Kosovo is a young country in Europe that aims at development toward a European perspective. The quality of education in Kosovo suffered significantly because of political developments before and after the war in 1999. Based on a report of the European Commission (2013, p.13), that investigated teacher education and training in Kosovo, a key direction in the area of teacher education is to "put in place an effective and sustainable teacher development system to improve quality of education". The students’ low results in the two latest editions of PISA- Programme for International Student Assessment (2019) have raised the question of the quality of student teachers’ mentoring in teacher preparation programs, but also the quality of induction programs in schools. According to Vula et al. 2015, the design of the mentoring program in Kosovo embedded within itself certain features of hierarchical relationships between the mentors and student teachers which led to a confusion of mentoring and monitoring concepts among the teachers involved. Furthermore, Gjelaj et al. (2020) state that reflections of Kosovar teacher educators in the last years have indicated a lack of quality mentoring practices in Kosovo’s schools. 

The teaching practicum at the Faculty of Education of the University of Prishtina starts in the first year of study with a 2-week long observational practicum. The practicum for third-year students lasts six weeks, while for fourth-year students it lasts eight weeks. Although the Faculty of Education of the University of Prishtina has developed a mentoring program that involves university supervisors and mentor teachers, the poor level of organization of the teaching practicum comes as a result of the limited number of academic staff who is in charge of mentoring the students during the teaching practicum, a high number of students in the study program for primary school teachers and unsatisfactory cooperation between the faculty and host schools where students serve as interns (ETEA, 2021). 

According to the existing literature, there is an urgent need to develop student teachers’ self-efficacy during their studies, before they start working as teachers (Berg & Smith, 2018; Yada et al., 2021). Moreover, students who have a low sense of self-efficacy need to be identified, while those who are expected to fail during their studies need to be helped (Ismail and Jani, 2016). Given the importance of teachers’ self-efficacy for classroom management, educational institutions must understand possible factors that might enhance or hinder these beliefs (Berg and Smith, 2018; Van Dinther et al., 2011 ). Different studies report on difficulties student teachers encountered to establish a positive relationship with mentors and master teaching skills, such as lesson planning, inclusion, classroom management, and instructional strategies (Kurt et al., 2014, Nikoçeviq-Kurti & Saqipi, 2020; John et al., 2018).

The conceptual framework of this study is based on Hudson’s Five-Factor Mentoring Model (2004) consisting of, personal attributes, system requirements, modelling, pedagogical knowledge, and feedback; and the Self-Efficacy Theory (Bandura, 1986). This study investigated the relationship between the student teachers’ school placement mentoring experience and their level of self-efficacy in classroom management.

This study is guided by this research questions:

1. How do student teachers perceive their mentoring experience during their last teaching practicum? 
2. What is the level of student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in classroom management?
3. Are there statistically significant differences between the student teachers’ school placement mentoring experiences (based on the five-factor model) and their level of self-efficacy in classroom management?
4. What factors (from the five-factor mentoring model) predict better the student teachers’ self-efficacy in classroom management?

This study used a non-experimental descriptive research design to investigate student teachers' self-efficacy for classroom management in relation to their mentoring experiences after their last teaching practicum. The sample of this study was 210 student teachers (3rd and 4th year of study). Out of 218 respondents, 210 questionnaires are validated and considered for analysis. Of the respondents, 110 (52.4%) were third-year students while 100 of them (47.6%) were fourth-year students. Most of the participants were female (93.8%) while the majority of the sample was 18-22 years old (70.5%). Of 210 respondents, 51.9% of them live in a rural area, while 48.1% in an urban area. The survey was conducted in-person with third-year students, while the questionnaire was distributed online to fourth-year students due to pandemic situation. The students were initially informed about the objective of the study and that the survey will be conducted with an anonymous self-report questionnaire. The instrument constructed for this study consisted of two standardized questionnaires: Mentoring for Effective Teaching Practice Instrument (Hudson et al., 2005) and Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A., 2001). Background variables are included in which the participants reported their year of study, age, gender, and place of residence (urban /rural). Both questionnaires were adopted for this study from the original version and translated into the Albanian language. Before the administration of the questionnaires, a pilot test with 40 student teachers is conducted to examine the clarity, validity, and reliability of the questionnaire. The Cronbach’s Alfa for this survey questionnaire was .857, which indicates a high level of internal consistency for our scale. The data analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software. To achieve the objectives of the study, several statistical analyses were performed, such as: descriptive analysis, cross-tabulations, multiple correlation, and multiple regression. The data is processed using nonparametric tests, such as, Spearman's Rho correlation, Mann Whitney-U test, and Kruskal Wallis H tests (ANOVA non-parametric test).

This study offers a deeper comprehension of the quality of the mentoring program in Kosovo but also contributes to the current literature in the way how future teachers should be prepared and supported during initial teacher education programs. Findings indicate that student teachers’ experiences of mentoring by mentor teachers are related positively to their level of self-efficacy in classroom management. Student who reported higher level of self-efficacy in classroom management rated the quality of their mentoring experience higher than those who reported lower self-efficacy. Based on results, student teachers were adequately mentored on personal attributes, while less reported was the provision of feedback. The differences noticed in the mean value of responses lead us to the conclusion that mentor teachers were more focused on modelling teaching practices and their personal attributes, and slightly less on offering mentoring on system requirements and feedback. The findings of this study confirm previous findings in Kosovo’s context that mentors give less attention to their roles as feedback providers, which are comparable with results to other studies. Student teachers reported a lower level of self-efficacy beliefs in classroom management compared to results in other studies. Seventy-five percent of student teachers indicated that they can do “quite a bit” to ” to “a great deal” in classroom management practices. Results showed that mentor teachers' personal attributes were the strongest factor associated with student teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. Among others, results suggest that teacher education institutions and schools in Kosovo should ensure that mentors understand their role in the mentoring process and the importance of mentoring based on a five-factor mentoring model. This study offers several recommendations on facilitating research findings translation for policy and practice change in Kosovo and other similar contexts.

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