Teacher intern and mentor teacher beliefs and practices regarding collaborative problem-solving

This study examined the relationship between (a) teacher intern and mentor teacher agreement with underlying assumptions and (b) mentor teacher involvement during the steps of collaborative problem solving. Forty teacher interns, enrolled in the Student Support Services course at the University of Cincinnati, along with their mentor teachers (N = 36) served as participants. As part of the course, teacher interns completed an Underlying Assumptions Worksheet and 5 Weekly Homework Sheets. Mentor teachers who supervised the teacher interns completed the Underlying Assumptions Worksheet independently at the start (i.e., Week 2) of the course. Ratings for teacher interns and mentor teachers on the Underlying Assumptions Worksheet were used to examine teacher intern and mentor teacher levels of agreement with the assumptions underlying collaborative problem solving. Teacher intern ratings of mentor teacher involvement on weekly homework sheets were collected to determine the relationship between mentor teacher involvement and teacher interns' completion of the problem-solving process. Mentor teacher ratings on the Underlying Assumptions Worksheet and their involvement during collaborative problem solving as rated on Weekly Homework Sheets were compared. Results suggested both groups strongly agreed with the assumptions underlying collaborative problem solving. Additionally, results supported a non-linear relationship between mentor teacher agreement with the assumptions underlying collaborative problem solving and their involvement with teacher interns during use of the process. These findings continue to support the significance of the relationship between teacher interns and mentor teachers. More specifically, results from this study suggested that mentor teacher beliefs and practices can influence teacher intern beliefs and practices regarding collaborative problem solving. Such information adds to the research literature on collaborative problem solving and relationships between teacher interns and mentor teachers. However, additional research should be conducted to further expand the findings from this study.