Campus Location

Dallas Campus (Online)

Date of Award

11-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Department

Organizational Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Irma Harper

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Simone Elias

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Scott Strawn

Abstract

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study was teacher attrition. The purpose of this qualitative research was to conduct a program evaluation of the mentoring program in a large urban district in Texas. The research conducted was through questionnaires derived from the teacher questionnaire of the National Teacher and Principal Survey 2015–2016 School Year and in-depth interviews of both novice teachers and mentors. Findings indicated that connectedness, modeling, and collaborative conversations were critical to the success of novice teachers. Additional findings indicated that training, classroom observations, and monthly meetings were the most effective components of the Study Independent School District (SISD, pseudonym) [CB1] mentoring program. For novice teachers, it was concluded that SISD should strive to purposefully embed training on all SISD classroom management modules into new teacher inductions and ensure novice teachers have opportunities to observe other teachers, be observed, and engage in honest, constructive conversations that provide meaningful feedback about areas of improvement. For mentors, it was recommend eliminating or restructuring one of the mentor training sessions, adding ongoing coaching professional development, and increasing expectations for campus mentor coordinators to provide additional support to teachers. For both participant groups, frequent check-in meetings with novice teachers and mentors was suggested to assist with immediate needs and proactively address potential future concerns.

Keywords: teacher attrition, novice teacher, mentor, program evaluation, novice teacher support

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.