Influence of Mentoring on the Career Development of Physical Education Student-interns at University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalent mentors mentoring characteristics and practices, their influence on Physical Education (PE) student-interns’ career development, barriers to mentoring, and the relationship between mentoring characteristics, mentoring practices, and career development of PE student interns. The explanatory sequential mixed method design, census and purposive sampling were used to select participants for the study. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 122 PE student-interns. Eight PE mentors and eight PE student-interns were also interviewed using semi-structured interview guide. The findings of the study indicate that mentoring characteristics and practices were highly prevalent in mentoring PE student-teachers during internship, mentoring characteristics and practices showed moderate prevalent influence on the career development of student-interns during internship, inadequate training and retraining of mentors recorded as the highest barrier to effective mentoring during internship, and both mentors mentoring characteristics and practices were good predictors of PE student-interns career development during internship. The ITECPD of UEW should take into consideration, mentors’ mentoring characteristics and practices in selecting of mentors. The ITECPD should ensure that all the stakeholders of mentoring are trained and retrain at least every two years for effective mentoring of student-interns. Mentoring barriers should be minimised through training and motivation to ensure effective preparation and development of student-interns during internship. Mentors mentoring characteristics improve mentors’ mentoring practices for quality student-interns career development.