Award Date

5-1-2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching and Learning

First Committee Member

Chyllis Scott

Second Committee Member

Jeffrey Shih

Third Committee Member

Sophie Ladd

Fourth Committee Member

LeAnn Putney

Fifth Committee Member

Tracy Spies

Number of Pages

166

Abstract

As teacher attrition continues to pose challenges to schools around the United States, support is needed for keeping beginning teachers (BTs) in the classroom rather than only focusing on recruiting them. Support for BTs is often provided in the form of mentoring programs. Most of these mentoring programs pair experienced teachers with BTs in order to provide personal and professional support. However, not all of these programs are successful, and not all schools even have the resources to offer that type of support to BTs. This three-article dissertation explores why mentoring programs fail (theoretical piece), analyzes what recent research shows about mentor training (systematic review of literature), and presents a study that reimagines the mentoring of BTs through the use of student perspectives (empirical piece). Findings reveal gaps in the research on mentor training as well as the possible benefits of empowering students to help BTs survive their first years of teaching. The dissertation concludes by showing how all three articles fit into the broader context of mentoring research when taken together as a set. Suggestions for further research are provided as well.

Keywords

beginning teachers; mentor training; mentoring research; proximal mentoring; teacher mentoring

Disciplines

Education

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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