THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE MENTORING TRAINING, EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT (MTED)

Abstract

The research presented in this report was commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) to inform:
• The development of a framework for the mentoring of teachers and trainers in the Further Education and Training (FET) sector in England;
• Associated guidance for mentors, mentees and leaders in FET organisations;
• The design and delivery of national mentor training programmes for new and experienced mentors.

In this report, the term mentoring is used to encompass activities or programmes that others may refer to as coaching or mentoring.

The primary aims of the research are:
• To identify the impacts of effective mentoring training, education and development (MTED);
• To identify key features of effective MTED;
• To highlight examples of effective practice in MTED.

Whilst the focus of the research is on the nature and impact of effective MTED, the study also identifies a range of additional factors that enhance and impede the effectiveness and impact of mentoring programmes.

Full text

THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF
EFFECTIVE MENTORING
TRAINING, EDUCATION AND
DEVELOPMENT (MTED)
Report of research conducted by the University of Brighton
and Sheffield Hallam University
Commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation
Andrew J Hobson, Bronwen Maxwell,
Kinga Káplár-Kodácsy & Eleanor Hotham
October 2020

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Education & Training Foundation
University of Brighton and Sheffield Hallam University
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
Research Context 4
Research Aims 4
Research Design 4
Research Findings 5
Impacts of Effective MTED 5
The Nature and Features of Effective MTED 5
Factors Enhancing Positive Features of MTED 6
Factors other than Effective MTED that Enhance the Impact of Mentoring 6
Conclusions and Recommendations 7
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8
Introduction 8
Research Context 8
Research Aims 9
Conclusion 9
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN 10
Introduction 10
Overview 10
Systematic Review of Literature 10
Secondary Analysis of Existing Datasets 16
Thematic Analysis of Critical Summaries 17
Interviews with MTED experts who led effective MTED programmes 18
Research Ethics and Data Protection 19
Conclusion 19
CHAPTER 3: THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE MTED 20
Introduction 20
Impacts of Effective MTED for Mentors 20
The Nature and Features of Effective MTED 24
Factors Enhancing and Impeding Positive Impacts of MTED 28
Conclusion 29

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CHAPTER 4: VIGNETTES OF EFFECTIVE MTED PROGRAMMES 30
Introduction 30
Vignette 1: Mentoring Beginner Teachers MTED programme 30
Vignette 2: ONSIDE Mentoring MTED programmes 33
Vignette 3: The Entering Mentoring Programme 35
Vignette 4: The CO-Mentor MTED Training Programme 38
Vignette 5: Preparing for Mentoring MTED programme 40
Conclusion 42
CHAPTER 5: FACTORS OTHER THAN MTED THAT CONTRIBUTE 43
TO EFFECTIVE MENTORING
Introduction 43
Factors other than effective MTED that enhance the impact of mentoring 43
Other factors which impede the realisation of potential positive impacts
of mentoring 47
Conclusion 48
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 49
Introduction 49
Key Findings 49
Limitations and recommendations for further research 50
Recommendations 50
REFERENCES 52
APPENDIX 1: Organisations Supporting Stage 1 of the Literature Review 57
APPENDIX 2: Supplementary Literature Related to the Vignettes of 59
Effective MTED Programmes

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to Catherine Manning and Melissa Ruxton from the Education
and Training Foundation, and Sylvia Willis from the University of Brighton, for their
excellent support for the conduct of the research and the production of this report. We
would like to thank all other colleagues who gave up valuable time to assist us with the
study, especially those who participated in our research interviews.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research Context
The research presented in this report was commissioned by the Education and Training
Foundation (ETF) to inform:
• The development of a framework for the mentoring of teachers and trainers in the
Further Education and Training (FET) sector in England;
• Associated guidance for mentors, mentees and leaders in FET organisations;
• The design and delivery of national mentor training programmes for new and
experienced mentors.
In this report, the term mentoring is used to encompass activities or programmes that
others may refer to as coaching or mentoring.
Research Aims
The primary aims of the research are:
• To identify the impacts of effective mentoring training, education and development
(MTED);
1
• To identify key features of effective MTED;
• To highlight examples of effective practice in MTED.
Whilst the focus of the research is on the nature and impact of effective MTED, the study
also identifies a range of additional factors that enhance and impede the effectiveness
and impact of mentoring programmes.
Research Design
The study comprised three components:
1) A systematic review of UK and international academic and grey literature on
MTED: following literature searches and selection of the most relevant sources for
which there was rigorous evidence of the impact of the MTED discussed, 21
sources (17 academic, 4 grey literature) were reviewed in detail;
2) A secondary analysis of data from eight recent or ongoing studies of mentoring
and MTED conducted by members of the research team;
3) Semi-structured online interviews with five MTED experts who led MTED
programmes for which the research team found good evidence of impact.
1
Our use of the term mentoring training, education and development (MTED) encompasses the training,
education and development of both mentors/coaches and mentees/coachees. That said, most research
findings relate to MTED for mentors/coaches.

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Research Findings
Impacts of Effective MTED
Participation in effective MTED has been found to have positive impacts on mentors’:
• Knowledge and understanding, including of mentoring roles and effective
mentoring practices;
• Confidence and self-efficacy relating to undertaking mentoring in general, and
different aspects of the mentoring role;
• Skills, including critical reflection on their mentoring and their own professional
practice, specific mentoring skills, and inter-personal and communication skills;
• Professional lives more widely, including perceived improvements to their
professional practice, enhanced status and influence, and increased satisfaction
and pride associated with providing effective support to colleagues.
Effective MTED has also been found to positively impact mentoring practice by, for
example:
• Bringing about behavioural change for mentors, such as more active listening, and
more effectively tailoring mentoring to mentees’ individual needs;
• Helping mentors to better align their mentoring practice with the espoused
mentoring model, framework or approach, such as developmental approaches to
mentoring and coaching.
In addition, effective MTED for mentors has been found to enhance mentees’:
• Knowledge and understanding relating to their professional practice or studies;
• Skills, including communication skills and workload management;
• Effectiveness or productivity as a professional, employee or student;
• Retention and career progression;
• Resilience, well-being and work-life balance.
Effective MTED has also been found to have a positive impact on organisations via the
enhancement of:
• Professional learning cultures or communities; and
• Staff retention.
The Nature and Features of Effective MTED
Our research has found that effective MTED typically includes:
1) Opportunities to practise mentoring or particular approaches to mentoring, and
explicit critical reflection on that practice;
2) Opportunities for mentor networking, during and/or following initial training or
preparation, to enable sharing and mutual interrogation of, and reflection on,
mentoring practice;

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3) Sustained development activity, with initial training or preparation followed up by
opportunities for further development and networking.
The following examples are typical of the content of effective MTED programmes:
• Communication skills for mentors;
• Building, nurturing, sustaining and closure of mentoring relationships;
• How to structure mentoring meetings and frame mentoring conversations;
• Balancing support and challenge and (where required) assessment roles of
mentors;
• Dealing with challenges and dilemmas experienced by mentors and mentees;
• Supporting mentees’ development of reflective practice;
• Empowering mentees and fostering independence;
• Establishing and sustaining confidentiality in the mentoring relationship;
• Tailoring mentoring to mentees’ individual needs.
MTED programmes that were found to be effective employed a variety of (predominantly
facilitative and interactive) pedagogical methods, including workshops, seminars, the use
of video, role-play, action-learning sets and reflective journals. Some studies of MTED for
teacher mentors emphasised the particular value to mentor participants of:
• Observing videos of their own or others’ teaching, which enables them to critically
reflect on such practice; and
• Opportunities to observe, practise and receive feedback on the enactment of the
espoused mentoring model, framework or approach.
Factors Enhancing Positive Impacts of MTED
Evidence suggests that positive impacts of MTED are more likely to be realised where:
• Mentors are provided with sufficient time and space to attend and fully engage
with MTED provision, including networking with other mentors; and
• MTED is provided for mentees as well as mentors, to help them to cultivate
‘protégé mentoring mindsets’ (Searby, 2014) and to take full advantage of the
mentoring support available to them.
Factors other than Effective MTED that Enhance the Impact of Mentoring
Mentoring relationships and programmes tend to be more successful where:
• Mentoring relationships are separated from line-management relationships, and
mentors have no involvement in the formal evaluation of their mentees’
performance;
• An appropriate mentoring (or coaching) model, framework or approach is adopted,
which the MTED supports and is aligned with;
• There is an organisational commitment to mentoring, and senior leadership
support for and understanding of mentoring;

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• Effective methods of mentor selection and mentor-mentee pairing are employed;
• There is a commitment to – and mechanisms to support and sustain –
confidentiality in mentoring relationships;
• The mentoring programme is led, managed and overseen by an effective
mentoring coordinator;
• There is regular monitoring of mentoring relationships and periodic evaluation of
the mentoring programme, to inform their ongoing development and improvement.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The ETF’s planned introduction of a national mentoring framework, mentoring guides for
mentees, mentors and leaders, and a national mentor training programme – together with
its commissioning of the current research to inform these initiatives – has significant
potential for strengthening the impact of mentoring in the sector.
We recommend that the ETF looks to strengthen and build upon these important
developments by:
• Evaluating the introduction of the mentoring framework, guides and mentor
training programme, to inform their further development and maximise their
impact;
• Commissioning research-informed training, education and development
programmes for mentees and mentoring coordinators as well as mentors; and
• Working with different providers – perhaps through intermediaries – to help
organisations to develop supportive organisational architectures for mentoring
(Cunningham, 2007).

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Introduction
In this brief opening chapter, we outline the research context and research aims of the
study.
Research Context
The research presented in this report was commissioned by the Education and Training
Foundation (ETF)
2
to inform:
• The development of a framework for the mentoring of teachers and trainers in the
Further Education and Training (FET) sector in England;
• Associated guidance for mentors, mentees and leaders in FET organisations;
• The design and delivery of national mentor training programmes in England for
new and experienced mentors.
ETF’s overarching aim is to improve the reach and quality of mentoring for teachers and
trainers across the FET sector, and, through this, to positively impact the quality of
teaching, teacher retention and, in turn, outcomes for learners.
Research literature from studies of mentoring and coaching in schools tells us that
mentoring and coaching have the potential to bring about significant benefits for
professional learning, development and teacher retention (Hobson et al., 2009; Ingersoll &
Strong, 2011; Wang & Odell, 2002). While there are few studies of mentoring or coaching
in the English FET sector, a national study conducted by members of the current research
team found that, when working well, mentoring and coaching brought:
“a range of benefits for the teachers being supported, including: enabling them to
talk about a range of difficulties that they experience; supporting their emotional
wellbeing; helping them develop general pedagogical techniques; and helping
develop their subject pedagogy” (Hobson, Maxwell et al., 2015, p.47).
Some FET practitioners in the same study testified that “without the support of their
mentor or coach during difficult times, they might not have continued in the teaching
profession” (p.53). Yet the research also found that the potential benefits of mentoring and
coaching were not always realised because the quality of mentoring and coaching across
the sector was variable, hampered by a number of impediments including:
• A lack of appropriate mentor or coach training;
• Limited time available to mentors/coaches to meet with their mentees/coachees;
2
The ETF is the workforce development body for the Further Education and Training sector in England. Its
role is to commission and deliver professional learning and development for teachers, leaders and trainers
to support government policy and meet sector needs. https://www.et-foundation.co.uk/

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• The use of mentoring and coaching as remedial strategies to address the
perceived under-performance of FET practitioners. (Hobson, Maxwell et al., 2015)
For the purposes of this research, we define mentoring as “a formal, one-to-one
relationship, usually between a relatively inexperienced teacher (the mentee) and a
relatively experienced one (the mentor), which is intended to support the mentee’s (though
may also support the mentor’s) learning, development and well-being” (Hobson &
Maxwell, 2020, p.185).
Our definition of mentoring incorporates coaching, which we see as “one of a range of
developmental activities which mentors may adopt to empower mentees and support their
professional learning, development and wellbeing” (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020, p.194).
Henceforth, we thus use the term mentoring to refer to mentoring and/or coaching, and
only use coaching where we discuss our research design (e.g. literature searches) or refer
to specific coaching programmes, projects or literature.
Research Aims
The primary aims of the research are:
• To identify the impacts of effective mentoring training, education and development
(MTED);
3
• To identify key features of effective MTED;
• To highlight examples of effective practice in MTED.
Whilst the focus of the research is on the nature and impact of effective MTED, which has
been found to be a key component of effective mentoring programmes, the research also
identifies a range of additional factors that enhance and impede mentoring programmes
and their potential positive impacts.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have outlined the research context and aims. In Chapter 2, we outline
the research design. In the following three chapters we present the findings of the
research, specifically:
• An account of the nature and impact of effective MTED (Chapter 3);
• Five vignettes of effective MTED programmes (Chapter 4); and
• Factors other than MTED that contribute to effective mentoring (Chapter 5).
In the final Chapter (6), we offer some conclusions and recommendations for both the ETF
and MTED providers.
3
Our use of mentoring training, education and development encompasses the training, education and
development of both mentors and mentees.

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CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN
Introduction
In this chapter, we present the study research design. We begin by providing an overview
of the design, before discussing its component parts, and providing a brief comment on
research ethics and data protection.
Overview
The study research design comprised three components, namely:
1. A systematic review of UK and international academic and grey literature on
MTED;
2. A secondary analysis of data from recent or ongoing studies of mentoring and
MTED conducted by members of the research team; followed by
3. Interviews with MTED experts who led effective MTED programmes.
We discuss each component, in turn.
Systematic Review of Literature
The review of academic and grey literature was undertaken in three stages:
1) Keyword searching and longlist production;
2) Further screening to create a shortlist and categorisation of the shortlist sources;
and
3) Selection of the most relevant sources for which there was rigorous evidence of
the impact of the MTED discussed, for full review and the production of critical
summaries.
Stage 1
The aim of the first stage was to create a longlist of potential sources from both academic
and grey literature that met the following inclusion criteria:
• UK and international literature and materials published in English only;
• Relevance to the research aims set out in Chapter 1 – which meant that sources
were only included where there was some evidence that the MTED programme
had led to positive impacts;
• Recency – published from 2010 onwards.
For the academic literature review, keyword searching to create an unfiltered list was
initiated using the terms (mentor* OR mentee* OR coach* OR coachee*) AND (train* OR
educat* OR develop* OR prepar*) in the British Education Index (BEI), the Education
Resources Information Centre (ERIC), and Australian Education Index (AEI). After
removal of duplicates, this produced an unfiltered list of 221 unique sources. To ensure

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that relevant sources were not overlooked, searches using the same keywords were used
in the Emerald Insights database, which includes the International Journal of Mentoring
and Coaching in Education, as well as in the Mentoring and Tutoring Journal, and Google
Scholar. Once duplicates were removed this produced the final unfiltered list of 278
sources. The titles and abstracts were scanned to apply the Stage 1 inclusion criteria,
which produced an academic longlist of 152 sources.
To produce a longlist of grey literature, a targeted search was undertaken of the websites
of organisations and professional bodies identified by the research team, the ETF, or the
Department for Education (DfE) as significant providers of mentoring training programmes
in the education sector. Searches were conducted within 18 websites through a
combination of targeted Google site searches, and on-site, internal searches.
To ensure that sources not made publicly available through the targeted websites were
not overlooked, email contact was made with 12 organisations to request any further
documentary sources (grey or academic) that evidenced the impact of their MTED
programme/s. Of these, 10 provided further information on their MTED programme(s) by
email and/or informal telephone or video calls, and where appropriate shared documents
that were not subject to commercial restriction.
4
The 10 organisations that kindly provided
further information are listed in Appendix 1. Appendix 1 also includes details of some
current evaluations of MTED programmes for school teachers in England. Impact and
effectiveness reports are due to be published on these programmes in late 2020 / early
2021.
Due to the nature of Google searching and the varied timescales over which key
informants were able to provide information and documents, which continued into Stages
2 and 3 of the literature review, it is not possible to provide accurate figures on total
unfiltered, nor total Stage1 longlist, grey literature sources.
Stage 2
The aim of Stage 2 was to produce a shortlist of relevant academic and grey literature
sources that were based on rigorous research, and categorise key features of the sources
in an Excel spreadsheet, in preparation for the selection of sources for critical summaries
in Stage 3. During Stage 2, the full texts of academic and grey literature sources were
read and the following inclusion criteria applied:
• Relevance to the research aims set out in Chapter 1. This was a reassessment
of the Stage 1 relevance criterion based on the full text rather than the title and
abstract.
• MTED impact – only studies that had sufficient and robust evidence of impact
were included on the Stage 2 shortlist.
• Research rigour – this related to the rigour of the research underpinning the
evidence of impact and effectiveness of the MTED programme. For academic
sources this was rated on a 0-4 scale using the rating descriptors in the UK’s
Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) rigour criterion, where rigour
understood as:
4
Documents from two of the organisations were not provided until after the point of completing the critical
summaries and analysis, so it was not possible to consider them within this study.

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“The extent to which the work demonstrates intellectual coherence and integrity,
and adopts robust and appropriate concepts, analyses, sources, theories and/or
methodologies.” (REF, 2019, p.35)
For grey literature sources, assessments of rigour were guided, as appropriate to the
source, by the REF criteria. In some instances, academic papers provided evidence of
effectiveness and an associated grey literature source provided detail of the programme
design.
For the academic literature, a two-phase filtering process was adopted. In the first phase
all the 152 Stage 1 longlist full texts were skim read to check that there was sufficient
rigorous evidence of impact. This reduced the number of academic sources to 73. These
73 sources were reduced to a Stage 2 shortlist of 39 through a process of closer reading
of the full-text and application of all three Stage 2 criteria.
The Stage 2 shortlist of 5 grey literature sources was created through an iterative process
of applying Stage 1 and 2 criteria as information and documents became available. The
final Stage 2 shortlist comprised 44 sources (39 academic and 5 grey literature).
All shortlisted sources were entered into an Excel spreadsheet and categorised on a
range of variables including the aim of the MTED programme, intended participants,
type/model of mentoring the training is intended to support, design and rigour of the
research, and extent of evidence of impact on mentors, mentees and/or their
organisations.
Stage 3
The 44 sources in the Stage 2 shortlist were reviewed in a research team meeting to
identify the 15-25 sources that had most relevance to this study. Decisions on inclusion
and exclusion from the critical summary list were based on the following considerations:
• Inclusion of those MTED programmes that had the most rigorous evidence of
impact. This was crucial to address not only the first research aim of identifying
the impact of MTED, but also the second aim of identifying effective features of
MTED programmes, as these must be drawn from programmes with evidence of
impact, plus the third aim of highlighting effective MTED programmes.
• Inclusion of MTED programmes with sufficient detail on the key features of the
programme.
• Variation across the sources – to include MTED programmes focused on teachers
in the FET sector, teaching in other sectors, and contexts other than teaching.
• Inclusion of MTED programmes for mentees or coachees as well as MTED
programmes for mentors and coaches. The scope to do this was very limited.
Stage 1 searching did not retrieve any sources that included MTED for coaches,
and only 7 that included MTED for mentees. Of these 7, only one met the criteria
to be included on the Stage 2 shortlist.
Through discussion, 23 sources were identified. Where sources related to the same
programme, they were grouped for the purpose of creating a critical summary, meaning
that 16 critical summaries were planned. In-depth reading as part of the process of
creating the critical summaries found that 3 sources, relating to 2 critical summaries, did
not provide sufficient or robust enough data to contribute to the analysis. Since two of
these sources related to the UK FE sector, a replacement source from the Stage 2

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shortlist was then added to the critical summary list to ensure that evidence from the FET
sector was included in the review. The list of critical summaries completed is presented in
Table 1. In total, 15 critical summaries were produced from 21 sources (17 academic and
4 grey literature).
The critical summary template was populated with detail relating to:
• Study overview and research design
• Key features of the mentoring or coaching training programme/s
• Effectiveness and impact findings
• Findings on effective and ineffective features of MTED programmes
• Findings on other factors found to enhance or impede MTED
• Other potentially relevant findings
• Author interpretation, claims, implications & recommendations
• Researcher’s summary of key points relevant to this study
The first summary produced by each researcher was reviewed by the Principal
Investigator (Hobson) or Co-Investigator (Maxwell) to ensure that a consistent approach to
their creation and completion was employed.

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Table 1: Final list of critical summaries
Critical
Summary
AL/
GL*
Source
1
AL
Aspfors, J., & Fransson, G. (2015). Research on mentor education for
mentors of newly qualified teachers: A qualitative meta-synthesis. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 48, pp.75–86.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.02.004
2
AL
Beutel, D., Crosswell, L., Willis, J., Spooner-Lane, R., Curtis, E., &
Churchward, P. (2017). Preparing teachers to mentor beginning teachers: an
Australian case study. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in
Education, 6(3), pp.164–177. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce-04-2017-0030
AL
Willis, J., Churchward, P., Beutel, D., Spooner-Lane, R., Crosswell, L., &
Curtis, E. (2019). Mentors for beginning teachers as middle leaders: the
messy work of recontextualising. School Leadership & Management, 39(3–
4), pp.334–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2018.1555701
3
AL
Brace, J. L., Baiduc, R. R., Drane, D. L., Flores, L. C., Beitel, G. J., & Lo, S.
M. (2018). Design, implementation, and evaluation of a multi-disciplinary
professional development program for research mentors. Mentoring &
Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 26(4), pp.377–399.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2018.1530101
4
AL
Garvey, R., & Westlander, G. (2012). Training Mentors - Behaviors Which
Bring Positive Outcomes in Mentoring. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the
Psychology of Coaching and Mentoring, pp.243–265.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118326459.ch13
5
AL
House, S. C., Spencer, K. C., & Pfund, C. (2018). Understanding how
diversity training impacts faculty mentors’ awareness and
behavior. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 7(1),
pp.72–86. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmce-03-2017-0020
AL
Pfund, C., House, S., Spencer, K., Asquith, P., Carney, P., Masters, K. S.,
McGee, R., Shanedling, J., Vecchiarelli, S., & Fleming, M. (2013). A
Research Mentor Training Curriculum for Clinical and Translational
Researchers. Clinical and Translational Science, 6(1), pp.26–33.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cts.12009
6
AL
Ingleby, E. (2014). Developing reflective practice or judging teaching
performance? The implications for mentor training. Research in Post-
Compulsory Education, 19(1), pp.18–32.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13596748.2014.872917
7
AL
Kupersmidt, J. B., Stelter, R. L., Rhodes, J. E., & Stump, K. N. (2017).
Enhancing Mentor Efficacy and Preparedness Through Web-Based Pre-
Match Training. Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 7(3), pp.197–
216. https://doi.org/10.18666/jnel-2017-v7-i3-7945
GL
Garringer, M., Kupersmidt, J., Rhodes, J., Stelter, R., & Tai, T. (2015).
Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring (4th Edition). Boston, MA:
MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.
https://www.mentoring.org/new-site/wp-
content/uploads/2016/01/Final_Elements_Publication_Fourth.pdf
8**
AL
Lyons, M. D., Jones, S. J., Smith, B. H., McQuillin, S. D., Richardson, G.,
Reid, E., & McClellan, A. (2017). Motivation coaching training for instructional

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coaches: a pilot study of motivational interviewing skills training. Mentoring &
Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 25(5), pp.548–565.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2017.1415796
9
AL
Melton, J., Miller, M., & Brobst, J. (2019). Mentoring the mentors: Hybridizing
professional development to support cooperating teachers’ mentoring
practice in science. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher
Education, 19(1). pp.23-44.
https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/184630/
AL
Miller, M., Hanley, D., & Brobst, J. (2019). The Impacts of a Research-Based
Model for Mentoring Elementary Preservice Teachers in Science. Journal of
Science Teacher Education, 30(4), pp.357–378.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560x.2019.1573127
10
AL
Nearing, K. A., Nuechterlein, B. M., Tan, S., Zerzan, J. T., Libby, A. M., &
Austin, G. L. (2020). Training Mentor–Mentee Pairs to Build a Robust Culture
for Mentorship and a Pipeline of Clinical and Translational
Researchers. Academic Medicine, 95(5), pp.730–736.
https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000003152
11***
AL
Pfund, C., Spencer, K. C., Asquith, P., House, S. C., Miller, S., & Sorkness,
C. A. (2015a). Building National Capacity for Research Mentor Training: An
Evidence-Based Approach to Training the Trainers. CBE—Life Sciences
Education, 14(2), ar24. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.14-10-0184
Spencer, K. C., McDaniels, M., Utzerath, E., Rogers, J. G., Sorkness, C. A.,
Asquith, P., & Pfund, C. (2018). Building a Sustainable National Infrastructure
to Expand Research Mentor Training. In CBE - Life Sciences Education,
17(3), ar48.
https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.18-03-0034
12
AL
Sheri, K., Too, J. Y. J., Chuah, S. E. L., Toh, Y. P., Mason, S., & Radha
Krishna, L. K. (2019). A scoping review of mentor training programs in
medicine between 1990 and 2017. Medical Education Online, 24(1), pp. 1-
16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2018.1555435
13
GL
Health Education England (2017). Evaluation of the Health Education
England Yorkshire and the Humber (HEE Y&H) PGMDE Coaching Scheme.
https://www.yorksandhumberdeanery.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/coaching_sch
eme_evaluation_report_2017.pdf
14
GL
Matthews, P. (2016). Incremental coaching in schools. Small steps to
professional mastery: An evaluation and guide for leaders. Ambition School
Leadership. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/ambition-
institute/documents/Incremental_coaching_-_full_report.pdf
15
GL
Vincent, K. (2018). Researching the Impact of Changes to Mentoring
Approaches within a Large Initial Teacher Education Partnership. CollectivED
Working Papers, 4, pp.18-24. Leeds Beckett University.
https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/-/media/files/research/collectived/collectived-
june-2018-issue-4.pdf
Notes:
*AL=Academic literature; GL = Grey literature
**CS8 found no impact of the MTED on which it focused but was retained as this was a rigorous study and
can be reliably drawn upon to identify issues that need to be addressed in MTED design.
***Whilst CS11 is related to and part of the same overall project as CS5, they have different foci so separate
critical summaries were constructed.

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Secondary Analysis of Existing Datasets
For this strand of the research, we sought to undertake a secondary analysis of evidence
from up to eight highly relevant, original studies of mentoring and MTED that members of
the research team had conducted since 2014. The rationale for this time period was that
the evidence was recent and relevant.
Following discussion within the research team and consultation with ETF, we identified 13
studies of mentoring (or coaching) and MTED which could potentially be reanalysed. One
of the studies was ruled out because it was not absolutely clear that a secondary analysis
of data was permitted by the original consent given by the research participants. The
remaining 12 studies were screened to identify their coverage of the research aims of the
current project, before the most relevant eight projects were selected and agreed with
ETF. These are listed below, together with published and/or unpublished accounts of each
project.
1) Mentoring and Coaching Teachers in the Further Education and Skills
Sector (2014-15)
• Hobson, A.J., Maxwell, B., Stevens, A., Doyle, K. & Malderez, A. (2015) Mentoring
and Coaching for Teachers in the Further Education and Skills Sector in England:
Full Report. London: Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
• Hobson, A.J. & Maxwell, B. (2020) Mentoring substructures and superstructures:
an extension and reconceptualisation of the architecture for teacher mentoring.
Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 46(2),
pp.184-206.
2) Judgemental and Developmental approaches to mentoring in Post-
Compulsory Initial Teacher Training: An exploration into mentors’ and
mentees’ perceptions of their relationship (2014-15)
• Manning, C. (2015) Judgemental and Developmental approaches to mentoring in
Post-Compulsory Initial Teacher Training: An exploration into mentors’ and
mentees’ perceptions of their relationship. University of Brighton. MA Thesis.
• Manning, C. & Hobson, A.J. (2017) Judgemental and developmental mentoring in
Further Education Initial Teacher Education in England: Mentor and mentee
perspectives. Research in Post-compulsory Education, 22(4), pp.574-595.
3) Teacher Mentoring in Further Education Initial Teacher Education in
England: the availability, take up and impact of mentor accreditation (2016)
• Robinson, C. & Hobson, A.J. (2017) Mentor Education and Development in the
Further Education sector in England. (Research report for Gatsby Charitable
Foundation.) University of Brighton: Education Research Centre.
4) Teacher Mentoring: What can the education system learn from mentoring
practice in other sectors? (2015-16)
• Hobson, A.J., Castanheira, P., Doyle, K., Csigás, Z. & Clutterbuck, D. (2016) The
Mentoring across Professions (MaP) Project: What can teacher mentoring learn
from international good practice in employee mentoring and coaching? London:
Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

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5) Introducing, Evaluating and Embedding ONSIDE Mentoring at Bede’s School
(2018-19)
• Hobson, A.J., Clements, K. & Káplár-Kodácsy, K. (2019a) Introducing, Evaluating
and Embedding ONSIDE Mentoring at Bede’s School: A Research &
Development Project. School of Education, University of Brighton.
6) Introducing, Embedding and Evaluating ONSIDE Mentoring at Sharnbrook
Academy Federation (2018-19)
• Hobson, A.J., Clements, K. & Káplár-Kodácsy, K. (2019b) Sharnbrook Academy
Federation Mentoring for Professional Growth: Research & Development Project.
Final Report. School of Education, University of Brighton.
7) Brighton & Hove Head Teacher ONSIDE Peer Mentoring Pilot (2018-19)
• Hobson, A.J., Clements, K. & Káplár-Kodácsy, K. (2019c) Brighton & Hove City
Council ONSIDE Head Teacher Peer Mentoring Pilot: Research & Development
Project. Final Report. School of Education, University of Brighton.
8) Further Forces (Troop resettlement to education and training careers)
Mentoring Programme (2017-21)
• Hobson, A.J. & Clements, K. (2020) Further Forces External Mentoring
Programme. Interim Report. School of Education, University of Brighton.
Most of the above studies involved mixed methods research designs that included: a
survey of and/or interviews or focus groups with mentors and mentees; interviews with
Mentoring Coordinators or Programme Leads. Studies 1-3 all relate to the UK FET sector;
Study 4 comprises case study research on effective mentoring programmes across
different professional contexts and six countries; Studies 5-8 relate to ONSIDE Mentoring
programmes (Hobson 2016, 2017, 2020) introduced in different contexts.
For each study, the secondary analysis process sought to identify findings and data
relevant to the research aims of the current project via:
i. An initial review of the associated (published and/or unpublished) research
outputs;
ii. A subsequent review of the recorded results of earlier data analyses, for
potentially relevant findings not included in the research outputs;
iii. Free text searches of transcripts and survey responses for references to mentor
education, training and development (using those terms and others, such as
workshops and accreditation, to identify potentially relevant data).
The results of the secondary analysis were recorded using the same critical summary
template that was used for the literature review.
Thematic Analysis of Critical Summaries
The critical summaries of literature and secondary datasets were analysed thematically
and independently by members of the research team, who subsequently met to discuss
and agree the main themes and emergent findings of the research relating to:
1. The impact of MTED programmes on mentoring practice, mentors, mentees, and
their organisations;

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2. Key features of effective MTED programmes;
3. Factors associated with MTED programmes that enhanced or impeded their
effectiveness; and
4. Factors other than MTED that enhanced or impeded the effectiveness and
positive impact of mentoring programmes in general.
Drawing on written individual analysis notes and the team discussion, an outline list of the
main findings in relation to points 1-4 above was constructed. This list was reviewed by
the research team to ensure that it aligned with individuals’ in-depth knowledge of the
academic and grey literature sources that they had reviewed. Finally, the key findings
were checked through, cross-referencing to the evidence presented in the critical
summaries. Where necessary, the original sources were accessed to confirm the
accuracy or interpretation of specific information included in the critical summaries.
Interviews with MTED experts who led effective MTED programmes
To provide additional data on effective MTED programmes, semi-structured online
interviews, with an average duration of 39 minutes (range 33-49 mins.), were conducted
with five MTED experts who were leaders of effective MTED programmes. These
programmes were selected by the research team during the critical summary analysis
meeting. Two criteria were applied to aid selection:
1. MTED programmes identified in our critical summaries (of literature and
secondary analysis) which had the strongest impacts, evidenced through rigorous
research;
2. The inclusion of:
a. ONSIDE mentoring programmes, to align with ETF’s interest in supporting the
development of MTED related to this approach to mentoring; and
b. One or more programmes that included mentee/coachee MTED, given the
very limited number of sources that reported any findings on this aspect of
MTED.
The programmes selected were:
• Mentoring Beginner Teachers – Australia (Literature CS2);
• ONSIDE MTED programmes – England (Secondary Analysis Studies 5-8);
• Entering Mentoring programmes – United States (Literature CS5 and 11);
• CO-Mentor (Colorado Mentoring Training Program) – United States (Literature
CS10);
• Preparing for Mentoring – United States (Literature CS7).
The interview conversation built on the evidence from the relevant critical summary,
focusing on gaining deeper insights into:
• The MTED programme design; and
• The impacts of the key features and content of the MTED programme – including
any further evidence not included in the sources reviewed.
Interviewees were also asked if they were able to provide any further documentation, such
as a mentoring or mentor training handbook, further papers and/or evaluation reports. It

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was not possible to subject these additional documents to a rigorous critical review within
the scope of this study. They are, however, listed in Appendix 2, so that they might be
retrieved to inform future research, as well as being a useful resource for anyone
developing an MTED programme.
Two researchers took part in each interview to ensure that detailed notes could be taken.
The notes were sent to interviewees to check for accuracy and for any additions that they
wished to make. The notes, the related critical summary, and a brief review of additional
documents supplied were used to create the programme vignettes presented in Chapter
4. Interviews were also recorded and transcribed. Given the short timescale of this project,
transcripts were used to check the accuracy of the content of the vignettes rather than as
the primary data source.
Research Ethics and Data Protection
This research was conducted in accordance with:
• The Ethical Guidelines of the British Educational Research Association (BERA,
2018);
• Data Protection legislation, where the legal basis for undertaking those aspects of
the research that required us to hold personal data was ‘Public Task’ (GDPR,
2016, Article 6 [1a,e]).
The research was granted a favourable ethical opinion by the Research Ethics and
Integrity Committee of the University of Brighton.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have outlined the study research design. In the following three chapters
we present the findings of the research, beginning in Chapter 3 with a discussion of the
nature and impact of effective MTED.

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CHAPTER 3: THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF
EFFECTIVE MTED
Introduction
In this chapter we draw on the results of our review of literature and secondary analyses
to present our research findings relating to:
• The impacts of MTED;
• The nature and features of effective MTED; and
• Factors which enhance and impede the potential positive impacts of MTED
provision from being realised.
Given the restricted literature and research evidence relating to the nature and impact of
MTED for mentees, the focus of this chapter is on the nature and impact of MTED for
mentors. (Some discussion and illustration of MTED for mentees is provided in Chapter 4
– Vignettes 2 and 4.)
In this chapter (and in Chapter 5), we only report research findings that have been
identified in two or more separate studies, and where we consider the evidence to be
sufficiently robust. Such triangulation provides greater confidence in the trustworthiness
(credibility, confirmability, dependability and transferability) of the findings presented.
Where research findings are supported by evidence from more than three studies, in the
interests of readability we present a maximum of three illustrative citations, and where
possible avoid presenting two citations relating to the same study or MTED programme.
Impacts of Effective MTED for Mentors
Our research shows that mentors’ participation in effective MTED can have positive
impacts on themselves, on mentoring practice, on mentees, and on mentors’ and
mentees’ organisations. We address each of these areas of impact in turn.
POSITIVE IMPACTS ON MENTORS
Participation in effective MTED can bring positive impacts for mentors in the following four
related areas.
1) Enhanced knowledge and understanding, including of:
• Mentoring roles and approaches (Beutel et al., 2017; Kupersmidt et al.,
2017; Pfund et al., 2013), and key factors associated with effective
mentoring practice and working with mentees, such as structuring mentoring
meetings, building trust and respect, being clear and realistic about
mentees’ and their own expectations of mentoring outcomes, striking a
balance between guidance and independence, and providing a supportive
environment and safe space within which mentees can make and learn from
their mistakes (Brace et al., 2018; Kupersmidt et al., 2017; Robinson &
Hobson, 2017);

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• Issues relating to diversity and diverse mentee groups (Brace et al., 2018;
House et al., 2018; Sheri et al., 2019);
• The needs and factors influencing the well-being and job satisfaction of
mentees and other colleagues (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; HEE Y&H, 2017;
Robinson & Hobson, 2017).
In their qualitative meta-synthesis of research on mentor education for mentors
of newly qualified teachers, Aspfors & Fransson (2015) state that:
"Mentor education contributes to feelings of empathy for new teachers and a
greater understanding [of] their well-being and needs” (Aspfors & Fransson,
2015, p.82).
2) Increased confidence and self-efficacy relating to:
• Undertaking mentoring in general (Brace et al., 2018; Kupersmidt et al.,
2017; Vincent, 2018);
• Different aspects of the mentoring role, including nurturing mentoring
relationships, aligning expectations, helping mentees set realistic goals,
building mentees’ confidence and independence (Brace et al., 2018;
Kupersmidt et al., 2017; Sheri et al., 2019).
“Mentor training boosts confidence in aligning expectations, working
with diverse mentee groups and nurturing mentoring relationships…
improved communication skills, providing negative feedback, and
addressing ‘difficult conversations’….” (Sheri et al., 2019, p.7)
“Trained volunteers were more self-efficacious, ready to mentor, and
knowledgeable about the roles mentors should and should not play
(particularly mentors with higher baseline scores), and had less
unrealistically positive expectations than the control group” (Kupersmidt
et al., 2017, p.197)
3) Enhanced skills, including:
• Critical reflection on their mentoring and mentoring relationships (Aspfors &
Fransson, 2015; Beutel et al., 2017; Ingleby, 2014);
• Critical reflection on their own professional practice (Aspfors & Fransson,
2015; Beutel et al., 2017; Ingleby, 2014);
• Specific mentoring skills (Nearing et al., 2020), including goal-setting,
building mentees’ confidence, and providing effective feedback (Beutel et
al., 2017; Sheri et al., 2019, p.7; Ingleby, 2014; Matthews, 2016);
• Inter-personal and communication skills including effective listening and
questioning (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; HEE Y&H, 2017; Nearing et al.,
2020).
4) Other impacts on mentors’ professional lives, including:
• Perceived improvements to mentors’ professional practice (Sheri et al,
2019), such as management of their work environments (Nearing et al.,
2020), adopting a more person-centred approach, contributing more
effectively to meetings, and enhanced ability to train and support junior
colleagues (HEE Y&H, 2017);

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• Enhanced status and influence within their organisations (Beutel et al., 2017;
Willis et al., 2019); and
• Increased satisfaction and pride associated with more effectively supporting
colleagues (Beutel et al., 2017; HEE Y&H, 2017; Ingleby, 2014).
POSITIVE IMPACTS ON MENTORING PRACTICE
It might be expected that if MTED helps to enhance mentors’ knowledge, understanding
and skills, then this would have a positive impact on mentoring practice, and our research
bears this out. Hence, several studies and a range of different kinds of evidence show that
the effectiveness or impact of mentoring is enhanced where mentors have undertaken
effective MTED (Hobson et al., 2016; Sheri et al. 2019; Willis et al., 2019). Specific studies
have shown that:
• Effective MTED can bring about ‘behavioral change’ for mentors, including
more active listening, engaging in more open conversations about diversity,
and more effectively tailoring their mentoring to mentees’ individual needs
(House et al., 2018; Pfund et al., 2013). For example, in their study of MTED
for ’Effective Science Instruction’ (ESI), Melton et al., (2019) and Miller et al.
(2019) found that, following MTED, mentoring conversations changed both in
terms of:
o Content, with a shift from a focus on classroom management pre-
MTED to a focus on elements of ESI and evidence of students’
learning post-MTED; and
o Conversational structure, with mentors largely dominating
conversations pre-MTED but conversations much more balanced
post-MTED.
• Effective MTED has helped mentors to enact mentoring practice that aligns
more closely with the espoused model of mentoring. For example:
o Trained mentors and coaches have been shown to have enhanced
their ability to enact developmental mentoring and coaching
(Matthews, 2016; Melton et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2019);
o Similarly, studies of ONSIDE Mentoring programmes supported by
the University of Brighton (Hobson et al., 2019a, Hobson et al.,
2019b, Hobson et al., 2019c) show that the mentoring enacted was
consistent with the principles of the ONSIDE framework – that is, Off-
line, Non-judgemental, Supportive, Individualised, Developmental
and Empowering (Hobson 2016, 2017, 2020).
Further illustration of these points can be found in the following excerpts from
two other studies:
• Mentors who had undertaken formal mentor education “listened much more
actively, asked more questions and used probes…” (Evertson & Smithey,
2000; cited in Aspfors & Fransson, 2015, p.82).
• Mentors (in the English FE sector) who undertook “meaningful mentor
education are more likely to practice developmental mentoring and less likely
to enact judgemental mentoring” (Manning & Hobson, 2017, p.583), while

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those found to be employing predominantly judgemental mentoring had
undertaken little or no meaningful MTED (Manning, 2015; Secondary
analysis, Study 2).
POSITIVE IMPACTS OF MTED ON MENTEES
In turn, it might be assumed that enhanced enactment of mentoring helps bring about
positive impacts for mentees, and such an assumption is also supported by research
evidence, which suggests that effective MTED for mentors helps to bring about the
following benefits for mentees:
1) Enhanced knowledge and understanding relating to their professional
practice or studies, including, for mentees in different professional contexts,
understanding of 'effective science instruction’ (ESI) (Miller et al., 2019), and
awareness of the patient experience (HEE Y&H, 2017);
2) Enhanced skills, including communication skills, workload management
and prioritisation (HEE Y&H, 2017; Nearing et al., 2020);
3) Enhanced effectiveness, competence or productivity as a professional,
employee or student (HEE Y&H, 2017; Sheri et al., 2019) – e.g.:
• Improved questioning, differentiation, managing behaviour, and pupil
engagement (Matthews, 2016);
• Mentees of the educated mentors in Evertson & Smithey's (2000) study
were found to be: “better able to arrange the physical settings of the
classrooms, manage instructions and [employ] more effective routines
and procedures” than mentees of mentors who not received any
training (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015, p.82)
4) Enhanced retention and career progression (HEE Y&H, 2017; Matthews,
2016; Nearing et al., 2020; Sheri et al. 2019);
5) Enhanced resilience, well-being and work-life balance (HEE Y&H, 2017;
Robinson & Hobson, 2017; Willis et al., 2019).
The research suggests that some of these positive impacts apply
beyond mentees’ (or coachees’) professional lives, as illustrated
by the following quotation:
“Both coaches and coachees often referred to the coaching
experience as providing ‘tools’, ‘strategies’ or a set of ‘skills’
that were applicable to all aspects of life.” (HEE Y&H, 2017,
p.11).
POSITIVE IMPACTS ON ORGANISATIONS
Finally, one might expect that the enhanced enactment of mentoring that effective
MTED helps to bring about, together with the associated positive impacts on mentors
and mentees outlined above, would have a positive impact on their organisations.
There is some evidence to suggest some such impacts, notably on:
• The development or enhancement of professional learning cultures or
communities (Hobson et al., 2016; Hobson et al., 2019a; Matthews, 2016); and

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• Enhanced staff retention (HEE Y&H, 2017; Hobson et al., 2016; Matthews,
2016).
Unfortunately, it is difficult to establish the impact of MTED on organisations, partly
because of the complexity of disentangling the impact of effective MTED from that of
the wider mentoring schemes that it supports. Evidence on this aspect was therefore
limited, and we did not find any convincing evidence, in the literature that we
reviewed, on the impact of MTED for teacher mentors on learners and learning. (This
does not mean, of course, that effective MTED does not have positive impacts on
learners and learning.)
The Nature and Features of Effective MTED
In this section we outline what research tells us about the nature and content of effective
MTED provision, beginning with a brief account of common research findings relating to
key features of such provision, or what might be termed ’MTED non-negotiables’.
COMMON KEY FEATURES OF EFFECTIVE MTED
There is substantial research evidence that effective MTED includes the following three
key features.
1) It provides opportunities to practise mentoring or particular approaches to
mentoring, and explicit critical reflection on that practice (Beutal et al., 2017;
Miller et al., 2019; Pfund et al., 2013):
“As with most learning experiences, learning to be an effective …
mentor is best accomplished when the training combines participation
in a formal course/curriculum and engagement in the practice of
mentoring itself.” (Pfund et al., 2013, p.30.)
2) It includes opportunities for mentor networking, during and/or (especially)
following initial training or preparation, to enable sharing and mutual
interrogation of and reflection on mentoring practice (Brace et al., 2018;
Nearing et al., 2020; Sheri et al., 2019):
“Trusting, comfortable, supportive and stimulating relations among
participants in the mentor education are reported as crucial for
professional learning… When developing mentor education it is
therefore essential to organise enough space for the mentors to meet,
interact, share their new experiences as mentors and build a culture of
openness and trust.” (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015, pp.82-84)
3) It is sustained rather than a ’one-stop-shop’, with initial education, training or
preparation activities followed up with subsequent training, development and
networking opportunities (Miller et al., 2019; Nearing et al., 2020; Pfund et
al., 2015a).
CONTENT OF EFFECTIVE MTED PROGRAMMES
Research also shows that the following content is typical of many effective MTED
programmes:

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• Learning theories and principles of adult learning and promoting
professional learning and development (where mentees are adults) (Beutel
et al., 2017; Garvey & Westlander, 2012; Sheri et al., 2019);
• Communication skills for mentors – including listening and questioning
techniques (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; Beutel et al., 2017; House et al.,
2018);
• Building, nurturing and sustaining mentoring relationships (Beutel et
al., 2017; Garringer et al., 2015; Sheri et al., 2019);
• Establishing, aligning and managing mentors’ and mentees’
expectations regarding the mentoring process (Brace et al., 2018; House et
al., 2018; Sheri et al., 2019);
• How to structure mentoring meetings or coaching sessions, and frame
mentoring or coaching conversations (Hobson et al., 2016; Matthews,
2016; Melton et al., 2019);
• Balancing support and challenge – and (where required) negotiating the
challenges of simultaneously supporting and assessing / evaluating the work
of mentees (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; Beutel et al., 2017; Sheri et al.,
2019);
• Handling challenges, difficult conversations, ethical issues and
dilemmas experienced by mentors and mentees (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015;
Brace et al., 2018; Sheri et al., 2019);
• Developmental approaches to lesson observation (Beutel et al., 2017;
Ingleby, 2014);
• Giving appropriate forms of feedback (Beutel et al., 2017; Brace et al.,
2018; Sheri et al., 2019);
• Supporting mentors’ critical reflection on their professional practice and
on mentoring (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; House et al., 2018);
• Supporting mentees’ development of reflective practice (Beutel et al.,
2017; Ingleby, 2014);
• Empowering mentees and fostering independence (House et al., 2018;
Nearing et al., 2020; Willis et al., 2019);
• Establishing and sustaining confidentiality in the mentoring relationship
(Aspfors & Fransson, 2015; Beutel et al., 2017);
• Understanding and addressing issues of diversity, and working with
diverse groups (Brace et al., 2018; Pfund et al., 2013; Sheri et al., 2019);
• Tailoring mentoring to mentees’ individual needs (‘individuating’) and
building on mentees’ strengths (House et al., 2018; Manning, 2015;
Matthews, 2016);
• Effective closure of the mentoring relationship (Garringer et al., 2015;
Hobson et al., 2016).
Our research suggests that effective MTED also includes:

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• A specific focus on the content of the work mentees are undertaking
and mentors are supporting them to undertake – e.g. mentor training for the
Mentoring Elementary Preservice Teachers in Science Effective Science
Instruction (ESI) programme (Melton et al., 2019; Miller et al., 2019) sought
to:
“Develop mentors’ understanding of the components of ESI…, develop
mentors’ ability to use a palette of support strategies to guide novices in
their instructional decision-making…, [and] emphasize the use of data
and evidence of student learning when engaging in mentoring
conversations versus an emphasis on the novice’s teaching practices”
(Melton et al., 2019, p.25).
• A specific focus on enacting the espoused mentoring approach – e.g.
how to manage developmental and non-judgemental mentoring
conversations (Hobson et al., 2016); principles and techniques associated
with ONSIDE Mentoring (Hobson & Clements, 2020; Hobson et al., 2019c),
or techniques associated with incremental coaching, for example, Bambrick-
Santoyo’s (2012) steps to effective feedback (Matthews, 2016).
Developing the latter points, and despite the generic elements outlined above,
which have been found to be common features of effective MTED, research
suggests that the nature and content of MTED should be tailored not only to the
kind of mentoring (or coaching) being supported but also:
• Tailored to the specific context within which the mentoring (or coaching)
takes place and the specific training needs of mentors, which might be
identified by an initial needs assessment (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015;
Garringer et al., 2015; Pfund et al., 2013).
In addition to the content of MTED curriculum, a common feature of effective
MTED programmes, and one that mentors tended to value, is:
• The availability of additional resources to support trained mentors or
mentoring relationships (Brace et al., 2018; Garringer et al., 2015; Spencer
et al., 2018).
For example, the online version of the ESI MTED discussed by Melton et al.
(2019) provided:
“downloadable tools and model conversations through a visually driven
medium that includes animations, visuals, and accompanying audio
narration is more dynamic than what is often possible in traditional
face-to-face PD. The full online modules can be viewed at
http://bit.ly/mentormodules.” (p.30)
‘MTED PEDAGOGY’: METHODS OF FACILITATING EFFECTIVE MTED
MTED programmes that were found to be effective employ a variety of (predominantly
facilitative and interactive) pedagogical methods, including workshops, seminars, the use
of video, role-play, action-learning sets and reflective journals (Ingleby, 2014; Sheri et al.,
2019; Kupersmidt et al., 2017). Whilst different MTED pedagogies will suit the relative

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strengths and learning needs of different mentor trainers and mentors, respectively, some
research emphasises the particular value to mentor participants of:
• Observing videos of their own or others’ teaching, which enables them
to critically reflect on such practice – e.g. to examine the extent to which it
was consistent with the espoused model (Aspfors & Fransson, 2015); and
• Opportunities to observe, practice and receive feedback on the
enactment of the espoused mentoring model, framework or approach,
through the medium of video and/or role-play (Hobson et al., 2019a, 2019b,
2019c).
Some studies have highlighted benefits of online provision. For example, Kupersmidt et al.
(2017) found that MTED participants reported benefits of “convenience, autonomy, and
engagement” (p.210), adding that mentors:
“can complete training in convenient locations and at times that suit their
schedules. Furthermore, they can learn at their own pace and do not have to
complete a whole training program in one sitting. Also, Web-based courses
that are hosted in a learning management system typically include
administrative functions that allow program staff members to monitor and
track course progress, knowledge, and completion of each learning”
(Kupersmidt et al., 2017, p.211).
In the related publication (Garringer et al., 2015), the use of online mentor training is said
to be “well-suited for delivering high-quality, engaging, standardized, easily accessible,
and scalable education” (Garringer et al., 2015, p.48).
Melton et al. (2019), on the other hand, identify a number of issues (for science teachers
in particular) with purely online MTED. Their findings highlighted particular difficulties of
enabling active sense-making and connections to teachers’ practice in an online learning
environment. Whilst online training was flexible and cost-effective, in-person training better
facilitated a group environment and sense of community with peers, which was considered
important. These researchers conclude that some face-to-face, in person support is
desirable, if only within a blended or hybridised model.
THE DURATION AND INTENSITY OF EFFECTIVE MTED
Not all studies provide clear detail on the duration and intensity of MTED, though this
appears to vary considerably, with ‘contact time’ (or equivalent online study) ranging from
2 hours to 14 days, with accredited or certificated programmes requiring greater time
commitments and additional study and assignments. Importantly, whatever the time
commitment required, the effectiveness of MTED is enhanced where initial training to
inform practical engagement in mentoring activity is followed-up with opportunities to
discuss and critically reflect on such activity, including with fellow mentors, and to receive
additional expert input.
The current research is inconclusive on whether opportunities for accreditation or
certification add significant value over and above the positive impacts of effective
unaccredited MTED (Robinson & Hobson, 2017).

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Factors Enhancing and Impeding Positive Impacts of MTED
The following factors were found to enhance prospects of realising the range of potential
positive impacts of MTED for mentors:
• Supported by their organisational leadership teams, mentors are provided with
sufficient time and space to attend and fully engage with MTED
opportunities, including networking with other mentors (Hobson et al., 2016;
House et al., 2018);
• MTED opportunities are provided for mentees as well as mentors, to help them
to cultivate what Searby (2014) calls productive ‘protégé mentoring mindsets’ and
to take advantage of the mentoring support available to them (Hobson et al.,
2016; Nearing et al., 2020);
5
• Those providing training for mentors and mentees should be appropriately
trained by expert ‘trainer trainers’ (Pfund et al., 2015a; Spencer et al., 2018;
Robinson & Hobson, 2017), with some research suggesting that the use of
external consultant coaches had proved especially beneficial (Matthews, 2016):
“The most recent adopters [of incremental coaching] were making extensive
use of a consultant education coach both to train coaches and to coach
them in coaching. Coaches spoke very positively about the value of this
expertise, as did those coachees whose coaches had been coached by the
consultant” (Matthews, 2016, p.19);
• The use of previously trained mentors in MTED programme promotion helps
to recruit new mentoring participants and encourages them to attend MTED (HEE
Y&H, 2017; Nearing et al., 2020).
The following factors were found to impede the realisation of the range of potential
positive impacts of MTED.
• In their scoping review of mentor training programmes in medical education, Sheri
et al. (2019) noted that:
“The main obstacles to mentor training programs are a shortage of trained
mentors, a lack of appreciation of mentor training and a lack of time,
funding and accountability in designing and coordinating the mentor-
training program.” (p.7; emphasis added)
These authors’ reference to ‘a lack of appreciation of mentor training’, which we take to
mean – or to include – a lack of appreciation of the potential value of mentor training (or
MTED), partly explains the following additional impediment:
• Poor mentor attendance at and engagement with MTED (Aspfors & Fransson,
2015; Hobson et al., 2015; Robinson & Hobson, 2017).
In their 2017 study, and drawing on different sources of evidence, Robinson and Hobson
estimated that only around a half of teacher mentors in FE colleges had undertaken any
kind of meaningful mentor development work, with a very small minority (under 5%)
having formal mentoring qualifications or accreditation. They noted that:
5
Beyond this, there is limited evidence on the details of the nature and impact of MTED for mentees, though
some discussion and illustration is provided in Chapter 4 (Vignettes 2 and 4).

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“The single, most prominent obstacle to mentors in partner colleges undertaking
mentor training, education or CPD was that of time: in some case mentors do not
attend such development opportunities because they do not feel they can find or
afford the time; in other cases they cannot get permission to take the time.”
(Robinson & Hobson, 2017, p.12.)
An interviewee in the earlier Mentoring in FE research (Hobson et al., 2015) stated that:
“Mentor training – access to it for mentors can be a problem… [It] will never have
100 per cent mentor engagement unless it becomes a requirement. Mentors must
have access to training.” (Senior FE sector contact; Secondary analysis, Study 1)
6
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have presented research findings relating to the impacts of effective
mentoring training, education and development (MTED), the nature and features of
effective MTED, and factors that enhance and impede MTED provision. In the following
chapter, we provide additional detail on effective MTED through the presentation of five
vignettes that draw on interviews with MTED experts who lead effective MTED
programmes.
6
Coded segment from interview. Quotation not used in 2015 research report so no page number is
provided.

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CHAPTER 4: VIGNETTES OF EFFECTIVE MTED
PROGRAMMES
Introduction
In this chapter we present five short vignettes of effective MTED programmes identified
from our critical summaries:
1. Mentoring Beginner Teachers (Queensland University of Technology – Australia)
2. ONSIDE Mentoring programmes (University of Brighton – UK)
3. Entering Mentoring programmes (Center for the Improvement of Mentored
Experiences in Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison – United States)
4. The CO-Mentor programme (University of Colorado – United States)
5. Preparing for mentoring (innovation, Research and Training (iRT) – United States)
The first MTED programme vignette focuses on beginner school teacher mentoring, and
the second encompases mentoring for teachers and head-teachers. The third and fourth
vignettes focus on mentoring researchers in higher education, while the final vignette
focuses on youth mentoring. All five vignettes deal with MTED for mentors, while vignettes
2 and 4 also include MTED for mentees. The rationale for the selection of the MTED
programmes was set out in Chapter 2. Three of the programmes with the most rigorous
evidence of impact in our critical summaries, and therefore included in our interviews,
were from the United States.
The purpose of the vignettes is to provide additional detail on the designs of the five
effective MTED programmes, that goes beyond the features outlined in Chapter 3. In
particular, the vignettes draw out the MTED experts’ perpectives on the specific features
and content of their MTED programme that led to positive impact. The vignettes were
primarily composed from a semi-structured interview with a key expert connected to the
programme, and supplemented with information from the relevant critical summary, any
further documentation provided by the interviewee, and (where available) information on
the programme’s website.
Vignette 1: Mentoring Beginner Teachers MTED programme
Context
The Mentoring Beginner Teachers (MBT) programme was part of a wider multi-million
investment by the Queensland Department of Eduation, Australia, designed to support
teachers in their first year of professional practice in schools across the state. In addition
to funding the MBT programme, schools received up to 72 hours of release time per
beginning teacher, with principals given the flexibility to choose how the funding would
be used to support the beginning teacher. The MBT programme was co-developed by
staff from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and state policy officers in
response to state and national policy for supporting beginning teachers. Following the
inital two day training, mentors were expected to develop and implement a school
mentoring plan, in addition to undertaking a mentor role themselves.

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The state funded programme ran from 2014-19, during which time over 4,000
experienced teachers, nominated by their school principal, across the geographically
diverse state, were trained as mentors. An online programme based on the MBT
programme that schools can buy into is being launched by QUT in October 2020.
Model of mentoring supported by the MBT programme
The overarching approach to mentoring advocated in the MBT programme was
developmental. The involvement of policy officers in the design of the programme, and
during programme sessions to answer procedural questions, was intended to align the
programme with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
Programme content and skills development
Initial training programme
Day 1
o Different mentoring styles
o Interpersonal communication skills including:
▪ Active listening
▪ Questioning strategies using the ORID framework for focused
conversations (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, Decisional – see
Stanfield 2020 for detail)
▪ Handling difficult situations
o Mentoring scenarios role play
Day 2
o Observation of teaching strategies
▪ Pre-observation, observation, and post-observation conversation (using a
frame of reflection, dialogue and feedback)
o Acknowledging the knowledge and skills of the mentee
o Giving developmental feedback
o Goal-setting – SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound)
conversations, guided by the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
o Negotiating a focus for improvement with the mentee
o Developing a school mentoring plan (‘What are you going to do post-
programme?’)
In addition to preparing the mentors to support beginner teachers, the MBT programme
also explored how being a mentor can advance the mentor’s own skills to become a
highly accomplished / lead teacher.
A detailed participant handbook was provided.
Further training/support
o Post-programme webinars were offered by QUT three to six months after the
initial training but uptake by mentors was very low.
o Although a website was set up by Queensland Department of Education for use
after the initial training to share resources such as observation tools and
mentoring plans, mentors made very limited use of the facility.

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Factors considered to be important in enhancing the impact of the MBT
programme
The interviewee pointed to a range of factors that appeared to be central in leading to
impact, some related to the MBT programme, others from beyond the programme.
The approach to MTB facilitation was perceived to be crucial. More specifically, the
approaches considered to be effective were:
o Face-to-face training, as mentoring is based on personal interactions, and it
provides the opportunity to practice the skills
o An interactive, workshop-based approach, including practising mentoring
conversations and skills, during which mentors have the opportunity to
experience taking the mentee role as well as the mentor role
o Working with scenarios and cases
o Applying a dialogical approach to mentoring – that is, based on conversation
Predicating the MBT programme design and content on preparing mentors to
adopt a non-judgemental developmental approach – “we don’t want the mentors to
be supervisors or assessors” – was perceived as essential to effectiveness. This
required paying attention to forming the roles of the mentor to facilitate the development
of the mentee, and focusing in the training on:
o Forming a productive mentor/mentee relationship, including recognising that
there is a reciprocal relationship where “the mentee brings a lot to the table”
and “at some stages you swap roles”
o Applying a critical friend approach
o Creating shared understanding with the mentee
o Being available for the mentee
o Supporting and challenging the mentee
o Understanding mentoring as a 4-phase relationship – building trust and
expectations; negotiating the roles of the mentor and mentee; meeting
mentees’ needs and goal setting conversations; and redefining the
relationship at the end of the mentee’s first year of teaching
o Preparing beginning teachers to meet the professional standards by helping
them to understand what they need to be become proficient in (and for which
mentors need to understand the transitions from beginner to proficient
teacher)
Opportunities to interact and start to build networks in groups of participants
from different phases of education was also perceived to be beneficial.
Securing positive impacts from mentoring in the longer term, depended on the school
principals understanding the purposes and nature of mentoring, and supporting
the programme participants to implement what they had learned from the MBT
programme in their schools:
“Where we found it was most powerful, and it’s not rocket science, is where the
[school] leadership team really engage with the participants. [In these cases
mentors] developed a mentoring programme based on what they had learnt from
our two-day programme... Without the support of school leadership the impact
certainly wasn’t as great.”

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Vignette 2: ONSIDE Mentoring MTED programmes
Context
ONSIDE MTED has been developed and facilitated in several educational contexts by
the University of Brighton, including to support: teacher mentoring in Bede’s School and
Sharnbrook Academy Federation; peer-to-peer head teacher mentoring in the Brighton
& Hove local authority area; and mentoring for beginner teachers entering the FET
sector from the Armed Forces in the ETF’s ’Further Forces’ programme.7
Model of mentoring supported by the ONSIDE MTED programme
The mentoring scheme is centred upon – and the MTED supports the enactment of –
ONSIDE Mentoring (Hobson 2016, 2017, 2020), the key imperatives of which are that
mentoring is:
• Off-line (separated from line management and supervision) and non-hierarchical;
• Non-judgemental and non-evaluative;
• Supportive of mentees’ psycho-social needs and well-being;
• Individualised – tailored to the specific and changing needs (emotional and
developmental) of the mentee;
• Developmental and growth-oriented – seeking to promote mentees’ learnacy8
and provide them with appropriate degrees of challenge; and
• Empowering – progressively non-directive to support mentees to become more
autonomous and agentic.
Programme content and skills development
The ONSIDE MTED programme is typically staged over approximately the first five
months of a mentoring programme. Although the ONSIDE MTED programmes were set
up to achieve differing aims, in differing contexts, a set of features is evident:
Common features
o ONSIDE mentoring principles are integrated throughout the MTED
programme and embedded within all resources.
o Initial three-hour workshop for mentors where the content spans: introducing
the ONSIDE mentoring principles; mentoring skills, such as listening and giving
feedback; and practice in triads where participants take, in turn, the role of
mentor, mentee and observer.
o Two to four practice mentoring meetings. Following the initial workshop
mentors are paired with a fellow mentor to practise ONSIDE Mentoring, in the
role of both mentor and mentee, over 2-4 practice mentoring meetings.
o Second mentor workshop. In this workshop mentors critically reflect on their
experience of the practice mentoring meetings and develop their knowledge and
skills further. The content is tailored to the issues that participants have
encountered and may include discussion of scenarios and videos of mentoring,
7
These programmes are also included in our secondary analysis (Projects 5-8 inclusive in Chapter 1).
8
That is, mentees’ ability to manage their ongoing learning and development (Claxton, 2004).

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evaluating mentoring tools, stages in the mentoring relationship and preparing for
mentoring their assigned mentee. Following this workshop mentors are allocated
a mentee proper.
o Initial workshop for mentees. This is held before mentoring begins and is
designed to help them make the most of their ONSIDE Mentoring experience.
The content spans: the ONSIDE mentoring principles – how it works and how to
make the most of it, what mentees can bring to the mentoring relationship, for
example commitment and being punctual, and the characteristics of a
professional learner.
o Final workshop for both mentors and mentees. This is held approximately
four months after the establishment of the (post-initial training phase) mentoring
relationships, is designed to address any issues that are preventing the
mentoring relationships from achieving optimal impact, and is tailored in
response to participants’ needs. The content may include reverse mentoring
(mentees mentoring mentors) and preparation for the ending of the mentoring
relationship.
o Formative research and on-going gathering of feedback, which is used to
adjust the ONSIDE MTED programme to best meet the participants’ needs.
All workshops are facilitated face-to-face, with the exception of the Further Forces
ONSIDE MTED programme, which was provided online as participants were
geographically dispersed.
Factors considered to be important in enhancing the impact of ONSIDE MTED
Pre-programme negotiation with the organisations where the mentoring is to take
place or sponsor for a cross-organisation ONSIDE MTED programme to inform
programme design:
[asking] “what’s the impact you want to make? To whom? by when? …. that then
decided how some of the content was adapted.”
Training mentees as well as mentors so that they understand the ONSIDE framework
and are prepared to engage constructively in the mentoring relationship.
Using the ONSIDE mentoring framework to underpin the ONSIDE MTED
programme design and as a reference point during training:
“I share with them the ‘Ingredients for efficacious mentoring’ [Hobson, 2017, pp.338-
341], because out of that research, I was able then to communicate how it might be
different to other things”
“If something comes up [from mentors or mentees], it’s a quick thing to say, ‘well
how does that fit in with ONSIDE?’”
A clear structure for the ONSIDE MTED programme, and setting expectations,
including:
“The clear structure and expectations, which I tried to do with the timeline, and
with the ONSIDE framework, with the structure of the session, with what’s
expected for how many times you meet, paperwork expectations [etc.]… I think
that’s essential”.

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Overall, all the content was considered important. While at a minimum the initial
training was considered essential, the on-going training was also perceived to be
important
“I think it’s the added bit, that you come back in the middle for the reboot, for the
sustaining it and for responding to them of what they need as well”
The space to be listened to and develop mentoring skills was perceived to be
crucial:
“What comes out, repeatedly, is the opportunity to have space to be listened to.
Becoming skilled listeners is also something that they feed back to me, and that
impacts not just on this relationship, but on other relationships.”
Practising of mentoring skills in triads, including the opportunity for mentors to
experience the mentee role.
Face-to-face group facilitation was considered to be more effective:
“Because of interaction... There is something about what you build in that room, that
you collaborate in, that you can’t get in doing it individually online.”
Research was conducted independently from the ONSIDE MTED facilitation team
that provided formative feedback from the participants on their MTED and mentoring
experiences.
Other programme features considered important were light touch paperwork, a
mentor/mentee agreement, and a review at the end the programme.
The impact of the ONSIDE MTED programme was also perceived to have strongest
potential where:
o An effective mentoring coordinator oversees the mentoring programme, is
involved in the matching of mentors and mentees, and maintains contact
with the MTED lead
o The mentoring co-ordinator, mentors and mentees are provided with
dedicated time by their participating organisations.
Vignette 3: The Entering Mentoring Programme
Context
The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for the Improvement of Mentored
Experiences in Research (CIMER), hosts a suite of ‘Entering Mentoring’
programmes for mentors who support research faculty and staff, and
undergraduate and post-graduate students, primarily in the science disciplines.
CIMER also hosts:
• Mentee training programmes for undergraduates, post-graduates, post-
doctoral fellows and junior faculty (Entering Research and Mentoring Up);
• A training programme for facilitators of Entering Mentoring and Entering
Research programmes.

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Full details of programmes for mentors, mentees and facilitators can be found at
https://cimerproject.org/training/.
Entering Mentoring programmes have been facilitated in more than 200
universities and laboratories across the United States.
In this vignette, we focus on the Entering Mentoring programme which provides
training for mentors of research staff, who are typically in post-doctoral or junior
faculty roles.
Model of mentoring supported by the Entering Mentoring programme
Developmental
Programme content and skills development
The Entering Mentoring programme aims to raise mentors’ awareness of the
competencies and issues that mentors should be paying attention to in research
career mentoring relationships and the tools and resources that they can draw
upon.
Detailed mentor training curricula for each discipline set out the topics to be
covered, their associated learning objectives, and guidance for facilitators.
Supporting materials including case studies, discussion questions and readings
are also provided. See:
https://www.cimerprojectportal.org/#/completeCurricula/mentor.
Over the course of the training programme, participants take part in six to eight
hours of face-to-face or synchronous online learning. This may be facilitated within
one workshop, or across up to eight individual workshops. There is usually one to
two weeks between each workshop.
The curricula are based on the curriculum in Entering Mentoring (Pfund,
Branchaw, & Handelsman, 2015b) and Entering Research (Branchaw, Butz, &
Smith, 2019). While all of the case studies and some of the discussion questions
focus on the circumstances and challenges related to mentoring researchers
working in the particular discipline, the topics are generalizable. These are:
1. Introduction to mentor training – including beginning to build a learning
community.
2. Maintaining effective communication – active listening, providing
constructive feedback and different communication styles and strategies.
3. Aligning expectations – communicating and aligning expectations for the
mentoring relationship, and considering how personal and professional
differences may influence expectations.
4. Assessing understanding – assessing and strategies to enhance mentees’
understanding, and identifying reasons for a lack of understanding, including
expert-novice differences.
5. Addressing equity and inclusion – how diversity influences mentor-mentee
interactions, the potential impact of assumptions, preconceptions, biases, and
prejudices on the mentoring relationship and how to manage them, and

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engaging mentees in conversations about diversity to foster a sense of
belonging.
6. Fostering independence – how independence changes over the duration of
the mentoring-relationship, and strategies to build mentees’ confidence,
establish trust, and foster independence.
7. Promoting professional development – including mentoring conversations
related to the mentee’s professional and career development, and the
competing personal and professional needs and interests of mentors and
mentees.
8. Articulating a mentoring philosophy and plan – identifying behavioural or
philosophical changes mentors intend to make, and articulating an approach
for working with future mentees.
Factors considered to be important in enhancing the impact of the Entering
Mentoring programme
The combination of raising mentors’ awareness of:
o What they have to do in relation to mentoring competencies and to
address the factors known to influence early career researchers’
commitment to and persistence in a scientific career path; and
o Where to find tools and resources to help them do that effectively.
Providing ’concrete’ tools:
“We are finding that some things stick with people a long time. And tools [such
as a mentoring compact] that they can incorporate into their practice very
concretely … stay in their practice.”
Presenting the Entering Mentoring programmes as context- and discipline-
specific by using contextualised cases, discussion and language, while
maintaining the same core competencies across programmes:
“Disciplines see themselves as very different from one another, and so it’s very
hard to convince a physicist that something for a biologist will work for them…
For example … it can be as simple as if we’re talking about how ‘are you
working with somebody on a biology experiment?’ versus using a telescope…,
even though when you step out of it they’re the same. We’re talking about
communication. It transcends discipline.”
The Entering Mentoring programme has most impact where there is a culture
where mentoring is valued at department, school and institutional level, and
mentoring is an integral part of broader institutional change.
The Entering Mentoring facilitator training programme has played an
important part in supporting longer term sustainable change in organisations’
culture for mentoring:
“[We talk about] what’s your implementation plan? Who will you facilitate
for? How will you recruit them?” and ... [participants] would say “How will I
convince my department? How will I get the resources on campus? How
will I get buy-in from my colleagues?” And so you can see in the nature of
just thinking about an implementation plan they had to pivot to thinking
about longer-term sustainable change.”

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Vignette 4: The CO-Mentor MTED Training Programme
Context
The CO-Mentor programme, developed and facilitated by the University of Colorado, is
a joint programme for paired mentors and mentees who are, primarily, Clinical and
Translational Sciences researchers. The programme has been completed by
approximately 500 researchers over the course of the last ten years. Mentees are
typically early career researchers, and the mentors their senior colleagues. Mentees
often introduce their mentor to the programme:
“‘Will you do this programme with me?’ And they’re like ‘Oh, sure, you know I’ve
never been taught anything about mentoring but I mentor all the time. I wonder if I’m
doing it right.’”
Model of mentoring supported by the CO-Mentor programme
Developmental.
Programme content and skills development
The programme aims to develop the competence, relatedness and autonomy of
participants, the three key constructs of self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000),
an empirically supported theory of human motivation and well-being.
Mentors and mentees attend the same training days and for the majority of the time
participate in the same activities to enable the mentor-mentee relationship to develop.
The programme spans one academic year and has, to date, comprised 4 whole days of
face-to-face activity. At the time of the interview, the training was being adapted for
online facilitation, to enable access during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each of the four
days is structured as follows:
1. An introductory session on day 1, or a debriefing session on days 2-4 in which
participants discuss their experiences of trying out skills that were introduced
during the previous workshop.
2. Two active learning workshops.
3. A concluding 30 minutes of dedicated “mentor–mentee time”, which is guided by
an exercise that is designed to stimulate conversation based on the day’s
training.
Further detail of each training session can be found in Nearing et al. (2020) p.732.
Participatory adult learning principles underpin programme facilitation: “we really
emphasise that everybody has so much wisdom in the room”.
Core aspects of the programme content which both mentors and mentees engage with
are:
• Career mapping and creating a career development plan;
• Setting goals;
• CV building;

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• Understanding your personality and communication style; and
• Establishing the mentor/mentee relationship.
In addition, mentors participate in one discrete half-day workshop on giving feedback,
while mentees participate in a workshop on self-advocacy skills, including “managing
up” and “building your own personal board of directors”.
Factors considered to be important in enhancing the impact of the CO-Mentor
programme
Training mentees as well as mentors is considered the most important
contributor to postive impacts:
“I’m totally convinced that [training mentees] is the secret of good mentoring. It’s
actually a somewhat wasted effort to work on mentors, because all the magic comes
from an individual knowing what they want to do and what they need… I believe the
problem with 99% of mentoring relationships is that the mentee doesn’t know what
they want to do, or they’re not honest with themselves about what they’re willing to
do to reach this goal.”
Joining and attending training in mentor-mentee pairs, which creates a sense of
accountability, increases commitment:
“There’s always something better … more important … or more pressing to do. You
need people to commit to this thing and many times their best commitment is to
another person they care about, like their mentee.”
Facilitation based on adult leaning principles focused on active participation.
The emphasis on mentors asking questions about, and mentees focusing, on
“charting their own course”, “self-knowledge” and “communication”. This enables
mentees who have experienced years of prescriptive clinical training to adapt to
academia:
“We’re dealing with physicians, for example, … they’ve come out of many, many
years of training where they’ve been told... learn this, do this procedure, talk this
way…. They get into academia, [and] their boss says “Well, what’s your research
study?” “Well it’s your grant.” “What’s your paper?” “What are you trying to do?”
… “What collaborator should you work with?” … For many of these people
they’re in complete stun and they can’t remember what it means to really like
chart their own course, and for some of them it really is a real challenge.”
The longevity of the CO-Mentor programme: many previous participants of the CO-
Mentor programme and its earlier iterations now hold senior leadership and professorial
positions. By applying the learning from their MTED training they have made a
significant contribution to changing the university culture:
“I was at the university for multiple years before that [the original mentoring]
programme came up and it materially changed this university. It significantly turned it
into a mentoring culture, a collaborative culture, real emphasis on thinking about the
impact of your work on people outside of your area.”

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Vignette 5: Preparing for Mentoring MTED programme
Context
The Preparing for Mentoring (PFM) programme includes three self-paced,
interactive, multimedia online courses hosted on the Mentoring Central website
http://mentoringcentral.net/. The PFM programme is used by youth mentoring
programmes to train adult volunteer mentors to support young people in a wide
range of organisations across the world. Most mentoring programmes assign the
online courses to mentors before they meet their mentees (pre-match); although,
some mentoring programmes require the first course pre-match and the other
courses during the early post-match period.
The Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring (EEPM) (Garringer et al. 2015) is
a comprehensive set of principles and guidelines for guiding the policies,
procedures, and practices of youth mentoring programmes. EEPM includes the
minimum content that should be covered in all mentor training programmes and
benchmark practices in youth mentoring. The PFM programme covers the
minimum content and more, and together with the 2-hour, in-person, instructor-led,
Building Your Mentoring Skills workshop provided directly by the mentoring
organisation, includes most of the recommended benchmark mentoring practices.
Many mentoring organisations provide further on-going training and/or support for
their volunteers beyond the PFM programme and Building Your Mentoring Skills
workshop.
Model of mentoring supported by the PFM programme
Developmental
Programme content and skills development
The programme content and pedagogy has been developed based on extensive
research into mentoring between adults and young people, mentor training,
learning science, developmental and clinical psychology, instructional design and
the experiences of practitioners. The PFM programme is designed so that
participants can engage at their own pace and at times that suit them. Typically it
takes six hours of online learning to complete the course. Learning is organised
into micro-lessons of around one hour, each micro-lesson is broken down into
smaller topics, of no more than 20 minutes duration each:
“The way we designed our training was so you could pick it up and put it
down whenever you want, and you could return to where you left off when
you stop.”
The PFM programme aims to increase the readiness of the mentor and create a
sense of self-efficacy to be a mentor, as well as preparing mentors with training in
the safety, ethics, and risk management policies of the mentoring programme. The
content matches the following EEPM (2015) benchmarks for training content:
• Mentors’ goals
• Mentors’ expectations of the mentees and the mentee’s parent or guardian,
and the mentoring relationship
• Mentors’ obligations and appropriate roles
• Initiating the mentoring relationship

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• Relationship development and maintenance
• Ethical and safety issues that may arise related to the mentoring
relationship
• Effective closure of the mentoring relationship
• Sources of assistance available to support mentors
• Developing an effective, positive relationship with mentee’s family
Factors considered to be important in enhancing the impact of the PFM
programme
Ensuring that the PFM programme design is evidence-based, carefully
crafted and subject to rigorous testing. The PFM programme drew on evidence
from a long-term programme of mentoring and mentor training research and
funding from two National Institutes of Health grant awards, totalling over one
million US$. This included funding for development, expertise to create online
training and resources, and funds to conduct a randomized controlled
effectiveness trial:
“Methodologically, … we would script out a lesson, do like a storyboard, I
vetted it with 2-5 practitioners, we had consultants that worked with us. …
Then we’d work with an instructional designer and our in-house multi-media
designers to create interactive activities, like animations, videos,
testimonials. Then we had multiple groups take each lesson and give us
feedback on it and so it was very, it was iteratively developed. By the time
we got to the randomized trial, each lesson had been vetted by scientists
and practitioners repeatedly. It was a big multi-year process.”
Using pedagogical strategies and methods to create content and learning
that is “sticky”:
“‘Sticky’, in the sense that it would carry with a person, so that potentially
they might have some general principles that they could keep with them in
the moment while they were doing mentoring.”
This was done by drawing on learning science and instructional design research,
including the use of acronyms, mnemonics, synonyms, and visualisations, and
distilling the underlying theories and concepts to over-arching themes that could
be woven throughout the training. In addition, many vignettes were developed so
that the learner would have multiple opportunities to apply general principles to
examples from real-world mentoring relationship dilemmas or situations.
Understanding the purpose of training for different cohorts and tailoring the
training to the context of the mentoring programme:
“You have to really know your audience; you have to really understand what
the goals are.”
“Because people approach mentoring from different settings, with different
goals, different locations, we have 6-10 versions of our training … One thing
we’ve learned is that our general principles never change, but we keep
swapping our examples.”

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Ensuring that the PFM programme helps mentors to understand what is
expected of them in the mentor role and how they will know when they have
been successful. The interviewee explained that mentors need to be patient in
expecting positive impact on their mentees, so the training needs to train mentors
to be prepared for this
“If they don’t understand their impact and expectations, then they may not
want to continue [with mentoring]”
The interviewee also noted the importance of on-going support for mentors:
“If you launch a mentor programme, and you provide pre-match training, if
you don’t provide the mentor with on-going support, it’s highly likely that the
programme won’t be effective.”
Conclusion
In this chapter we have illustrated and extended the findings reported in Chapter 3 by
presenting five vignettes of effective MTED programmes. The vignettes draw on the
perspectives of those who lead the programmes to provide additional detail on the design
of effective MTED programmes and the specific features and content of the programmes
that lead to positive impact.
In the following and final Findings chapter, we outline factors other than MTED
programmes that enhance and impede the effectiveness and impact of mentoring
programmes in general.

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CHAPTER 5: FACTORS OTHER THAN MTED THAT
CONTRIBUTE TO EFFECTIVE
MENTORING
Introduction
In this third and final Findings chapter we outline, in turn:
• Factors other than effective MTED that enhance the effectiveness and impact of
mentoring; and
• Other factors that impede the realisation of the potential positive impacts of
mentoring.
We acknowledge that these considerations extend beyond the original brief of this
(commissioned) research study, which was primarily concerned with the nature and
impact of effective MTED. Nonetheless, we considered it important to address them
because, as important as effective MTED is to help maximise the potential benefits of
mentoring, it is but one (though an extremely significant one) of a wider number of
components of and conditions for effective and successful mentoring relationships and
programmes (Hobson et al., 2016; Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Searby & Brondyk, 2016).
Factors other than effective MTED that enhance the impact of
mentoring
Other things being equal, mentoring relationships and programmes will be more
successful where:
1) Mentoring relationships are separated from line management relationships,
and mentors have no involvement in the formal evaluation of their mentees’
performance (Hobson et al., 2016; HEE Y&H, 2017; Matthews, 2016).
The 10 exemplary mentoring schemes featured in the Mentoring across Professions study
(Secondary analysis, Study 4) were all off-line insofar as they “strongly recommend or (in
most cases) require that mentees are not mentored by their line managers” (Hobson et al.,
2016, p.13). The Mentoring Scheme Induction Brochure of one of the 10 schemes – the
English Football Association (FA) Referee Mentoring Scheme – provides a rationale for
this stipulation in stating that off-line mentoring:
“Enables a more fully open relationship between mentor and referee and prevents
the mentor from having a conflict of roles.” (Hobson et al., 2016, p.22)
Similar conclusions were drawn from other studies, as the following quotations illustrate:
“One of the biggest tensions arising in the case study schools is that which can
arise when the coach is also the line manager. When linked (in reality or
perception) to performance management, coaching is unpopular.” (Matthews,
2016, p.51)
“A common theme of all interviews was the suggestion that the coaching
environment was important because it provided a ‘safe’ and

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‘confidential’ space where trainees could share personal information
without fear of ramifications.” (HEE Y&H, 2017, p.12)
2) An appropriate mentoring (or coaching) model, framework or approach is
adopted (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Matthews, 2016; Melton et al., 2019), which
the MTED supports.
For example:
• Matthews (2016) found that the developmental and non-judgemental focus of
the incremental coaching programmes he examined enabled schools to overcome
the suspicion teachers have about coaching, mentoring and teaching
observations, and their association with accountability.
• Similarly, a common feature of the 10 exemplary mentoring schemes featured in
the Mentoring across Professions study was that they too supported
developmental, non-judgemental and empowering approaches to mentoring
and coaching.
o Drawing again on the English FA Referee Mentoring Scheme, the Coaching
and Mentoring Manager discussed an approach which seeks to ensure that
mentees “have responsibility” and “think for themselves” rather than be
“spoon-fed” by mentors who “blow the whistle for you and tell you what to
do.” (Hobson et al., 2016, p.17)
• Again, participants in the ONSIDE Mentoring programmes included in our
secondary analyses felt that the Off-line, Non-judgemental, Supportive,
Individualised, Developmental and Empowering features of ONSIDE all
contributed to the establishment of relational trust between mentors and
mentees, and provided a ‘safe space’ within which mentees could openly share
insecurities, concerns and PLD needs that might otherwise have remained
unshared and unaddressed (Hobson et al., 2019a; Hobson et al., 2019b; Hobson
et al., 2019c).
o Some participants also valued and attributed positive impact to the
‘progressively non-directive’ feature of ONSIDE Mentoring (Hobson, 2016,
pp.100-101), as the following excerpts from participants in the BHCC
ONSIDE Head Teacher Mentoring scheme illustrate:
“I actually quite like this [ONSIDE] approach because it does allow for
advice and guidance … especially when you’re essentially coaching
somebody who is in a certain situation where they just want an
answer… Your solution focused coaching precludes you from giving
them that answer, so you’re at a standstill. This, I think, is much more
flexible to enable people who are peers to challenge, but also offer
advice and to listen and to do solution focus and to do all of it, which I
think is far better. (Focus Group, Mentor 6)” (Hobson et al., 2019c, p.8)
“Yeah, I think [mentoring] would be a very frustrating process without
that balance actually because sometimes it’s gone around in your head
for so long that actually you want somebody to go “Actually, have you
tried this?” So it’s kind of a combination of both and the fact that
[mentors] are responsive. (Focus Group, Mentee 2)” (Hobson et al.,
2019c, p.7)

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3) There is an organisational commitment to mentoring, and senior leadership
provide support for and understanding of mentoring (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020;
Matthews, 2016; Willis et al., 2019).
The overt support of organisational leadership teams helps to ensure, for example, that:
• There is sufficient resource to ensure the effective operation of the mentoring
programme (Beutel et al., 2017; Hobson et al., 2016);
• Mentors and mentees have time and space for regular and frequent contact
(Hobson et al., 2015; Beutel et al., 2017), including some face-to-face
meetings (Hobson et al., 2016; Hobson et al., 2019b; Hobson et al., 2019c).
Moreover, Beutel et al. (2017) found that:
“The response of the school leaders with regard to how they understand and
enable power, responsibility and authority within the overarching school culture
had a significant impact on school-based mentoring.” (p.172)
And Willis et al. (2019) concluded that:
“How school leaders support their mentors as they recontextualise their role within
the school context are necessary components if schools are to realise the
potential benefits of implementing formalised mentoring programmes.” (p.15)
4) Effective methods of mentor selection and mentor-mentee matching /
pairing are employed (Hobson et al., 2016; Nearing et al., 2020; Sheri et al.,
2019).
Mentor selection is important because it is well-established that not all excellent teachers
make excellent mentors (Evertson & Smithey, 2000; Schmidt, 2008). Regarding
successful matching of mentors and mentees, whilst there are exceptions to the following
‘rules’, different studies have shown that mentoring relationships tend to be more
successful where:
• Mentors share the subject / vocational specialism of the teachers they are
supporting (Hobson et al., 2015; Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Matthews, 2016);
• Mentees have an element of choice in the selection of their mentor (Hobson
et al., 2015; Sheri et al., 2019); and
• Mentors (or coaches) have – and are perceived by mentees to have –
relevant knowledge, experience, competence and skills, and thus ‘credibility’
(Kutsyuruba, 2012; Lejonberg et al., 2015):
“Coaches need to be expert practitioners and recognised as such by their
colleagues” (Matthews, 2016, p.29)
5) There is a commitment to – and mechanisms to support and sustain –
confidentiality in mentoring relationships (e.g. a Mentoring Agreement which
mentors and mentees sign at the commencement of their relationships) (HEE
Y&H, 2017; Hobson et al., 2016; Pfund et al., 2013).
The commitment to confidentiality was seen by mentors and mentees as key to the
success of the Bede’s School’s ONSIDE Mentoring programme (Secondary analysis,
Study 5), for example, as illustrated in the following quotations:
“Having the support and thoughtfulness from a mentor to help you through what
might be tricky times and for it to be confidential is something that any teacher

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should have the right to in this demanding profession.” (Mentor, End of project
survey) (Hobson et al., 2019a, p.17)
“There are topics that I felt I would never raise with the department or line
manager or senior management, but actually that [ONSIDE Mentoring meeting]
was just a perfect venue because it’s confidential, so that was just perfect.”
(Mentee, Focus group) (Hobson et al., 2019a, p.18)
6) The mentoring programme is led, managed and overseen by an effective
mentoring coordinator (Hobson et al., 2016; Hobson et al., 2019a; Kochan et al.,
2015).
Hobson et al. (2019a) championed the pivotal role of the school-based Mentoring
Coordinator in the Bede’s School’s ONSIDE Mentoring programme, noting that their:
“Obvious enthusiasm for and positivity about the scheme, …insistence that
members of staff cannot participate in the scheme if they are not able to
undertake the necessary training, …constant monitoring to ensure mentoring
meetings were taking place, and …encouragement and support for other mentors
and mentees as well as his own mentees, have been key ingredients in the
success of the scheme” (p.19).
7) There is regular monitoring of mentoring relationships and periodic
evaluation of the mentoring programme, to inform their ongoing development
and improvement (Hobson et al., 2016; Matthews, 2016; Pfund et al., 2013).
The various components of effective mentoring outlined above might be considered
features of a supportive organisational mentoring architecture (Cunningham, 2007) or
mentoring substructure (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020). Evidence suggests that the
effectiveness and positive impact of mentoring will also be enhanced where there is a
complementary mentoring superstructure (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020). Such a
superstructure:
“comprises features of the wider educational, political, social, economic and
ideological context, across regional, state, national, international and global
arenas, which together provide favourable conditions for the establishment and
maintenance of effective mentoring substructures.” (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020,
p.202).
Research suggests that a key component of a supportive mentoring superstructure is:
8) A wider policy context that enhances the effectiveness of mentoring as well as
(and via) the culture of the profession and the workplace (Beutel et al., 2017;
Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Willis et al., 2019).
As Willis et al. (2019) observe, with regard to the Mentoring for Beginner Teachers
programme:
“[State and national policy] system-wide supports were significant in establishing
positive structural conditions for mentoring of beginning teachers to occur, and
also recognized that the mentor teachers needed support.” (p.166)

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Other factors which impede the realisation of potential positive impacts
of mentoring
In general, realisation of the range of potential positive impacts of mentoring will be
hampered by the absence of any of the factors listed above. For e.g.:
1) A lack of organisational commitment to mentoring or understanding of
mentoring or the espoused mentoring model, framework or approach (Beutel et
al., 2017; Willis et al., 2019).
Without this, (other) key features of a supportive architecture for mentoring (Cunningham,
2007) or of a mentoring substructure (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020) are likely to be missing.
For example, there is likely to be:
• Insufficient time for mentors and mentees to engage in mentoring, or difficulties
finding and protecting regular meeting times. (HEE Y&H, 2017; Hobson et al.,
2019b; Matthews, 2016).
In addition, Beutel et al. (2017) and Willis et al. (2019) noted that in organisations where
the expectations of the leadership team and those of mentors do not align or there is a
lack of understanding by senior leaders, mentors are unable to establish effective
mentoring programmes that align with the model and principles espoused in the MTED, or
indeed, in some instances, at all.
2) The adoption or enactment of inappropriate mentoring or coaching models,
frameworks or approaches. (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Ingleby, 2014; Matthews,
2016).
For example, in their research on mentoring in the English FE sector (Secondary analysis,
Study 1), Hobson & Maxwell (2020) found that:
“…where mentoring is deployed as, or perceived to be, a remedial strategy to
address the perceived under-performance of teachers, it can attract a stigma that
renders some mentees reluctant to seek support from their mentors and can thus
impede their PLD and well-being…” (pp.196-197).
Similarly, Ingleby (2014), drawing on the words of an experienced mentor participant in his
research on FET mentoring, noted that mentors being asked to evaluate the performance
(teaching capability) of their mentees:
“spoils the mentor/mentee relationship because it introduces a negative factor that
is no longer based on trust” (p.26).
3) Ineffective mentor selection or mentor-mentee pairing (Garvey &
Westlander, 2012; Hobson et al., 2015).
For example, the development of successful mentoring relationships is often
impeded:
• By the existence of power differentials, notably where the mentor is
substantially more senior than the mentee (Garvey & Westlander,
2012); and
• In teacher mentoring schemes and where mentees require support
for subject knowledge and / or pedagogical content knowledge, by
not pairing mentees with a same-subject specialist mentor (Hobson
et al., 2015; Hobson et al. (2019a).

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In addition, the effectiveness and positive impact of mentoring programmes and
relationships can be and has been impeded by:
4) The wider culture of the profession and the workplace within which mentoring
programmes are situated (HEE Y&H, 2017; Hobson et al., 2015), notably where
there exists a restrictive as opposed to expansive learning culture (Fuller & Unwin,
2003).
• In the Mentoring in FE research, Hobson et al. (2015) thus found that the
effectiveness and impact of mentoring in the sector was often hampered by the
absence of a workplace culture that was conducive to professional learning.
5) The wider policy context (Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Ingleby, 2014).
• For example, Ingelby (2014) highlights the potentially negative influence of
policy agendas that, in the FET sector, created tensions in mentoring
relationships that sought to both adopt a developmental approach at the same
time as measuring the performance of the mentee.
Conclusion
In this third Findings chapter we have outlined various factors, other than effective MTED,
that have been found to enhance the effectiveness and impact of mentoring, as well as
additional factors that impede the realisation of potential positive impacts of mentoring. In
the concluding chapter, we summarise key findings of our research, acknowledge some of
the limitations of the study, identify potentially fruitful areas for further research, and offer a
number of recommendations for the ETF and MTED providers.

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CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
In this report we have contextualised, presented, evidenced, illustrated and exemplified
research findings relating to:
• Impacts of effective mentoring training, education and development (MTED);
• Features and content of effective MTED;
• Factors which enhance and impede MTED provision; and
• Factors which enhance and impede mentoring programmes more widely.
In this concluding chapter, we summarise key findings of the research, acknowledge some
of the limitations of the present study and identify recommendations for further research,
and offer a number of recommendations for the ETF and MTED providers.
Key Findings
Our research highlights positive impacts of effective MTED provision for mentors,
mentoring practice, mentees, and mentors’ and mentees’ organisations. For
example, research has found that effective MTED for mentors can enhance the
knowledge, understanding and skills of both mentors and mentees, and enhance
organisational learning cultures and staff retention.
Our research has identified a good deal of common content of effective MTED
programmes, including: communication skills for mentors, building and sustaining
mentoring relationships, structuring mentoring meetings and framing mentoring
conversations, supporting mentees’ development of reflective practice, empowering
mentees and fostering independence, and tailoring mentoring to mentees’ individual
needs, amongst other foci.
Furthermore, we have found that effective MTED typically includes opportunities to
practise mentoring or particular approaches to mentoring, and opportunities for
mentor networking, and is sustained rather than ‘one-stop-shop’, with initial education,
training or preparation activities followed up by subsequent training, development and
networking opportunities.
In addition to effective MTED for mentors, our study highlights a range of other factors
which enhance the effectiveness and impact of mentoring relationships and programmes.
These include: an organisational commitment to mentoring, and senior leadership support
for and understanding of mentoring; the adoption of an appropriate mentoring (or
coaching) model, framework or approach, which MTED supports and is aligned with;
MTED provision for mentees as well as mentors, to enable mentees to make the most of
mentoring; the separation of mentoring and line management relationships; effective
leadership of the mentoring programme by a mentoring coordinator; and effective
methods of mentor selection and mentor-mentee matching.

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Limitations and recommendations for further research
Inevitably, all research projects have their methodological limitations, and the current
study is no exception. Some limitations of the research result from or have been
exacerbated by its very short timeframe: it commenced in late July 2020 and needed to be
completed by the end of September 2020, to inform the planned development of an ETF
mentoring framework, associated guides for mentees, mentors and organisational leaders,
and new national mentoring programme for teachers in the FET sector. Amongst the
constraints resulting from this short timescale was that, as reported in Chapter 2, interview
transcripts could only be used to check the accuracy of the content of the vignettes rather
than as the primary data source. Had there been time to undertake a more rigorous
analysis of the transcripts – and / or of other data sources – additional findings relating to
the research aims, or variations of the findings presented, may have been identified. To
compensate for these particular limitations, albeit belatedly, the research team plans to
undertake additional, rigorous analyses of all data, and may seek to publish the outcomes,
for example, in a peer-reviewed journal.
Despite these and other limitations of the research, the research team is confident that the
quality and quantity of evidence we have generated and reviewed has enabled us to
present robust and trustworthy findings on the nature and impact of MTED for mentors.
Our research has also identified limitations with the wider evidence base. For example,
whilst some studies have highiglighted the importance of MTED for mentees, there is
relatively little evidence relating to the nature and impact of such provision. We suggest
that this would be a fruitful area for further research, as would the important but relatively
under-researched role of the mentoring programme coordinator. Research which identifies
and illustrates effective practice in the training, education and development of mentees,
and which identifies and illustrates the effective leadership and coordination of mentoring
programmes at organisational level, could potentially have a significant impact on
mentoring practice – and the associated benefits thereof – in the FET sector and beyond.
Recommendations
FOR THE EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOUNDATION (ETF)
Research has found that, to date, the deployment of mentoring and coaching within the
FET sector has met with mixed success, and the significant potential of mentoring and
coaching for positively impacting the professional learning, development, well-being and
retention of both mentors and mentees, with associated benefits for organisations, has not
been fully realized. The planned introduction of the ETF’s national, research-informed
training programme for mentors should go some way toward strengthening the impact of
mentoring in the sector.
That said, effective MTED is a necessary but not sufficient condition for effective and
impactful mentoring (Hobson et al., 2016; Hobson & Maxwell, 2020; Searby & Brondyk,
2016). Again, the ETF’s commissioning of a developmental mentoring framework and
accompanying guides for mentees, mentors and leaders in the FE sector – and of the
current research to inform these initiatives – has significant potential to enhance the
impact of teacher mentoring in the sector. Collectively these various ETF initiatives could
be seen to comprise important features of an emergent mentoring superstructure (Hobson

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& Maxwell, 2020), a supportive national framework within which more appropriate
organisational architectures for mentoring (Cunningham, 2007) or mentoring substructures
(Hobson & Maxwell, 2020) can be developed, resulting in the enhanced enactment and
impact of mentoring and coaching in the FET sector.
We look forward to the introduction of these important initiatives and we recommend that
the ETF seeks to build upon them by:
• Enhancing the emergent mentoring superstructure further – e.g. by:
o Evaluating and strengthening the new mentoring framework, guides and
training programmes for mentors; and
o Commissioning research-informed training, education and development
progammes for mentees and mentoring coordinators, as well as
mentors;
• Working with different providers – perhaps through intermediaries – to help
organisations to develop supportive mentoring architectures or substructures.
FOR MTED PROVIDERS
Finally, we offer the following research-informed advice to MTED providers:
• In relation to MTED, ensure the inclusion of what we referred to in Chapter 3 as
the 'non-negotiables’’ of MTED provision, which were also exemplified in the
vignettes of effective MTED (Chapter 4). That is, MTED should:
o Be sustained rather than ’one-stop-shop’;
o Provide opportunities for mentors to practise mentoring and particular
approaches to mentoring, and to critically reflect on such practice; and
o Include opportunities for mentor networking, to enable sharing and
mutual interrogation of and reflection on mentoring practice.
• Include other generic features of effective MTED highlighted in Chapter 3,
such as the common focus on communication (specifically, listening) skills, with
examples, case studies and exercises tailored to the professional contexts
of the mentees whom the trained mentors will be supporting, as exemplified in
Chapter 4 (Vignette 5).
• Ensure organisations are aware of the range of factors beyond effective
MTED which influence the success or otherwise of mentoring
programmes, and, if possible, support them in ensuring that features of a
supportive mentoring architecture (Cunningham, 2007) or substructure (Hobson
& Maxwell, 2020), as outlined in Chapter 5, are in place, and that identified
impediments to effective mentoring (also outlined in Chapter 5) are averted.

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APPENDIX 1: ORGANISATIONS SUPPORTING
STAGE 1 OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW
As noted in Chapter 2, to ensure that we produced a comprehensive longlist of academic
and grey literature sources, 12 organisations, identified by the research team, the ETF or
the Department for Education (DfE) as significant providers of mentoring training
programmes in the education sector, were contacted to request any further documentary
sources (grey or academic) that were not publicly available on their websites.
Of these, 10 provided further information about their MTED programmes and / or more
broadly about their mentoring programmes, by email and/or informal telephone or video
calls. Some shared documents, where these were not subject to commercial restriction.
We would like to thank the following organisations for their contributions:
• AlphaPlus Consulting
• Ambition Institute
• Cardiff University
• Chartered College of Teaching
• Institute of Physics
• Teacher Development Trust
• Teach First
• Sheffield Hallam University (WIPRO science teacher mentoring project)
• University of Derby
• University College London
Our discussion with these organisations, together with our review of grey literature,
identified that evaluations of the projects listed below will provide further evidence on the
nature and impact of effective MTED. These projects were commissioned by the
Education Endowment Foundation, and the evaluation reports, due to be published in
2020-21, will be made available on the EEF website:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/
1. Early career framework pilots
This is testing:
• Two models developed and facilitated by the Ambition Institute, both focused on an
instructional coaching approach;
• A fully online programme of training and support for both mentors and early career
teachers, with some content also available for school leaders, developed and
facilitated by the Chartered College of Teaching.
The evaluator is the University College London. The study protocol is available at:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/Evaluation_Protocol
s/Early_Career_Teacher_Support_Pilots_study_plan.pdf

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2. Mentoring for early career chemistry teachers
This project, developed and facilitated by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is being
evaluated by the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER). The study
protocol is available at:
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Projects/Evaluation_Protocol
s/Mentoring_ECCT_Protocol_2019.03.18_FINAL.pdf

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APPENDIX 2: SUPPLEMENTARY LITERATURE
RELATED TO THE VIGNETTES OF
EFFECTIVE MTED PROGRAMMES
Some of our expert interviews provided details of further publicly available documents
related to their MTED provision.
Vignette 3: The Entering Mentoring programme
Branchaw, J., Guerrero, L., & Pfund, C. (2020). Interventions to Optimize Mentoring
Relationships for Diverse Biomedical Researchers. Understanding Interventions, 11(1).
Byars-Winston, A., & Dahlberg, M. L. (2019). The Science of Effective Mentorship in
STEMM. Consensus Study Report. National Academies Press. 500 Fifth Street NW,
Washington, DC 20001
Byars-Winston, A., Leverett, P., Benbow, R. J., Pfund, C., Thayer-Hart, N., & Branchaw, J.
(2019). Race and ethnicity in biology research mentoring relationships. Journal of
Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000106
Byars-Winston, Angela, Womack, Veronica Y., Butz, Amanda R., McGee, Richard, Quinn,
Sandra C; et al. (2018). Pilot study of an intervention to increase cultural awareness in
research mentoring: Implications for diversifying the scientific workforce. Journal of
Clinical and Translational Science, 2(2), pp.86-94. DOI:10.1017/cts.2018.25
Butz, A., Branchaw, J., Pfund, C., Byars-Winston, A., Leverett, P. (2018). Promoting
STEM Trainee Research Self-Efficacy: A Mentor Training Intervention. Understanding
Interventions Journal, 9(1).
Butz, A. R., Spencer, K., Thayer-Hart, N., Cabrera, I. E., & Byars-Winston, A. (2018).
Mentors’ motivation to address race / ethnicity in research mentoring relationships.
Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 12(3), pp.242–254.
House, S.C., McDaniels, M., Spencer, K.C., Utzerath, E., & Pfund, C. (2020). The NRMN
Master Facilitators Initiative: Building a Community of Practice to Broaden Program
Implementation. Understanding Interventions, 11(1).
Jacob, R.R., Gacad, A., Pfund, C. et al. (2020). The “secret sauce” for a mentored training
program: qualitative perspectives of trainees in implementation research for cancer
control. BMC Med Educ 20, p.237 (2020).
Rogers, J., Branchaw, J., Weber-Main, A.M., Spencer, K., & Pfund, C. (2020). How much
is enough? The Impact of Training dosage and Previous Mentoring Experience on the
Effectiveness of a Research Mentor Training Intervention. Understanding Interventions,
11(1).
Pfund, C. (2019). Improving Mentoring Relationships in Science: Mentors Need Mentors.
Scientia.

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Womack, V.Y., Wood, C. V., House, S. C., Quinn, S.C., Thomas, S.B., McGee, R., et al.
(2020). Culturally aware mentorship: Lasting impacts of a novel intervention on academic
administrators and faculty. PLoS ONE, 15(8).
Vignette 5: The Preparing for Mentoring programme
Stelter, R. L., Kupersmidt, J. B., & Stump, K. (2020). Establishing effective STEM
mentoring relationships through mentor training. Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences.
Kupersmidt, J., Stelter, R. Garringer, M. & Bourgoin, J. (2018). STEM Mentoring:
Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring. Boston, MA: MENTOR:
The National Mentoring Partnership.
Kupersmidt, J., Stelter, R. Garringer, M., & Mayhew, J. (2019). Workplace Mentoring:
Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring. Boston, MA: MENTOR:
The National Mentoring Partnership.
Garringer, M., Kaufman, M., Stelter, R., Shane, J., & Kupersmidt, J. (2019). E-Mentoring:
Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring. Boston, MA: MENTOR:
The National Mentoring Partnership.
Kupersmidt, J., Stelter, R., Kuperminc, G., Garringer, M., & Shane, J. (2020). Group
Mentoring: Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring. Boston, MA:
MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.
Kupersmidt, J., Stelter, R., Karcher, M., Garringer, M., & Shane, J. (2020). Peer
Mentoring: Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring. Boston, MA:
MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.