Editorial

Citation

(2012), "Editorial", International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce.2012.57401caa.001

Editorial

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Volume 1, Issue 3.

Welcome to our third and final issue of IJMCE for 2012, our inaugural year. I am confident that we have five more papers that will inform your thinking and stimulate your imagination. I include details showing the scope of our international reach and how we are addressing a need for high-quality research into mentoring and coaching. As the parting challenge in my editorial for Issue 2, I asked if you could submit manuscripts about coaching since mentoring research was dominating the field. In this issue, I am delighted to say, we have two papers on research in coaching; one relating to induction and the other to educators’ professional development. That is very positive – but we need more. I am hopeful we will see quantitative and qualitative studies published, including self-study research by “coaches.” This is not to say we have sufficient research into mentoring! We clearly do not and there are many areas that remain under-researched, not least the impact of mentoring (and coaching) on brain function. Some time ago I read a paper on the role of mirror neurons in interpersonal communication. It suggested to me that we might have evidence of why some educators find mentoring impossible and prefer to instruct rather than interact with their mentees. There is copious anecdotal evidence that some educators become poor quality mentors and hinder progress. I remain concerned for the mentees, when I hear that experienced educators who have become jaded have been assigned mentoring in a hope it can re-enliven their professional life. Might it not do the reverse…? Struggling with the “interpersonal” in relationships with colleagues and students, could it be that they do not have a “mindset” to mentor?

It is ten years since I found myself fighting my ground in an executive meeting for the then Best Practice Research Scholarships beloved by many UK teachers. Should teachers applying for funding be required to have a research tutor rather than a research mentor? I favored the latter and the Guidelines for Research Mentors can still be accessed at www.TeacherResearch.net along with research into research mentoring by many international authors. Just before the BPRS scheme folded in 2004, I asked if we could keep a database of the mentors. None was kept and we lost track of so many whose knowledge needed sharing. How do we disseminate educators’ research into their own and others’ practice as research mentors and research coaching? How about video, Skype, blogging?

Taking a wider view, why does it matter if there is research into mentoring and coaching, how they differ, overlap and correspond with tutoring. I feel agreement with the editor of Mentoring and Tutoring, Dr Irby, that it does matter very much and that it is our role as editors to deepen understandings through our journals. Where we differ is that I am middle of a life long process of learning what mentoring, coaching and tutoring are and might have the potential to be. In the editorial of the latest issue of Mentoring and Tutoring, we hear that:

In general mentors can coach, but coaches hardly ever mentor, and mentors and coaches can tutor but tutors rarely mentor or coach […]. Mentoring is generally long lasting and […] there is a focus on the deeper development of the individual being mentored such as with his/her job goals, self esteem and perceived success. A mentee usually is the one who selects a mentor. Coaching is typically focused on a performance event in the coached individual's life.

Dr Irby's introduction to Volume 20 Issue 3, 2012 certainly got me thinking.

Since 1992, school-based mentoring has become a core part of the initial education of teachers in the UK. I was trained in 1992 as one of the first school-based mentors, within the Bedfordshire Licensed Teacher Scheme. My role was to work with my mentees (I eventually had five) over a year, advising, listening, consoling, co-setting goals and stimulating thought by sharing research papers about teaching. I was not directly the “assessor” though I contributed to discussion with our senior management team in school and with the local university who ran the scheme with the local education authority. If my role was correctly assigned as being mentoring does that mean that I, like thousands of UK colleagues teaching in schools ceased to mentor when I worked with Post Graduate Certificate in Education students (PGCE)? PGCE placements may be for a matter of weeks and are focussed on enabling the novice teacher to achieve qualified teacher status. There is a vast pool of high-quality publication about mentoring in ITE in the UK but I must wonder if Dr Irby's definitions acknowledge this.

Would it be fairer to say that good tutors regularly mentor and coach too? Can we state on the evidence of high-quality international research that “tutors rarely mentor or coach”? I look forward to receiving manuscripts submitted to IJMCE so I can stand alongside Dr Irby and endorse her view. Clearly there are similarities (and differences). Thus far we already agree.

Do tutors regularly mentor and coach? Increasingly, university schemes encourage peer mentoring and coaching to assist the mutual professional development of university colleagues. Schemes have been in operation on for many years and, again in my experience, are linked to staff's appraisal on their performance and targeted assistance in specific areas such as the induction of novice lecturers into researching education and learning how to get published in academic journals. Good tutors mentor and they coach.

So, having established that practices differ and what is called mentoring in one context may be coaching in another (and incidentally vice-versa) how far is it possible to differentiate between mentoring, coaching and tutoring in education? I am drawn to the definitions provided by Wisker et al. (2008) align quite closely to my current understandings:

Coaching is a structured one-to-one learning relationship between coach and coachee, aimed at developing competence and improving performance in the coachee (p. 21).Personal tutors play an important part in the support structure on HE courses, representing a key contact point between the institution and the student. They can offer support on a more individual level than is sometimes possible in a formal teaching context […] (p. 44).

Perhaps not altogether surprisingly, I favor Fletcher's (2000) definition of mentoring, certainly within the context of “good” practice in schools, as:

Mentoring means guiding and supporting […] it is about smoothing the way, enabling, reassuring as well as directing, managing and instructing. It should unblock the ways to change by building self-confidence, self-esteem and a readiness to act ([…] and) engage in ongoing constructive relationships. Mentoring is concerned with continuing personal as well as professional development […] (p. 1).

One of the main reasons I choose to be an editor is that I am keen to learn more and my current understandings are not set but are open to change.

When manuscripts are submitted, I read them enthusiastically, thinking “What can I learn here?” Obviously, it helps us all to learn if manuscripts are presented according to the Guidelines for Authors, linked to the IJMCE web site. In particular these require the author to keep to predetermined limits on word length for the paper, its title and a selection of keywords. Papers should be between 2,000 and 6,000 words in length. A title should be up to eight words long and keywords should be directly relevant and limited to ten words that will assist readers in locating papers in the field. Papers submitted to IJMCE that mention neither mentoring nor coaching are rejected immediately. Our intention as an editorial team is to enable publication of high-quality research and that brings with it an obligation to engage critically with others’ research in the same field. As IJMCE is an international publication, we expect critical engagement with literature about the focus area that is drawn from an author's country and also from a wider global pool of research into mentoring and coaching in education (see Table I).

Volume 1/Issue 3 – an overview

For the first time we have included a book review and we would like to include more in future issues. If you are able to send in a review about a mentoring or coaching publication please e-mail me directly with a Word doc. to my address Sarah.Fletcher@TeacherResearch.net and I will advise you about its suitability. Many thanks to Michael Kroth for his superb review which illuminates not only the usefulness of the book he has chosen but also how to write a review for us.

Abstracts of papers in Issue 3

Du Toit, A, and Reissner, S., “Experiences of coaching in team learning”

The research reported in this paper focusses on the role of coaching to enhance team learning in a multi-disciplinary team of family support workers. It provides empirical evidence of the supportive role of coaching in team learning and professional development in conjunction with other factors including learning environment, content and methods. The context of this paper is a bespoke vocational university course for frontline family support workers. This paper is informed by a social constructionist view of coaching and adult learning. Data were collected through six qualitative in-depth interviews and one group interview with course participants and were interpreted using thematic analysis.

Ng, Siew Foen, Confessore, G. and Abdullah, M., “Learner autonomy coaching: enhancing learning and academic success”

This study assessed the effect on Learner Autonomy Profile (LAP) scores and academic success of a five-week coaching intervention for pre-diploma university students in Malaysia. A quasi-experimental designed was used. Participants completed the LAP pre- and post-intervention. The experimental group of 35 participated in five weekly learner autonomy coaching sessions and wrote in computer-managed reflection logs between meetings. A 52-member control group received no intervention. Null hypotheses expected no significant differences in post- over pre-intervention LAP scores or in GPA, Math or English grades for either group. Two null hypotheses were not supported and one was: first, significant increases in mean post- over pre-intervention LAP scores of the experimental group were found in 8 of 22 components and 2 of 4 constructs of the LAP; second, no significant differences were found in the mean post- over pre-intervention LAP scores of the control group; third, significant increases were found in post- over pre-intervention grades of both groups. However, the experimental group achieved a greater positive difference in grades than did the experimental group. This is the first study designed to test the capacity to influence learner autonomy expressed in terms of behavioral intentions through coaching and its relationship to academic success.

Krishna, R., “Do mentors learn by mentoring others?”

Our objective of the study was to understand the learnings of adults (who are undergraduates, post-graduates or working professionals) who volunteered to be the mentors to make a difference in the life of the adolescents who are from underprivileged background. We conducted our study in a not for profit organization (NPO) which has a unique mentoring program called Dronocharya Ekalavya (DNE) mentoring program in Hyderabad, India. We conducted telephonic interviews with 15 mentors using a semi-structured questionnaire and also administered an online survey to 59 respondents. The study is a qualitative research and results cannot be generalized. The findings of the study conclude that mentors do learn from the mentoring program organized by NPO. Mentors learnt soft skills such as interpersonal skills, leadership skills, etc. Also they learnt to build rapport and trust. Our study highlighted the changes in behaviors of mentors such as self-realization, and change in attitude. This study will help organizations (both NPO and other businesses) understand the benefits of mentoring to the mentors.

Wyatt, M., “Video-stimulated recall for mentoring in Omani schools”

This paper explores the school-based learning mentoring of a senior teacher of English in Oman, who was conducting action research into her mentoring practices while engaged in part-time in-service language teacher education. The senior teacher realized teachers in her school found post-lesson discussions in English with inspectors challenging and, using video-stimulated recall, tried to help them become more reflective. Semi-structured interviews provide insights into the senior teacher's perceptions of her own development and professional knowledge of reflective practice and mentoring. They also provide oral accounts of her action research, written accounts of which are provided by reflective writing. Audio-recordings and transcripts of post-lesson discussions, triangulated with classroom observation, provide evidence of mentoring practices. Video-stimulated recall may be a particularly effective tool for supporting learning mentoring in contexts where loyalty to the “in-group” encourages sharing. To facilitate learning mentoring, the creation and maintenance of supportive environments appears crucial.

Kutsyuruba, B., “Teacher induction and mentorship policies; the pan-Canadian Overview”

The purpose of this exploratory paper was to address the questions of teacher attrition and retention by examining the policies supporting beginning teachers in different jurisdictions (provinces and territories) in Canada through teacher induction and mentorship programs. This research study relied on the collection of documents as the primary method of data collection. Both policy documents as means of external communication and the informal responses to formal policies by various stakeholders were analyzed in a complementary fashion in this study. The study examined numerous government documents, web sites, program/policy memoranda, newsletters, as well as academic reviews pertaining to beginning teacher induction programs across Canada. Despite the perceived and actual benefits, government-instituted induction programs for new teachers are not very common in Canada. While the discussions of such programs are certainly present in the educational literature, this exploratory pan-Canadian review of induction and mentoring policies has the ability to inform provincial and territorial policymakers about the variability in institutionalizing those programs.

We hope that you will enjoy this issue of IJMCE and recommend it to colleagues.