The perspectives and experiences of Hong Kong preschool teacher mentors: implications for mentoring

Little research has been done on the choices of mentors when they are offered a comprehensive range of roles. The mentors in this study were in their first attempt as mentors and did not have an assigned 'role'. They were involved in a mentoring course that sought to facilitate the placement of in-service teachers and schoolinstitute partnerships. Findings suggested that there was a tendency of the mentors to take an authoritarian role on the rights and wrongs of proteges' teaching while managing to maintain trust and warm relationships. A particular interaction pattern between the mentors and proteges emerged. There were signs of a clear preference for performing the role of guiding teaching evaluations and the mentor teachers had a very positive attitude towards providing 'assistance' to the less experienced teachers. Nevertheless, room for the development of flexibility, creativity and initiative on the part of the proteges was limited by a number of contextual factors.