Supporting Data-Informed Practice Among Early Career Teachers: The Role of Mentors

Abstract

Equipping teachers to use data is a critical piece of the school improvement puzzle. To help early career teachers (ECT) develop data-use acumen, some districts utilize mentoring supports. While research on mentoring in general is well-developed, research on how mentoring can or does support data-informed practice is not. To address this gap, we examined perceptions about data use in a small Texas district; anticipated differences among comparison groups (i.e., mentors and non-mentors; mentors and ECT) did not emerge. We conclude that without careful selection and supports, mentors may not be able to support data-informed practice to the degree assumed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to express our thanks to Judy Groulx and Annie Nguyen for their technical assistance and thoughtful insights; the resulting article is much improved because of their support. We also gratefully acknowledge the many dedicated EC–12 educators who made time in already-hectic schedules to assist with this project.

Notes

1. Pseudonym.

2. Under the Texas accountability system structures in operation at the time of this study, schools were rated “Exemplary,” “Recognized,” “Academically Acceptable,” or “Academically Unacceptable.”

3. The Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (1980–86) and Texas Educational Assessment of Minimal Skills (1986–1990) were the last of the “minimal skills tests” in Texas. Since 1990, exams have been aimed at “higher-order thinking skills” and multi-step problems (i.e., the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills from 1990–2003 and the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills from 2003–11. This trend toward increased rigor continues with the current exams, the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR), introduced in 2011–12.

4. Because we planned to run several t-tests in the course of this study, we initially examined our data to ensure that the dependent variables were not correlated. Correlation models revealed low levels of correlation (r² = .49 and below) among the Beneficence, Anxiety, and Confidence variables.

5. 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neither Agree nor Disagree; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree.