Prospective Mentors’ Views on Partnership in Secondary Teacher Training

Abstract

In the context of a wholesale shift to a school‐based partnership arrangement for the initial training of teachers in the UK, 32 prospective teacher mentors were interviewed using the technique of hierarchical focusing. Twenty‐nine taped transcripts were codified and analysed to reveal aspects of espoused theory in relation to school teacher involvement in the professional training of student teachers. Four general themes are identified from qualitative analysis: enthusiasm for the change; an assumption of learning by immersion in schools; a concern with the constraint of time; and a tendency to general rather than specific thinking. Cluster analysis of 29 transcript profiles on 27 categories of mentoring functions suggested a loose typology of four potential orientations: the hands‐off facilitator, the progressively collaborative mentor, the professional friend and the classical mentor. Respondents’ recognition of these orientations in their own thinking and implications for further research and training applications are discussed.