Mentoring and leadership development of independent K-12 administrators and leaders: Exploring practices, support, and barriers

The purpose of this quantitative study was to understand, predict, and present findings of formal mentoring participation of administrators and leaders who work for independent K-12 schools. This study examined three research questions. Research Question 1 was investigated with logistic regression analysis to predict participation in formal mentoring programs using six school characteristics. The independent variables used in the logistic regression equation were faculty population, student population, level of school, category of school, region, and accreditation status. The dichotomous dependent variable is formal mentoring, derived from those who reported participating in formal mentoring programs. Results indicated that of the six independent variables, student population was statistically significant in predicting participating in formal mentoring programs specifically for school leadership development. The second research question is answered with descriptive statistics reporting on perceptions of organizational support for mentoring. Results conclude that there are many areas where organizations can support school leaders and administrators. The third research question is also answered with descriptive statistics reporting on perceived barriers to mentoring participation. The results conclude that barriers exist to participation in formal mentoring programs. This research focused on leaders and aspiring leaders who have knowledge of leadership formal mentoring programs within their schools. Independent K-12 schools present a variety of leadership development methods, oversight, financial management, enrollments, school locations, faculty, and experiences. Of the school leaders and administrators that participated in this study, 94% had over two years of experience in an independent K-12 school with 12% reporting participation in formal mentoring, 38% had developmental relationships (informal mentoring), 2% had virtual or e-mentoring, and the remaining 49% reported not participating in any type of mentoring program specifically designed for school administration or leadership positions. The participants responded by rating organizational support for mentoring and potential barriers to mentoring. Data were collected through SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com) and analyzed with a stepwise binary logistic regression and descriptive statistics in SPSS version 22.