Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1991

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Curriculum and Instruction

Major Professor

Jerry J. Bellon

Committee Members

Kermit Blank, Don Dickinson, John Ray

Abstract

Heightened attention continues to be given to the important role of the cooperating teacher as mentor of student teachers. Thoughtful consideration should be given not only to the selection of cooperating teachers but also to the matching of student teachers and cooperating teachers. The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of the Omnibus Personality Inventory (OPI) in predicting effective mentors of student teachers. Additionally, the study determined the OPI's usefulness in predicting successful student teachers and in matching student teachers and cooperating teachers. One hundred eleven cooperating teachers in the Bradley County and Cleveland City Schools who had served as cooperating teachers for Lee College (Cleveland, Tennessee) student teachers from 1979 through 1991 volunteered to take the OPI. Cooperating teachers were rank ordered according to evaluations by their student teachers. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the OPI scores of cooperating teachers perceived as most and least effective mentors. Of the 267 student teachers who had been placed with one of the participating cooperating teachers, the OPI scores of those perceived as most successful were compared to the scores of those perceived as least successful. The major findings included:

1. The OPI could be used more powerfully than it is for screening and counseling prospective teacher education students. However, caution should be applied in interpretation of individual profiles based on group means. OPI scores should be used as one component of a multifaceted screening.

2. Cooperating teachers of student teachers with "high risk" profiles should be given counsel about ways to work with these students more productively.

3. The OPI could be used as a screening device for cooperating teachers. Teachers with very low scores in Autonomy (Au), particularly, may not be effective mentors.

4. The OPI may have more limited use in directly matching student teachers and cooperating teachers. It may be used, however, in dyad construction by carefully placing student teachers having "high risk" profiles with cooperating teachers whose profiles closely resemble those of the most effective mentors in this study. Further, it is recommended that the OPI be used in cooperating teacher/mentor training sessions to raise awareness of and to stimulate discussion about characteristics and behaviors of effective mentors.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS