An investigation of self‐efficacy crossover between mentors and protégés within mentoring dyads

Training the Trainers in Language Assessment via Mentoring: Building Expertise to Promote Language Assessment Literacy of Ukrainian University Teachers

This mixed-methods study described a case of group-based informal mentoring, a conceptual model of which was aligned with an effective mentoring program found in the literature. The research questions that were addressed in the study included: (1) Will mentoring training, conducted within a short (1-month) period, enable inexperienced presenters to develop and conduct an effective workshop in LTA? (2) In what way(s) has mentoring training impacted the mentees as prospective trainers in LTA? The training was implemented by one mentor and two mentees, with the immediate purpose to organize a platform to disseminate the results of an Erasmus+ staff mobility program. The data were collected via a questionnaire, a self-efficacy scale and reflection logs about the mentoring procedure, as well as the workshop in LTA conducted by the mentees with the purpose to enhance Ukrainian university teachers’ LAL. The outcome of the training reported a high success level of the workshop among 37 attendees. In addition, the participants of the mentoring training (n = 2) demonstrated improvement in their organizational skills and professional growth. The mentoring framework proved to be an effective strategy for implementing study objectives and can be recognized as a successful model for the promotion of language assessment literacy.

How Mentors Think About the Attainability of Mentoring Goals: The Impact of Mentoring Type and Mentoring Context on the Anticipated Regulatory Network and Regulatory Resources of Potential Mentors for School Mentoring Programs

Research shows that trained mentors achieve better results than untrained ones. Their training should particularly address their expectations for their future mentoring. Our study involved 190 preservice teachers, potential mentors of ongoing school mentoring for primary and secondary school students of all grades. They were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2-x-2 between-subjects design of mentoring type (traditional mentoring versus e-mentoring) and mentoring context (non-pandemic versus COVID-19 pandemic). Participants assessed mentoring conducted under these four conditions in terms of its appropriateness for achieving four mentoring program targets: learning, key skills, social targets, and problem coping. Participants were also asked to assess the resources available to achieve each program target. Overall, the potential mentors considered the various conditions to be suitable for achieving the four program targets. They were particularly favorable in their assessment of the possibility for the realization of learning targets. Likewise, they assumed that sufficient resources were available to achieve the targets. However, a repeated-measures MANOVA showed that the potential mentors considered more ambitious targets to be possible in traditional mentoring than in e-mentoring and normal (i.e., pre-pandemic) contextual conditions than during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, they estimated the resources available to achieve the targets to be about the same in the four conditions. This indicates a decoupling of mentoring targets from the consideration of the resources needed to achieve them. This assumption was confirmed in correlation analyses and has implications for mentor training.

Key issues in professionalizing mentoring practices

Mentoring has experienced a tremendous upswing over the past decades, which has only recently slowed down somewhat. One possible factor explaining mentoring's popularity are numerous case studies suggesting that it is one of the most effective ways of helping individuals to develop. Meta-analyses indicating effect sizes for mentoring that are below what would theoretically be possible appear to contradict the success stories, however. This circumstance raises questions about the professionalization of mentoring practices. We focus on seven key issues for future efforts at professionalizing mentoring. Key issues 1 and 2 address observation of the state of the art within formal mentoring when programs are planned and implemented: the consideration of recent research and of best practices. While both areas can overlap, they provide complementary sources of pertinent information for the professionalization of mentoring. Key issues 3-6 address the need to align mentoring activities to the specific context and goals of individual mentoring programs by observing idiographic program characteristics, mentoring dynamics, the orchestration of mentoring goals, and the provision of mentoring resources. Finally, key issue 7 highlights ongoing evaluation as the basis of the effective, continuous improvement of mentoring programs.