Impact of Mentoring on Novice School Principals: A Qualitative Case Study
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2020
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Abstract
Formal novice principal mentoring programs recommended to support and develop professional competencies for novice principals have benefits beyond the novice principal to the mentor, mentee, school, and school district. Although the benefits of principal mentoring are recognized, mentoring of new principals is not a common practice in many school districts. Literature related to mentees’ perspectives of mentoring experiences is limited. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to learn about the experiences, opinions, and attitudes of participants in a formal mentoring program in a large urban district. Experiential learning theory and transformational leadership theory were used to ascertain the impact of involvement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 novice principals with 2–3 years’ experience after previously participating in the Comprehensive Principal Induction Program (CPIP) to gain insights into experiences with and perceptions of mentoring. The study examined in-depth answers to semi-structured interview questions concerning the principalship after partaking in the formal mentoring program in a large school district in Maryland. Member checking was used after data collection. Data were triangulated for precision and accuracy and were analyzed through a coding process in the computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software program, NVivo, to reveal trends and themes. Findings from this study provided insights into gaps in qualitative methodologies from mentees’ perspectives after actively participating in formal novice principal mentoring programs. As a result of this study, school district administrators can apply findings to adapt novice principals’ systemic mentoring program components.
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