Exploring the educational meanings of pre-service PE teacher mentors' sports mentoring experience

Purpose The purposes of this study were to examine the influence of a formal sports mentoring program on mentors(pre-service PE teachers), and to identify main factors affecting educational growth of the pre-service teachers. Methods Data were generated in this study using: In-depth interviews, mentoring observations, and document resources from 4 mentors and their mentees as research participants. The collected data were inductively analyzed as an iterative process of working back and forth between the data and the categories(Miles & Huberman, 1994). Results The key findings of this study are as follows. First, mentors developed pre-service teachers’ practical knowledge including teaching knowledge, environment knowledge, student knowledge within teaching contexts. Furthermore, they practiced mentee-centered education through sports mentoring not only by mentees but also for mentees. Second, with respect to the factors impacting mentors’ educational growth, there were two main factors; the systematic structure of a program and mentors’ reflexivity. Mentors improved practical knowledge through the circular ‘experiential learning’ phases the sports mentoring program provided. In addition, mentor had valuable opportunities to learn how to care mentees by reflecting on positive and negative influences deriving from interactions with their mentees. Conclusion Potential benefits were embedded in inherent nature of sport and the unique structure of mentoring. sports mentoring can provide experience of learner-friendly teaching distinct from classes of lecture type. It is necessary to be reconsidered as pre-service PE teacher education program with opportunities of other teaching practice.