2.1 Mentors’ views of factors essential for the success of beginning

Introduction

Croasmum, Hampton, and Hermann (2000) documented that mentor programs have been developed throughout the nation’s schools in an effort to address the attrition rate of first-year teachers in American schools. The efficacy of these mentoring programs is still under investigation. Gold (1999) documented that the teacher attrition rate for beginning teachers in his school district was 18% when they did not have an assigned mentor and only 5% when they had a school district assigned mentor. Evertson and Smithey (2000) reported that pairing mentors who had undergone training to be a mentor with beginning teachers yielded beginning teachers with higher-level teaching skills. Beginning teachers who were not paired with mentors lacked these higher-level teaching skills. Darling-Hammond (2003), in an examination of the effectiveness of mentoring programs, wrote that beginning teacher retention rates were increased.

Recent research into teacher induction, of which mentor programs are the primary method of teacher induction (Fideler&Haselkorn, 1999), has documented its efficacy in (a) making the transition of beginning teachers easier, (b) reducing teacher turnover, (c) and increasing work satisfaction (Andrews&Quinn, 2005; Archer, 2003; Bullard, 1998; Feinman-Nemser, 2003; Fuller, 2003; Holloway, 2001). It is clear that beginning teachers need time to become proficient teachers. Researchers (e.g., Claycomb&Hawley, 2000) have reported that 3 to 7 years of experience in teaching is needed before teachers attain a level of proficiency. It is the first years of teaching that are the years where beginning teachers gain the most proficiency. Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain (2005) documented that beginning teachers make“important gains in teaching quality in the first year and smaller gains over the next few career years”(p. 449).