A Bibliometric Review of the Knowledge Base on Mentoring for the Professional Development of School Administrators

Abstract

Mentoring for the professional development of school administrators has become widely acknowledged as an essential means of providing psychosocial and career support, particularly for novice administrators. Due to its strong potential to support the sustainability of schools by enabling successful administration, much research has been conducted on mentoring for the professional development of schools and an extensive knowledge base has been accumulated. The current study aims to evaluate this knowledge base holistically, to reveal the intellectual structure and evolution of this research field. With this purpose, the study conducted a combined bibliometric and science mapping analysis of 121 articles selected from the Scopus database using SciMAT software. The period-based science mapping analysis results showed that research initially focused on professional development and networking functions and later focused on developing school administrators’ leadership skills through mentoring. During the last five years, the most prominent themes were enhancing the quality of mentoring and supporting school administrators’ capacity to enable social justice. The results suggest several implications for the sustainability of mentoring programs to improve school administrators’ professional capabilities and leadership skills, which would eventually help sustain a high level of school innovation and success.