Teachers as Mentors in Practical School Study Phases

A Systematic Review of National Research Work

Abstract

Practical school study phases represent a central element in teacher training, in which great importance can be attributed to the support provided by the accompanying teachers at internship schools. Due to their central position within the framework of the introduction of long-term internships, the role of these mentors has been increasingly investigated empirically in recent years.
To date, however, a systematic overview of the empirical findings has not yet been available. This contribution addresses this desideratum. It examines which findings on “mentors in practical school study phases” are available in empirical studies in the Federal Republic of Germany and which research designs and instruments are used. To do so, a systematic review was conducted, which is primarily suitable for providing a transparent overview of the existing discourse on the topic. Due to the numerous differences between the DACH-countries in the system of teacher education and with regard to the framework conditions for mentors, the selection of studies is limited exclusively to the Federal Republic of Germany.
The studies included in the review were evaluated using a qualitative content analysis. As a result, it was possible to use a deductive and inductively supplemented procedure to develop a systematization of the study situation on “mentors in practical school study phases”, which is based on the input-process-output scheme according to Scheerens (2017).