With the number of underprepared, at-risk students entering college, many institutions have developed initiatives to help support student success. Previous research has shown that peer mentoring has been used to support student success, but there is limited research on the mentoring experience from the peer mentors'€™ perspective. The purpose of the study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of peer mentors who mentor at-risk college students at a 4-year institution. Using a phenomenological design, 8 peer mentors were interviewed. This study was built on Lave and Wegner'€™s theory of situated learning and Zachary'€™s 4-phase mentoring model to help explain the meaning and value that the participants attributed to their experiences. Moustakas'€™s 7 step data analysis method was used. The results from this study suggested 5 themes that represent the peer mentors'€™ experiences: (a) being a role model, (b) learning experiences for the peer mentors, (c) establishing accountability, (d) effective mentor/mentee communication and relationship, and (e) clarifying the role as a mentee. The participants believed they strengthened their leadership and communication skills as a result of their mentoring experience; they also placed a strong emphasis on the challenges that occur during the mentoring relationship. The participants gained an understanding of how the skills they developed would be used in their academics and future professional careers. The positive social change implications for this study included: (a) aiding in the training of future peer mentors; (b) the improvement of future peer mentor programs; (c) improved support for at-risk students; and (d) gaining new insights for other researchers searching to promote successful mentorship programs for at-risk students.

Diverse mentoring models have been implemented by educational organizations to address teacher retention, but debate continues over which mentoring model is most beneficial. Two school districts in Utah, USA, hereafter referred to as the Asher and Dane (pseudonyms) School Districts, provide distinct approaches to mentoring. Both the Asher and Dane School District have used veteran teachers with full-time teaching loads to mentor beginning teachers. The Dane School District, however, has recently implemented a unique and distinct mentoring model in addition to in-school mentors. In this model, full-time released teacher "coaches" with specialized mentoring responsibilities are assigned by the district to mentor several beginning elementary teachers in one grade band (K-3 or 4-6) throughout the district. This longitudinal research studied the Asher and Dane School Districts' mentoring models to develop a grounded theory to explain how these two distinct mentoring models were related to beginning teacher retention rates. A stratified, random sample was utilized, resulting in 23 participants selected for this study. Interview data were gathered from each participant during their first year of teaching, as well as follow-up survey and interview data in their third year. Beginning teacher attrition data were gathered from both the Asher and Dane School Districts. A constant comparative qualitative analysis method, using NVivo software, facilitated the development of the grounded theory. Findings describe and explain the sources and types of support that beginning teachers in these two distinct mentoring models found most beneficial in their induction, development and retention during their first three years. Beginning teachers reported that key mentoring characteristics included a mentor that had experience and knowledge, particularly in their same grade level, as well as a personal relationship with someone who was open to listening to them and who empowered others. Overall, collaborative teams and in-school mentors were a great source of support for beginning teachers, and teacher retention occurred most often when beginning teachers felt supported by their principals. Beginning teachers also experienced a decrease in stress and increase in both autonomy and confidence with time or years of teaching, experience, and support. Findings suggested that district coaches in the Dane School District lacked proximity, personal relationship, and knowledge of the grade being taught by those they mentored. As a result, they lacked the ability to help induct beginning teachers into their school culture and develop informal networks in the school and ensure retention.

Teachers leaving the profession is an ongoing problem; fewer teachers enter the profession each year and the number of teachers leaving the profession has increased. Many teachers listed job satisfaction as a reason for leaving the education profession, whilst citing the lack of mentoring as a cause of job dissatisfaction. Mentoring is known as the planned paring of a more experienced person with a lesser individual to help with the professional development of that individual and reduce teacher turnover. The aim of the study is to explore the impact of an effective mentoring programme at primary schools by developing and implementing such a mentoring programme to support and improve job satisfaction among beginner teachers in the province of Mpumalanga entering the profession for the first time. The following quantitative techniques were used during this study: document analysis and Likert-scale questionnaires, completed by 1 000 male and female teachers (principals, deputy principals, heads of departments, teachers and student teachers) from different races and cultures (20 teachers per school) from 50 randomly selected rural primary schools, private primary schools and Quintile 4 and 5 primary schools in the province of Mpumalanga. The analysis of data enabled me to identify a series of factors that were utilised to develop a mentoring programme that school management can implement in their schools to help beginner teachers to cope in their new work environment in order to improve job satisfaction and improve teacher retention. The factors identified include: aspects of job satisfaction that support leaners in achieving their goals; aspects of school management; the contribution of mentoring programme on the job satisfaction of beginner teachers; the responsibility of a mentor in developing a mentoring programme; the responsibility of a mentee in developing a mentoring programme; the responsibility of schools in developing a mentoring programme and characteristics that should be demonstrated by a mentor. From the data gathered, a mentoring programme was developed, namely the Hugo mentoring model. This model outlined the roles and responsibilities of mentors, mentees and school management throughout the mentoring process. The model also provided steps that should be taken into consideration when organising meetings between mentors and mentees. / Educational Studies / D. Ed.