In recent years there has been more and more research done concerning the preparation of students for leadership. Although the significance of practical activity and mentorship has been emphasized, the lack of research has been felt that could reveal the connection between the practice of mentors of teaching practicum and leadership competencies of students. The display of these connections could help to create possibilities to purposefully act, fulfill expedient intervention into the processes of development of leadership competencies, teaching practicum, and mentorship processes in order to seek to improve them and achieve better results in development of students' leadership competencies. The research using the strategy of natural experiment was carried out. It has been proved that the leadership competencies of students (after teaching practice) are related with the functions implemented by mentors by a statistically significant and linear functional connection. That proves that the leadership competencies of teacher mentors and their students are interrelated.
TopThe Concept Of A Mentor And Mentorship
Long S. (2002) has stated that a mentor stands for an intelligent and reliable teacher or consultant, whereas the roots of this term lie in Ancient times when in this epic drama Odyssey Homer described how Odyssey went to Trojan war and left his son to be supervised by his friend Mentor. The contemporary perception of mentorship has been related to Levinson’s D. (1978, cit. Thibodeaux, Hays-Thomas, 2005) book The Seasons of a Man’s Life where the influence of mentorship on professional development has been revealed.
Quite a lot of explanations of conceptions of a mentor and mentorship could be found in literature. Alerd G. et al. (2000), Lankau M. J., Scandura T. A. (2002) have defined mentorship as a process during which more qualified and experienced person by means of one’s own example teaches, supports, encourages, and maintains positive relations with less skilled and experienced person aiming at faster professional and/or personal development of this person. The search for personal and professional development of a fostered person as a major function of a mentor has been indicated in the works of other authors as well. According to Girves J. E., Zepeda Y. and Gwathmey J. K. (2005), the function of personal support (sometimes called psychosocial support) in the mentorship process covers role modelling, encouragement, consulting, and collegiality, whereas the professional function of the one related to the career of a trainee covers teaching, instruction, and consulting. It has been proven that consulting activity is significant in the areas of both personal and professional education. Ladišienė M. and Monkevičienė O. (2007) have also emphasized the importance of consulting by claiming that consulting is highly necessary as it helps to orient in miscellaneous activities as well as promotes professional development. Aside from these functions, a mentor is an adviser, moral supporter, and the source of information whom a student can align with and seek to become like (Yahner, & Goodstein, 2012; Omatsu, 2012).