment to their opportunities for school-based PLD, and that the deployment of external mentors (i.e. those not based in the same schools as the teachers they support) can provide a potentially powerful antidote to this. A number of implications for policy and practice in teacher professional learning and development are discussed. Amongst these, it is argued that more teachers should have the opportunity to access external support for their PLD, and that policy makers and head teachers should seek to reduce the degree to which teachers’ ‘performance’ is observed, inspected and assessed.

Who withdraws from initial teacher preparation programmes and why

Background: In recent years, withdrawal from initial teacher preparation (ITP) programmes, in England and elsewhere, has become a cause for concern amongst both ITP providers and policy-makers. Purpose: This paper seeks to enhance the presently underdeveloped evidence base on the causes of withdrawal from ITP and on the characteristics of student teachers who are most likely to withdraw. Sample: All ITP providers in England were stratified by ITP route (including university-administered undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, school-centred and employment-based programmes) and a random sample within each route was selected. Of the 110 providers invited to participate in the research, 74 agreed to take part. All student teachers following the specified ITP routes in these institutions were then invited to participate in a longitudinal survey about their experiences of ITP and early professional development. Design and methods: Student teachers (n = 4790) completed an initial questionnaire about their reasons for undertaking ITP and their preconceptions about ITP and teaching. Of these, 3162 took part in a follow-up telephone interview about their experiences of ITP and, for 135 of these participants, about their experiences of withdrawing from ITP. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed: (a) to explore the experiences of those who withdrew from ITP; (b) to examine the extent to which withdrawal might be predicted by their reasons for undertaking ITP or their preconceptions of ITP and teaching; (c) to compare the responses to a number of key questions of those who withdrew from ITP and those who did not. Results: The findings show that withdrawal from ITP is differentiated by a number of variables including the ITP route being followed, whether student teachers are seeking to teach in primary or secondary schools, their age, gender and prior commitment to the profession. Data suggest that the main causes of withdrawal relate to workload and an apparent lack of support from ITP providers. Conclusions: The findings support some those of earlier studies but contradict others, for example by showing that those who report more prior experience of working in schools are not less likely to withdraw from ITP. A number of implications are presented for teacher educators and policy-makers.

Reality aftershock and how to avert it: second-year teachers’ experiences of support for their professional development

Drawing on analyses of data from a large-scale, mixed-method study of new entrants to the teaching profession in England, this article presents new findings on beginner teachers’ experiences of post-induction support for their professional development, about which little was previously known. As well as highlighting positive and negative aspects of support provision, it is shown that the recognised phenomenon of ‘reality shock’ is not confined to the transition between initial teacher preparation and teachers’ first year in post, since some second-year teachers experience a new or additional shock associated with the cessation of the induction support introduced, in part, to cushion the impact of that transition. Amongst the potential implications of these findings, it is argued that where they do not already exist, formal mechanisms should be introduced to facilitate the provision of contingent support for beginner teachers’ professional development beyond their first year.

Supporting Beginner Teacher Identity Development: External Mentors and the Third Space.

This paper reports findings from a study of support provided by non-school-based mentors of secondary science teachers in England. It focuses on the identity development of beginning teachers of physics, some of the recipients of the mentoring. Drawing on the analysis of interview and case study data, and utilising third space theory, the authors show how external mentors (experienced, subject specialist teachers who were not based in the same schools as the teachers they were supporting) facilitated opportunities for mentees to negotiate and shape their professional identities, and made valuable contributions to three distinct and important aspects of beginning teachers’ identity development. The paper argues that non-judgemental support from external mentors enhances beginner teachers’ professional learning and identity development through the creation of a discursive ‘third’ space in which mentees are able to openly discuss professional learning and development needs, discuss alternatives to performative norms and take risks in classrooms. Opportunities for beginner teachers to engage in such activities are often restricted in and by the current climate of schooling and teacher education within England.

‘Teaching could be a fantastic job but …’: three stories of student teacher withdrawal from initial teacher preparation programmes in England

Retention in initial teacher preparation (ITP) and the teaching profession, in England and elsewhere, has been the subject of numerous articles in academic and professional journals. Whilst a number of common findings are beginning to emerge from research on this subject, notably on the causes of student teacher withdrawal, studies have tended to neglect the difficulties experienced by the individuals who have lived through the process of embarking upon and withdrawing from ITP programmes. Having conducted in‐depth interviews, the authors attempt in this paper to understand the experiences, emotions and decisions of three people who committed themselves to ITP, invested much energy and time, but in the end withdrew. The reasons for their decision are numerous and complex. The impact on each individual was considerable. The experience was painful.