Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1191

Date

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Instr and Curr Leadership

Concentration

Early Childhood Education

Committee Chair

Vivian Gunn Morris

Committee Member

Jerrie L. Scott

Committee Member

Satomi I. Taylor

Committee Member

Louis A. Franceschini

Abstract

Induction and mentoring programs are being implemented throughout the nation by school districts as intensive professional development for new teachers. These programs are designed to accelerate the development of novice teachers as a strategy to improve the academic achievement of preschool to 12th-grade students. In an effort to assess the relative importance of school-level factors that might further such teachers' growth, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of three cohorts of mentored teachers with respect to five working conditions: (a) colleagues' contributions to new teachers' professional growth; (b) principal support of new teachers' professional growth; (c) adequate classroom space; (d) sufficient materials and supplies; and (e) collaboration with veteran teachers. This study was also designed to determine if there were differences in new teachers' perceptions by characteristics such as the number of years they had been teaching, the length of time these new teachers worked with their mentors, and these new teachers' level of education. This secondary analysis uses data previously collected from 169 mentored teachers who had been teaching between 1 and 3 years at the time of the original study and taught at 34 different schools within districts that serve a largely African American student population. The new teachers in the original study participated in a collaborative (i.e., school district and university) induction and mentoring program over a three-year period. These teachers completed an anonymous survey related to induction that was developed and administered by the New Teacher Center. The data used for secondary analysis in this study were derived from three successive administrations of this survey. Through various nonparametric statistical procedurres, findings indicated that new teachers rated items pertaining to their school's "social context" (i.e., colleagues' contributions to their professional growth, collaboration with veteran teachers, support of principals) highest. Conversely, the more "material" conditions of the school (i.e. adequacy of their classrooms, sufficiency of materials and supplies for instruction) were consistently rated lowest.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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