In Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, international teachers, who were in mentorship positions were interviewed for their experiences with mentee resistance to mentoring. In this paper, the authors investigate aspects of the perception of resistance to mentoring in the program for long-service teachers. It is the aim of this paper to explore the definitions that mentors attach to resistance, based on their experiences in one NIS School. The questions to be answered were how the mentors defined mentoring, and how the mentors experienced resistance from their mentees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face. The mentor responses were captured on a dictaphone, and transcribed later. Eleven teachers participated in the interviews. The definitions of mentoring resistance were examined in seven categories as hesitation, stagnation, body language, fear, unavailability, and mistrust of the mentor. Stagnation was the largest category, displayed by unwillingness to try new things, unwillingness to see own limitations, close mindedness, unwillingness to see own weakness, and passivity in action.

This study investigated student teachers’ teaching self-efficacy level and factors that predict it (using five-factor mentoring model). Two hundred and ten third and fourth-year student teachers (N=100/N=110; 93.8% females) were involved in the study and asked to complete a self-report questionnaire. The “Mentoring for Effective Primary Teaching” instrument and “Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale” were used to collect the data. Findings indicated that higher levels of student teachers' self-efficacy are positively associated with the level of mentoring experience during the teaching practicum. The results found that fourth-year students reported significantly higher levels of teaching self-efficacy than third-year students. This study reported that there is a significant mean difference in student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in terms of having parents in the teaching profession. A multiple regression found that mentor teachers’ personal attributes are the best predictor of student teachers' teaching self-efficacy beliefs.