AN ABSRACT OF THE THESIS OF Greg Steinsdoerfer, for the Master of Arts degree in psychology, presented on October 25th, 2011, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: QUALITY OF NATURAL MENTOR RELATIONSHIPS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH OUTCOMES IN A RURAL AFRICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT SAMPLE MAJOR PROFESSOR: Kathie, Chwalisz, Ph.D. In response to the general call of the American Psychological Association (APA) for more multicultural and multinational research (APA, 2002), this study is an examination of natural mentor relationships in a rural sub-Saharan African high school student sample. A total of 200 rural Zambian high school students completed a set of self-report questionnaires to test three hypotheses. First, those with a natural mentor were hypothesized to have significantly better psychological health outcomes than those without a natural mentor, as measured by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale (RSE), the General Health Questionnaire - 12 (GHQ-12), and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Second, it was hypothesized that high school students with a natural mentor would report better health risk choices as measured by alcohol, smoking, drug, sexual activity, and bullying behavior. Finally, quality of the natural mentoring relationship (i.e., frequency of contact, emotional closeness, and longevity of the relationship) was hypothesized to be related to better psychological health outcomes. As hypothesized, sub-Saharan African high school students with a natural mentor reported significantly better psychological health outcomes on all measures than those who did not have a natural mentor. High school students with a natural mentor did not have significant differences in health choice behaviors, and the quality of the natural mentor relationship was not a significant predictor for psychological health. These findings have implications for prevention and intervention programs in rural community settings in Zambia. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

The debate over the effective preparation of pre-service teachers is not new. Often this debate concerns what might be considered successful methods for all pre-service teachers. However, preparation for career and technical education (CTE) teachers could look quite different than that of academic teachers, whether they are prepared through traditional or alternative routes to education. In this qualitative study, the researcher examined two iterations of the alternative-route program designed to prepare new CTE teachers in Mississippi and considered the level of self-efficacy of the teacher participants, the perceived effectiveness of the specific elements of each program, and the perceived significance of teacher/administrator and teacher/mentor relationships. The results of this study indicate that participants in the most recent iteration of the alternative-route program have a higher level of self-efficacy in teaching. The study also found that the specific elements of the newer version of the program are perceived as more relevant than those of the older version of the program and that teacher/administrator and teacher/mentor relationships play a key role in self-efficacy and job satisfaction among new CTE teachers. The results of this study also revealed that new CTE teachers desire opportunities to grow their pedagogical content knowledge by interacting and learning from veteran teachers in their respective content areas. Additionally, some of the more effective teachers who participated in this study rated themselves lower than their less effective colleagues on a self-efficacy survey and vice versa, indicating the presence of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which posits that, when an individual is unskilled in a certain task, they not only make poor choices in that area but also lack the metacognitive ability to realize it.