Mentoring and Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Beginning Teachers

The impact of globalization has brought changes upon education which requires teachers to be knowledgeable and competent to prepare students for a competitive society. The lack of pedagogical preparation has been identified as a problem among teachers in Malaysia. To address this lack, this study proposed that one-to-one mentoring from experienced teachers in the same school will help in developing the pedagogical content knowledge (Le Shulman, 1987) of beginning teachers so that they become effective practitioners in a shorter time. This study investigates the influence of mentoring empirically on three domains of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) which are subject matter knowledge (SMK), general pedagogical knowledge (GPK) and knowledge of context (KOC). Questionnaires were administered to a sample of 146 beginning teachers and 90 mentor teachers in urban secondary schools in Malaysia. Results were analyzed through descriptive statistics and linear regression. The findings reveal that there is significant relationship between mentoring and SMK (beta = .302, t (119) = 3.471, p < .05), mentoring and GPK (beta = .336, t (120) = 3.944, p < .05), and mentoring and KOC (beta = .372, t (119) = 4.387, p < .05). Mentoring exerts the most influence on KOC, then GPK and SMK respectively. Overall, there is a significant relationship between mentoring and PCK of beginning teachers (beta = .389, t (119) = 4.488, p < .05). This study provides important information for school principals and educators on the effectiveness of mentoring beginning teachers. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.