Perceptions of career and technical education teachers about teacher mentoring and teacher retention

Alternative-licensed career and technical education teachers were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the teacher licensure coursework taken between 1995 and 2006 at The Ohio State University. In addition, participants were surveyed concerning their perceptions of mentoring activities and programs in which they participated in the early stages of their teaching careers. As a part of the study, the employment status of the alternative-licensed teachers was also determined to see if those who obtained licensure were working in the field and planning to keep their teaching or education-related positions.;The questionnaire used in the survey consisted of five sections including current employment status, perceptions of university coursework and clinical experiences, perceptions of mentoring activities and programs, proposed mentoring topics, and demographic information. Three hundred and twenty-nine research packets were mailed with a response rate of 46% returning the completed questionnaires.;The first conclusion from the study was that two-thirds of those persons who completed the career and technical education teacher licensure program through The Ohio State University's alternative-licensure program are teaching career and technical education primarily at grades 11 and 12.;A second conclusion involved the university coursework and clinical experiences which respondents found to be the most beneficial. Those included the classes with activities that dealt with pedagogical content knowledge such as classroom management, lesson planning, and student assessment. The career and technical education summer workshop topics were mentioned throughout the open-ended questions and answers as being extremely beneficial. The number of visits from teacher educators could be increased as those visits seemed to provide a great deal of help to the new career and technical education teachers.;A third conclusion generated a large list of topics as the top priorities for mentoring. These were planning and time management, student assessment, ways to prevent teacher burnout, how to deal with classroom management issues, and working within the political and cultural make-up of the individual school building and district. A fourth conclusion is that the In-house/School District-made Program and the Combination Mentoring Program comprised more than two-thirds of all mentoring programs, which translated into mentoring programs which are fully or at least in part designed by school district personnel.;The fifth conclusion was based on responses woven throughout the qualitative answers as respondents believed that if they were paired with a mentor during their first year of teaching who had taught the same or similar content to what they were teaching, the mentoring would have been more effective.;A sixth conclusion reflected in the responses from the alternative-licensed teachers was that mentoring programs alone did not seem to make any difference to the majority of respondents in terms of whether a teacher stayed in the profession or left teaching.;Recommendations from the study were first that mentors for beginning career and technical teachers must be screened, assigned during the first year even to those teachers hired late, and well trained as to their role, expectations, listening ability, and willingness to give time to the new teacher. Otherwise, CTE teachers saw mentoring activities and programs as useless. There was little middle ground on this issue.;A second recommendation from the study was that when at all possible, mentors for alternative-licensed career and technical education teachers need to match with their mentees in subject areas to be taught, or content knowledge, to be the most helpful to the new career and technical education teacher. From this recommendation is an implication for the career and technical education professional organizations. A career and technical education professional association could develop a database of content knowledge volunteer mentors who are willing to help new teachers as needed during the course of their early years of teaching who have taught or are teaching the same subject area.;A third recommendation was the need to avoid duplication of university coursework and mentoring content. Local districts and university personnel need to work together to avoid duplication of material as new career and technical education teachers then see mentoring as a burden and not as a useful support for them in their early years.;Lastly, this study showed that two-thirds of all mentoring programs were being designed either fully or partially in-house. This could be problematic as the mentoring program content is dependent upon who is organizing it for that time period. Organized mentoring programs with no duplication of content would better support the newly alternative-licensed career and technical education teachers. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...