Developing a Successful Mentorship Program for New Social Work Instructors: The Three Year Results of the TEAM Program

Purpose:  The Teaching Excellence and Academic Mentorship (TEAM) program was a collective effort pioneered by administration, adjunct, and some faculty members. Teaching is still an important priority of schools of social work, whether at research intensive or teaching intensive schools. Over the past decade an increase in the number of courses being taught by instructional or adjunct faculty in schools of social work has risen. Additionally, many new faculty members have limited teaching experience as more and more doctoral programs emphasize training in research over teaching. Finally, doctoral students who are given the opportunity to teach during their programs, often receive little support or mentorship in the classroom. The overall lack of support and mentorship of new instructors in the school of social work that forms the basis of this study, led to lower than desired retention rates and low first semester student evaluations of new instructors, which eventually led to the development of the TEAM program. The goal of the TEAM program was to provide support and assistance to new instructors in order to provide the best learning experience for students as well as to improve the retention rates of new instructors in the school of social work. While the TEAM program was only a three year pilot program, it provided prelimenary results, which indicate its success inproving the performance of new first semester instructors.

Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods program evaluation that examined student evaluations of new first semester instructors in a school of social work for three years prior to the implementation of the TEAM Mentorship Program with the evaluation scores of three years worth of first semester instructors participating in the mentorship program. Independent groups T-Tests were ran to compare the student evaluation scores of prior instructors over a three year span with those of new instructors over the past three years who participated in the mentorship program. Additional qualitative data was collected through focus groups, document analysis, and questionnaires to help better understand the needs of first semester instructors as well as what about the mentorship program specifically was most helpful to them in order to triangulate the T-Test results.

Results: The major results of this study demonstrated a statistically significant difference between new instructors at the school of social work prior to the TEAM program and new instructors participating in the mentorship program for three out of four major student evaluation questions. Additionally, it was learned that having a mentor and resource person to help new instructors navigate university and school systems was the most important element of the mentorship program.

Implications: The final results of this study indicates that even a very basic structured mentorship program can have a significant impact on the teaching performance and retention rates of new social work instructors and the quality of education received by social work students. This pilot study provides merit to the idea of formalized mentorship in schools of social work.