Excellent Mentor Teachers’ Skills in Mentoring for Pre-Service Teachers

Abstract

This study aims to identify the performances of 76 Taiwanese awarded mentor teachers in
mentoring pre-service teachers by analyzing their written reports related to mentoring
processes. An inductive content analysis method was used to construct headings and codes in
relation to mentoring skills. The analytical result reveals that 448 headings were formed and
were further categorized into six groups, reported as six mentoring skills. The mentoring
skills rank-order from high to low frequencies are as follows: employing the built model as a
framework for teaching guidance, guiding interpersonal interactions, fostering career
competitive ability, encouraging reflections on internship experiences, creating mentoring
plan through discussions with pre-service teachers, and giving emotional supports. Like the
previous studies, the study finding reveals that the person-oriented supports like giving
emotional supports, only accounting for 1.3%, seem to be unusually used by Taiwanese
mentor teachers.