The Study Of Mentoring Relationship Of College Teachers And Its Impact On Young Teachers' Career Success

Young teachers represent the main force of development of colleges and universities in the future.How to build and maintain such a team and help them achieve career success are not only key to building the teacher team in colleges and universities,but also the guarantee of developing higher education in China.Since the 1980s,the mentoring relationship has become an important form of support and management of new teachers in the teacher training and induction training programs.Mentors are considered to play a vital role in the learning and management of young teachers.In this context,we herein focused on the basic proposition of how the mentoring relationship affects young teachers' career success,and on the basis the theories of learning and career management,we gradually discussed the following four questions through a series of research methods such as literature research,questionnaire survey,grounded theory and empirical research and using such software as SPSS20.0,AMOS21.0 and Mplus7.0:How to characterize the contents,structures and dimensions of the mentoring relationship of college teachers in the context of Chinese culture?Does the mentoring relationship have an impact on the subjective and objective career success of young teachers?What are the mechanisms of action underlying the impact?Through the investigation of the above four specific problems,we clarified the contents and structures of the mentoring relationship of college teachers,and the impact of the mentoring relationships of college teachers on the subjective and objective career success of young teachers as well as the mechanisms of actions underlying it.We arrived at the following main conclusions:First,using the research method of grounded theory,we selected a total of 60 teachers from 26 different types of colleges and universities for in-depth interviews,whereby we obtained a large quantity of first-hand information.Through open coding,axial coding,selective coding and the theoretical saturation test,we established the content and structure model of mentoring relationships of college teachers in the context of Chinese culture,including three dimensions,namely vocational development guidance,social psychological guidance and life guidance.Then,we formulated mentoring relationship scale of college teachers based on the results of grounded theory,and(301 young teachers)tested its structure of mentoring relationship of college teachers with EFA and(330 young teachers)verified a three dimensional construct of mentoring relationship by CFA,and the construct validity,convergent validity and discriminant validity were tested with composite reliability and AVE method.In conclusion,mentoring relationship of college teachers had three factors,vocational development guidance,social psychological guidance and life guidance.Second,using the self-developed scale for the mentoring relationship of college teachers,we sent links of questionnaires and QR codes to the mailboxes of a total of 8000 young teachers from 110 domestic ordinary colleges and universities.A total of 994 questionnaires were collected,of which 598 questionnaires regarding the mentoring relationship were valid.Through the hierarchical regression analysis,we verified that the mentoring relationship had a significant positive effect on both the subjective and objective career success of young teachers.Through the structural equation analysis,we verified the impact of the three dimensions of the mentoring relationship of college teachers on the subjective and objective career success of young teachers.The results showed that the dimension of "vocational development guidance" had no significant effects on the subjective and objective career success of young teachers,that the "social psychological guidance" had significant effects on the subjective and objective career success of young teachers,and that the dimension of "life guidance" had significant effects only on the subjective career success of young teachers.Third,via the structural equation analysis,hierarchical regression analysis and the Bootstrap test of 598 samples,we delved into the mechanisms of action underlying the impact of the mentoring relationship of college teachers on young teachers' career success.The results showed that:(1)the mentoring relationship indirectly affects the subjective career success of young teachers by promoting the matching of young teachers and colleges,while the indirect effect on the objective career success of young teachers is not supported;(2)the proactive personality plays a regulatory role to varying degrees between the mentoring relationship and both the subjective and objective career success of young teachers;(3)the regulatory effects of the proactive personality on the mentoring relationship and subjective and objective career success of young teachers are achieved through the mediating effects of person-organization fit.The main theoretical contributions of this paper included:(1)The three-dimensional mentoring relationship of college teachers constructed by grounded theory could accurately describe the guiding behavior of mentors for young teachers in the context ofChinese culture and college management,which not only expands the "theoretical map"of studies on the mentoring relationship,but also deepens our understanding of the mentoring relationship of college teachers;(2)Through regression analysis and structural equation technology,the influence of the mentoring relationship of college teachers and their various dimensions on the success of the subjective and objective career of young teachers was verified.Compared with the single dimension of professional development guidance,social psychological guidance and guidance for conduct,the mentoring relationship of college teachers has a more significant impact on the success of the subjective and objective career of young teachers.(3)By using the structural equation technique,it is concluded that the mentoring relationship of college teachers cannot promote the match between young teachers and universities,and then affects the objective career success of young teachers.It also reveals that the intermediary role of person-organization fit between the mentoring relationship and the mentee's objective career success is not necessarily established,and needs to be analyzed in accordance with the different cultural background and management situation.