Reciprocal Mentoring: Can it Help Prevent Attrition for Beginning Teachers?

Abstract

Up to one third of all new teachers leave the profession in the first five years (Ingersoll, 2012;Watt & Richardson, 2011;Hartsuyker, 2007). Stress, induction failure and professional isolation have been identified as key attrition factors. Mentoring has been used both internationally and in Australia to enhance induction and reduce professional isolation; however, these mentoring relationships are often fragile and there is a need to establish more effective mentoring models (Paris, 2010;Hartsuyker, 2007

Teacher Attrition and Retention Research in Australia: Towards a New Theoretical Framework

“…Seven of the articles reported on longitudinal studies, ranging in length from one year to five years. Several studies adopted a quasi-experimental approach, where the impact of a particular mentoring, induction, or teacher preparation programme was explored (Harrington, 2013;Harrington & Brasche, 2011;Moore, 2009;Paris, 2013). However, in all of these studies there was no pre-post design, control group, or random assignment.…”

“…A further impediment to the reliability of this measure is the use of different forms of questioning, and different time frames for requesting information about future intentions, a problem also found in an international review of literature relating to special education teacher attrition and retention (Billingsley, 2004). In this review, two studies requested information about participants' future intentions in five years' time (Ashiedu & Scott-Ladd, 2012;Paris, 2013), while a further two requested intentions in five and ten years' time (Boylan & McSwan, 1998;Ewing & Smith, 2003). How these questions were framed is not always clear and this further muddies the waters regarding the replicability of the studies.…”

“…One issue that has been revealed is the time frame over which early career teachers were studied. This ranged from twelve months (Paris, 2013); fifteen months (Ewing & Smith, 2003;Sharplin, O'Neill, & Chapman, 2010), three years (Frid, Smith, Sparrow, & Trinidad, 2008;Harrington & Brasche, 2011;Plunkett & Dyson, 2011), four years (Buchanan et al, 2013) to five years (Manuel, 2003). While financial and time constraints do not always allow for the collection of data over extended periods, the lack of consistency in defining the term 'early career teacher' is an issue that must be addressed, as different time periods will produce different results, results that cannot be compared across studies unless everyone is on the same page.…”

Adjusting Personal Expectations: An Analysis of Early-Career Teacher Narratives

“…Teacher attrition has been linked to a mismatch of expectations with the realities of teaching, which is further compounded by other factors: including stress, isolation, a heavy workload, a lack of support, student behaviour, and an increasing focus on teacher performance and achievement data (Paris, 2013;QCT, 2013;Watt & Richardson, 2011). High attrition rates for early-career teachers are widely reported in studies in most developed nations (Goddard & Goddard, 2006;Ingersoll & Strong, 2011).…”

“…High attrition rates for early-career teachers are widely reported in studies in most developed nations (Goddard & Goddard, 2006;Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Indeed, a number of studies have identified that up to 40% of teachers in developed countries leave the profession in the first five years (Johnson et al, 2010;Paris, 2013;Watt & Richardson, 2011).…”