Date of Conferral

2020

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

School

Education

Advisor

David Weintraub

Abstract

Issues relating to teacher quality are being discussed internationally. Locally, teachers in St. Kitts and Nevis are hired to teach without any formal training, resulting in poor quality teaching. The problem studied was the poor-quality performance of first-year teachers in a rural primary school of St. Kitts and Nevis. One school principal introduced a mentoring program in an effort to improve teacher quality. The purpose of this study was to explore educators’ perceptions of the implementation of that principal-directed mentoring program and make suggestions for its improvement. Guided by Chinnasamy’s concept of mentoring as andragogy in action, this study examined which parts of the mentorship program the untrained teachers (mentees) and trained teachers (mentors) found to be valuable, how they implemented those ideas into their teaching, and suggestions they had to increase efficacy of the program to affect classroom change. A qualitative case study was conducted involving 8 teachers, 4 trained and 4 untrained, from the school. Data generated from interviews of all 8 teachers and follow-up observations of the 4 mentees in the classroom were transcribed and coded to generate themes. The key findings were that participants felt that the mentoring program yielded better quality teaching and should be continued with ongoing training. The findings resulted in the formulation of a 3-day professional development workshop for mentors. This study may bring about positive social change for new teachers in St. Kitts and Nevis. New teachers’ skills in pedagogy and classroom management can potentially be improved through the implementation of the professional development workshop for mentors which resulted from study findings.

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