Research questions, objectives and theoretical framework

National and local initiatives for mentoring of Newly qualified Teachers (NQTs) have been in force since 1997, and these have been positively evaluated, mainly by examining the participants’ satisfaction (Dahl m.fl., 2006). It is a political goal that all NQTs will be mentored on site during the first year of teaching. An agreement was made between the Ministry of Education and Research and the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities about mentoring for NQTs in elementary and secondary schools beginning the school year 2010-2011. Moreover, the Government has supported the education of mentors for NQTs by delegating funds to higher education institutions in the work of assuring the quality of mentoring. International programs for NOTs are very variable in content and structure (Blömeke and Paine, 2009).

A report on the first two years of the Norwegian program established 2010 says that most mentoring with NQTs are one-to-one-sessions. Seven out of ten school leaders report that they have made mentoring part of mentors’ workload, but half of the NQTs have no additional time planned for mentoring sessions. The most common themes in mentoring are class management, assessment of pupils, NQTs individual needs and organizing teaching (KD and KS, 2011). 

A report from a teachers’ union concludes that only half of the mentors for 400 NQTs had formal education in mentoring. The dominating content elements in mentoring sessions were class management, subject knowledge and didactics (Harsvik og Norgård, 2011).

Teachers develop a personal system of knowledge, values and beliefs about their professional role and work.  Their knowledge base consists of research based insights as well as professional experiences accumulated throughout their career. Teachers continually interpret situations and make decisions on how to deal with them. They develop a subjective educational theory to cope with daily work (Kelchtermans, 2009). The planning, doing and assessing of mentoring of student teachers and NQTs is an activity that requires teacher-mentors to reflect and act didactically.

Hobson et al (2009) conclude that research on the effects of mentor training on their mentors’ practice is scarce, and that existing evidence cannot establish a solid connection.

The purpose of this project is to find out how mentors describe their learning outcomes from mentor training courses, and how they interpret their role as mentors, how they plan and organize the mentoring with NQTs and student teachers. One main objective of this study was to find out whether knowledge elements in mentors’ subjective educational theory corresponded with findings reported in relevant literature. Another main objective is to find out how mentors describe the structure and contents of their mentoring sessions.

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