Doctoral Students as Teaching Mentors for Preservice Physical Education Teachers

Physical education teacher education is most successful when it includes several field experiences that are closely supervised and focus on reflective practice. Drawing upon attachment theory, the purpose of this study was to understand a mentoring program in which doctoral students served as mentors for preservice teachers during a methods course and early field experience. Participants included 15 preservice teachers (10 males, 5 females) who were completing their first secondary early field experience, and six doctoral students (3 males, 3 females) who served as their mentors. Data were collected through interviews with the doctoral students and preservice teachers, reflective writing, and observations of teaching. Data were analyzed using a combination of inductive and deductive analysis as well as constant comparison. Results highlight the importance of the emotional side of mentoring in building trust. Preservice teachers learned by observing their mentors and by receiving timely, relevant feedback. In some cases, challenges were noted in developing productive relationships and related to a lack of feedback stemming from mentor inexperience.