ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to determine the collaborative mentoring support model for improving the effectiveness of new teachers in the upper basic schools in South East Nigeria. The study specifically set out to find out the extent some variables of collaborative mentoring support models such as planning conversation, coaching of mentees, mentoring observation, data gathering of mentees by mentors as well as reflective conversation between mentors and mentees enhance the effectiveness of the newly employed teachers. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. A sample of 638 newly employed teachers who were currently serving under the government’s N-power programme was drawn from a population of 6315 newly employed teachers in three out of five states of the South East, Nigeria. The sample which represented the 10% of the population was drawn using multi-stage sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was 25-item researcher-developed questionnaire titled; Collaborative Mentoring Support and Teacher Effectiveness Questionnaire (CMSTEQ). The questionnaire was validated by three experts two in Educational Administration and one in Measurement and Evaluation. The reliability of the instrument was determined using test-retest procedure which yielded a reliability index of 0.76. The administration and collection of data was carried out by the researcher with the help of three briefed research assistants. Mean and standard deviations were used to answer the five research questions raised in the study while t-test statistic was used to test the five null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results among others showed that planning conversation, coaching of mentees by mentors, mentoring observation, data gathering by mentors as well as reflective conversation between mentor and mentee enhanced the effectiveness of new teachers to high extent. It was recommended therefore that newly recruited teachers should adequately make themselves available to the more experienced colleagues for mentoring. Principals and other school administrators in various schools should encourage and educate both the new and more experienced teachers on the need for regular mentoring, while government and ministries of education should see the need for organizing regular seminars and workshops for teachers on requisite skills for effective mentoring.