The Assessment and Mentoring Program (AMP): Final Year Pre-Service Physical Education Peer Mentors Perceptions of Effective Mentoring

Abstract

In the teacher education context, most peer mentoring programs have focused on pre-service teachers and a qualified teacher mentor within schools (Hobson, et.al., 2009; Ambrosetti, Knight & Dekkers, 2014). Few studies have focused on mentoring between pre-service physical education teachers. Therefore, we describe the Assessment and Mentoring Program (AMP): a four-way collaborative learning community. Mentoring occurs between final year physical education students (mentors), reciprocally between mentors and their year two mentees, and in collaboration with lecturers. Prior to the commencement of the AMP, to understand the pre-service mentors’ perception of effective mentoring, they were asked to annotate an A3 poster with the characteristics they perceived were required to be the ‘perfect’ mentor and complete the AMP successfully. We present data of their perceptions. De-identified data were transcribed verbatim, coded and analysed using NVivo (Version10) software to explore themes of the mentor’s perceptions of effective mentoring within the context of Le Cornu’s (2005) critical mentoring framework including interpersonal skills, a mentoring attitude and critical reflection. The AMP mentors identified characteristics in all three categories; organisation was also identified as an essential mentoring characteristic. Students’ perceived a diverse set of mentoring skills were required. Given that many key skills developed through mentoring are important for pre-service teachers when they graduate, the challenge is how to provide relevant, authentic and context specific experiences for students that enable them to become collaborative reflective practitioners who can provide quality learning and assessment opportunities for their own diverse students within the constraints of a university environment.