Mentoring Early Career Mathematics Teachers from the Mentees’ Perspective—a Case Study from China

Abstract

Although mentoring has been considered to be important for beginning teachers to situate themselves within the school community, only a few studies on the opportunities of mentoring and possible difficulties from the perceptions of the mentee have been carried out, especially in East Asia. In this paper, a study based on a multiple case approach that investigated how three early career mathematics teachers from Shanghai were mentored is presented. Qualitative text analysis is used to analyse interviews with the beginning teachers during their initial two years of teaching. Four types of one-to-one mentoring could be identified: unnecessary, demonstrative, supportive and collaborative, taking into consideration both the mentor’s and the mentee’s activities during the mentoring process as well as the mentee’s perception of the supportiveness of the mentoring activities. Different opportunities and difficulties in the various types of mentoring could be identified, offering insight for a possible advancement of research regarding this important phase of teachers’ professional development.