شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

The offer of mentoring to novice school principals is an increasingly common practice worldwide. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey study was to identify perceptions on mentoring new public school principals in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates from the perspective of new and experienced principals. The study also sought to investigate how those perceptions were affected by years of experience as a school principal, years of experience as a teacher, school cycle, school district, academic degree, gender or nationality. The survey was sent to new and experienced school principals in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, logistic regression and ANOVA. Findings indicated that principals agreed with offering weekly formal mentoring to new principals for at least 1 year, preferably with a current experienced principal. One mentor to many mentees was favored over one-on-one mentoring and many mentors to one mentee. The principals thought matching the mentor and new principal based on school district, school cycle, professional goals, leadership style and personality important. They agreed that the mentor should be trained on mentoring knowledge and skill while the new school principal should be trained on the mentoring process. All mentoring functions and content on strategic, instructional, organizational, personnel, and community leadership were perceived to be important. Gender affected most aspects of the mentoring perceptions. While experience as a school principal did not affect any of the perceptions; it can be said that nationality, school cycle, school district, teaching experience, and academic degree each affected some aspects of the mentoring perceptions. (Author’s abstract)