Judgementoring – a behaviour to avoid

The term “judgementoring’ comes from a study of mentoring in the teaching professions, where it was defined as:

“a one to one relationship between a relatively inexperienced teacher (the mentee) and a relatively experienced one (the mentor) in which the latter, in revealing too readily and/or too often her/his own judgements on or evaluations of the mentee’s planning and teaching (e.g. through ‘comments’, ‘feedback’, advice, praise or criticism), compromises the mentoring relationship and its potential benefits.” (Hobson & Malderez, 2013, p. 90).

Here is a summary of how the authors describe what happens: ”Judgementoring compromises the mentoring relationship by failing to provide a safe space within which mentees can speak openly and honestly about their perceived limitations as teachers and about their development needs. In short, judgementoring prevents mentees from seeking help from those (mentors) who are assigned to help them because they are concerned that this will reflect badly on them or represent a ‘black mark’. Judgementoring results from a variety of causes, but key amongst these are the wider context of monitoring and accountability in the education sector, and – in particular – the fact that mentors are often tasked with formally evaluating and assessing the work of mentees as well as supporting their learning and development. In some cases, teacher mentors also line-manage their mentees. Interestingly, studies of relatively rare programmes of external (non-institution-based) mentoring for teachers have shown that external mentors are much more able to establish trusting relationships which provide safe spaces for teachers to openly share and receive support for their learning and development needs (Hobson & McIntyre, 2013; McIntyre & Hobson, 2016).”

This form of mentoring is also common in nursing and a handful of other professional contexts. In reality, very little mentoring takes place. Instead there is a cycle of observation and feedback much more closely related to the most directive forms of skills coaching or instruction. These relationships tend to be associated with relatively low levels of trust, ingratiation behaviours and risk aversion.

The first line of defence against judgementoring lies in the structure of programmes and, in particular, avoiding situations where the mentor has to evaluate the mentee or their performance. The second line of defence lies in education of mentor and mentee – clarifying upfront what is expected of them in their roles. The third line is to check in with each mentoring pair to explore the kind of conversations they are having and how the mentee feels about the help they are receiving. (They may, of course, not consider the mentor’s interventions helpful at all!) If judgementoring is identified, further training may be required, or the mentor may themselves need mentoring in how to fulfil their role appropriately.

A useful checklist for avoiding judgementoring is:

  • Does the environment, in which mentoring takes place, emphasise learning more than performance?
  • Is there genuine mutual respect between mentor and mentee?
  • Does the mentee feel that the mentor is there primarily for their benefit, rather than for the benefit of the system, into which the mentee is trying to fit?
  • Are mentor and mentee able to have a fully open and trusting conversation?
  • Is the agenda owned and decided by the mentee, or jointly, rather than by the mentor?
  • Does the mentee look forward to mentoring sessions?
  • Is most time spent on drawing out the mentee’s thoughts and observations rather than the mentee listening to those of the mentor?
  • Is the emphasis of mentoring on building upon the mentee’s strengths or on remedying his or her weaknesses?
  • Is the mentor learning from the mentoring conversations?
  • Does the mentor use his or her greater experience mainly to stimulate the mentee’s thinking, rather than to tell them what to do?

A ‘no’ answer to any of these questions is a red flag!

 

Bibliography

 

Hobson, A.J. & Malderez, A. (2013) Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school-based mentoring in teacher education, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 2(2), 89-108.

Hobson, A.J. & McIntyre, J. (2013) Teacher fabrication as an impediment to professional learning and development: the external mentor antidote, Oxford Review of Education, 39(3), 345–365.

McIntyre, J. & Hobson, A.J. (2016) Supporting beginner teacher identity development: external mentors and the third space, Research Papers in Education, 31(2), 133-158.

© David Clutterbuck, 2016