Influence of Mentoring Newly Employed Teachers on their Performance on Curricular Activities in Public Secondary Schools in Thika East and West Sub-Counties, Kiambu County, Kenya
Abstract
The first year of teaching is one of the most challenging and critical periods in a teacher’s career. Newly employed teachers begin experiencing challenges such as workload pressure, lack of appreciation andsupport from colleagues, work-leisure spillover and discipline and behavior problems of students, burnout and conflict with other colleagues and other school stakeholders. This leads to low performance of newly employed teachers, as 40% of newly employed teachers do not meet the performance appraisals targets as set by TSC. This study’s objective was to determine the impact of mentoring on the job performance of newly employed teachers in public secondary schools in Thika East and West Sub-Counties, Kiambu county, Kenya. Feldman’s model of organizational socialization and social exchange theory informed this study. The study used a descriptive design and adopted a mixed methodology approach where qualitative and quantitative data were used. The study population was 568 participants comprising of 148 newly employed teachers, 378 experienced teachers, 21 principals, and 21 deputy principals. The study used stratified random sampling to sample 60 newly employed teachers, 153 experienced teachers, 17 principals, and deputy principals; thus, the total sample size was 230 respondents. The study collected data using
an interview guide for newly employed teachers, questionnaires for experienced teachers, principals, and deputy principals, and FGD for students. The researcher also carried out observation, document analysis, and other relevant secondary data. The researcher carried out mixed analysis. The study results indicated that there is a positive and statistically significant influence of mentoring (β=0.628, p=0.039<0.05) on the performance of newly employed teachers. The study concludes that having proper and effective mentoring led to better job performance of newly employed teachers. The study recommends improving on mentoring so as to boost the job performance of newly employed teachers in Kenya.