Novice Teacher Reflections on an Induction and Mentoring Program and Its Mitigating Effect on Early-Year Attrition in a Midwestern, Urban School District

Abstract

This phenomenological study was to explore perceptions of teachers in a Midwestern, urban school district about their induction and mentoring experience and to examine what aspects, if any, of their induction program affected their desire to continue a career in education into and beyond their fifth year of teaching. The researcher conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with teachers employed by a single, urban school district in a Midwestern city. Participants were between their fourth and sixth years of teaching, placing them in a late-novice/early-experienced stage of their career. Participants were asked to identify and describe induction and mentoring experiences which they perceived to have buffered against an intent to leave the profession as well as those which they perceived to have had a lasting or purposeful effect on their professional development and efficacy as professional educators.|Through qualitative coding and analysis of transcribed interviews and notes, the researcher determined which aspects of participant induction and mentoring experiences were perceived to have had positive, negative, or neutral effects on a desire to leave the profession as well as their professional efficacy. The researcher developed a series of induction and mentoring components which could be variably implemented at the district and/or school level, depending on holistic or building-level staffing strengths and needs.