Editorial overview: mentoring to support professional space

This issue of Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning Journal includes research on mentoring to support professional space across various disciplines and service settings. The authors represent scholars from Spain, Turkey, Canada, and the midwestern and southeastern parts of the United States. Reported findings from the collective studies support the value of mentoring as a process for enabling growth in self and others. Often, personal growth has a targeted period or timeframe for specific growth measures to be realized. One such example surfaces in educational circles; specifically, in the tenure processes of the professorate, educator preservice development, and transdisciplinary adult education programs.

Andragogy, or the method and practice of teaching adult learners has become a topic of great interest in recent years, especially as more professionals migrate between second and third careers. Contrastingly, the teaching of young adults has become increasingly more problematic as the stressors created by the immediacy of technology often create spaces of isolationism (Templeton, 2021). Within this context, understanding mentoring as the acquisition of clarity necessary to develop and hone specific skillsets is a phenomena worthy of continued empirical consideration.

In the purest interpretation of empirical, the term experience is likely a less popular representation, although a necessary connotation for the intentional learner. Hence, experience becomes less about what is known and more about ‘how’ the transfer of knowledge is to occur. To better understand the extent to which knowledge is distributed requires the creation of new understandings based on shared learning spaces. It is within this space where changes in mindset occur and clarity becomes apparent. Hence, clarity brings meaning to how we interact in professional space, thus merging experience with knowledge to enact a new paradigm of self development.

It is this self development that undergirds intentional mentoring. Mentoring, as a process, involves the deeper development of the individual (Irby, 2012). When this development occurs in professional space, the benefits are not mutually exclusive, as mentor, mentee, and the organization establish a symbiotic relationship rooted in shared values (Templeton, 2021). While not advocating the use of the term symbiotic to imply relationships between organisms; in this context, symbiotic refers to the close interaction inherent to formalized mentoring by which mutually beneficial collaborative relationships are developed Templeton (2021). These newly developed relationships now frame an enhanced space of reciprocity within the mentoring paradigm.

How we grow professionally is more often than not an outcome of shared knowledge. As you read this issue, consider the opportunity to create a new space with colleagues through mentoring. Influence professional culture by sharing together. Cultivate knowledge in this new space. Create opportunities to grow and evolve. Revisit the value of interconnectedness as one that removes silos in response to meeting the fundamental needs of the each person within the mentoring circle. Seek to become a better version of self as you enjoy a new space in professional practice.

The first article in this issue, How Am I Doing? Using Self-Mentoring Practices to Improve a Tenure-Track faculty’s Online Instructional Strategies, Muhayimana utilized a grounded theory design to analyze the self-mentoring practices of a new tenure-track faculty member. Findings from the study indicated the manner in which students appreciated the instructor’s unique instructional techniques as a method of connecting with learners. Implications for practice have value for others in the professorate in tenure-earning positions, including the need to develop social-emotional competencies, self-reflective practices, and continue pedagogical development.

The second article, I as a Practicum Mentor: Identities of Mentors of Student Teachers, Garcia and Badia studied the identities of untrained Spanish teachers in their mentoring roles when advising graduate students. With dialogical self theory as the theoretical framework, quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed three clusters in the sample of 35 mentors of early childhood and primary education student teachers. Findings from the study present broad implications for future mentor training and development.

Kacar and Baltaci, in the third article, Designing a Complimentary E-Mentoring Program for Pre-Service ELT Teachers: Online Co-Mentoring Project, designed an online mentoring program to complement school-based mentoring as a method to increase the quality of existing mentoring experiences. The ancillary purpose was also to explore the impact of the project on the professional development of preservice teachers in an English-medium university in Turkey. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed through content analysis. Implications of the findings may be of benefit to other universities seeking to develop high levels of student efficacy.

The fourth article, Tutoring During the Pandemic: Mentoring Tutors’ Formative Experiences Using Digital and Digital Multimodal Texts, was authored by Catherine Susan and Tiffany Gallagher. This survey-design study examined how 28 middle school preservice teachers perceived the implementation of digital and digital multimodal texts during course-required mentoring and tutoring sessions delivered in various formats prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the presented findings have promise for the pedagogical training of preservice teachers, continued research is needed to better understand the manner in which texts could be used to elicit affective student responses and differentiate lessons in accordance with student needs.

Marabesi, Kelsey, and Ajayi, in the fifth article, Case Study of a Pilot Program in Transdisciplinary Sciences, exposed students to industry best practices by investigating the implementation of an adult mentoring program designed to connect land-grant university graduate students with high achieving industry professionals. The authors employed the theory of planned behavior to inform findings regarding participants’ behavioral, normative, and control beliefs surrounding professional performance and goal attainment. Findings of the study represented positive outcomes for student career development.

In the sixth and final article in this issue, Cognitive Mentorship: Protégé Behavior as a Mediator to Performance, Elshaw, Fass, and Mauntel investigated the characteristics of mentoring behavior influencing group performance. Using data from 52 different organizations, a mediation model was tested. The results indicated the group-level construct protégé cognitive behavior played a central role in the mentor-protégé performance relationship. Findings from the study contribute to the empirical base by finvestigating a gap in the literature addressing the linkage between cognitive behaviors, mentoring relationships and workplace performance.

Publishing in mentoring and tutoring

Authors are reminded as they submit their work to the journal to ensure all manuscripts follow the American Psychological Association’s Publication Manual (7th edition) format. We receive quite a number with APA formatting errors. In Volume 20, Issue 1, we outlined several common concerns with

submissions. When writing your manuscript, please remember to check your headings, spacing, table formats, and references for correct 7th edition usage. Because the journal is very popular and competitive, and we are receiving on average three to five manuscripts every week. Please prepare works that are extremely attentive to detail (e.g. current and relevant citations, high-quality writing, careful proofreading, proper formatting style) and that are making specific contributions to the field of mentoring and tutoring. For further information, consult the Taylor & Francis posting of the M&T author guidelines for article manuscripts and book reviews: http://www.tandf.couk/journals/authors/cmetauth.asp) (ISSN 1361–1267).

We do not conduct pre-reviews; rather, we will be mentoring authors in the publication process within the FastTrack system review process. That said, the Editor reserves the right to conduct desk rejections at the outset if manuscripts to not follow the prescribed guidelines. Please go to theManuscript FastTrack system to register as a user and then upload your manuscript and any additional information through the system. The FastTrack system helps with the ease of communication between authors, reviewers, and the editor and resolves issues of overloaded email inboxes.

The current requirements for M&T are that the paper, not including references and abstract, should be a maximum of 30 pages, including references, tables, and figures. Depending on the manuscript, we may consider manuscripts that are longer than 30 pages, and certainly we will accept manuscripts shorter than the prescribed 30 pages. If you have any questions about how to

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Qualified individuals who serve on the Review Board, along with select Editorial Board members provide commentaries. We would also like for you to register in the same location as you submit to be a member of the M&T Journal Review Board. We will be acknowledging the Review Board at the end of the year and a top reviewer will be honored. The acceptance rate of the journal is currently 10%. Mentoring & Tutoring is abstracted in Academic Search; Australian Education Index (AEI); Australian Research Council (ARC) Ranked Journal List; Cabells; National Database for

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Publishing Opportunities in Educational Curriculum and Methods. Additionally,

Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning is now included in the Thomson Reuters Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Many authors have been turning to the M&T journal as the venue-of-choice for publishing high-quality works for over 20 years. M&T is the longest-running mentoring journal in the field. This refereed, peer-reviewed journal is known worldwide. Authors, readers, and subscribers are from different countries and various types of institutions and professional environments. The editorial team

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