Voices of educational administration internship mentors

Profiles of the Administrative Internship: The Mentor/Intern Partnership in Facilitating Leadership Experiences

“…The supervising mentor principal plays an equally important role in contributing to the intern's opportunity to lead authentic administrative tasks. Findings from our prior studies (Clayton & Thessin, 2017;Thessin & Clayton, 2013) suggested that mentor trust in the intern contributes to the intern's opportunity for leadership. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2000) reviewed existing definitions of trust in the literature to conclude: "Trust is one party's willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that the latter party is (a) benevolent, (b) reliable, (c) competent, (d) honest, and (e) open" (p. 556).…”

“…In prior studies we conducted utilizing surveys and interviews of both mentors and interns, results spotlighted the importance of the intern/mentor partnership (Clayton & Thessin, 2017; Thessin & Clayton, 2013 ) on the outcomes of the administrative internship. This study was designed to gain a more in-depth understanding of the contributions of both the intern and the mentor to the intern’s opportunity to obtain leadership experience during the internship.…”

“…However, in our review of the literature published in the last decade on administrative internships, we found that fewer than 15 articles referenced mentoring during this critical time in career and leadership development. In prior studies we conducted (Clayton & Thessin, 2017; Thessin & Clayton, 2013), two key themes emerged as influential in the quality of the internship experience across multiple years of data: the degree to which interns were provided with the opportunity to lead during the administrative experience and the significance of mentor trust and interactions during the internship experience.…”

La mentoría en los programas de formación de directores escolares: revisión de la literatura

“…Las investigaciones cualitativas utilizan muestras pequeñas (23 de los 38 estudios empíricos tienen muestras iguales o inferiores a 30 sujetos) y recurren como técnicas mayoritarias de recogida de información a las entrevistas, los cuestionarios y los grupos focales. Respecto a los mentores, en siete de los artículos (Clayton y Thessin, 2017;Gross, 2002;Gumus, 2019;Lipke, 2018;Lochmiller, 2014;Riley, 2009;Service et al, 2018) son directores con experiencia, y en el resto de los trabajos empíricos (n = 31) la mentoría la llevan a cabo profesores de universidad o de los programas de liderazgo.…”

“…A veces, los mentores manifiestan sentirse frustrados ante comportamientos de los directivos, por ejemplo, cuando ponen dificultades para reunirse o ser observados. En otras ocasiones son los directores quienes se quejan de que los mentores son difíciles de abordar, excesivamente críticos o poco comprometidos (Clayton y Thessin, 2017), son excesivamente dirigistas (Bush, 2012), o les proporcionan poco apoyo, guía o consejo. Otra queja es que los mentores se centran más en aspectos técnicos o admi nistrativos que en lo pedagógico (Oplatka y Lapidot, 2018;Scott, 2010).…”