Over the past decade, teacher training institutions have indicated a movement away from the training models that make them the major providers of career training of teachers to collaborative mentorship models ( Liu, 2014 ). This model is similar to internship models used by healthcare professions, such as medicine and midwifery ( Hobson et al., 2015 ; Kesselring, 2016 ).

The concept of mentorship is fundamental in the understanding and practice of PE mentors. Mentorship is an integrated model in which the mentors are not only expected to teach curricular content but also develop physical skills in students as well as help them adopt healthy lifestyles. As this practical dimension suggests, special forms of mentorship are needed in PE to address the demands of practice-based teaching and learning ( Ward et al., 2022 ).

Most of the health professions’ mentorship models, particularly medicine and midwifery, entail clinical practice, which has some features similar to PE internships. For instance, while healthcare student interns interact with patients under the supervision of experienced mentors, it is the same as PE interns learn how to teach students under the supervision of an experienced PE teacher.

Mentorship has been described as a developmental, mutual and process-based lifelong partnership between an expert and a less expert person/employee in which the former helps enhance the latter’s career experience ( Kram & Isabella, 1985 ). In mentoring pedagogical content knowledge, communication are major elements that promote learning environment ( Richards & Templin, 2019 ). These elements are important for mentors to be effective in managing and shaping the destiny of PE interns’ future career.

It is clear that mentors are not just giving tutorial to student interns, they oversee them through internships and offer feedback as well as help them to create their career networks. As a result, mentors are found to positively impact career development of PE student interns by 27% as pointed out in ( Murphy & Kram, 2023 ; Seibu, 2023 ).

Due to the diverse needs of students, multicultural competencies have become relevant in teaching PE. It means that mentors need to prepare student interns to address teaching challenges, which they are likely to encounter in multicultural classrooms ( McKnight, 2013 ; Casey & MacPhail, 2018 ).

Mentorship should not be confused with supervision because there is a big difference between the two. Mentorship aims at the development of the protégé professionally while supervision mainly aims at outlining the performance of the protégé. It separates what actual mentors bring to the opportunity so that internships are much more positive experiences for everyone involved.

However, there are still some difficulties that affect the process of successful mentorship. Mawer (2021) writes about barriers, including communication deficiencies and closed-mindedness from the mentors, thus limiting the successful functioning of the mentoring practices. To overcome these demands there is a need to intensify mentors training requisites of mentors and give them an organizational framework for support ( Vikstrom et al., 2016 ).

The other essentials of mentoring include feedback. Feedback given during the PE lessons should be more timely, specific, and corrective, and include suggestions on how interns can develop professionally. It can help the mentor deem effective professional feedback that will help improve the course-learning process.

The analysis of the current literature in the field shows several topic areas connected to the issue of mentorship, particularly in the aspect of education, including PE. Ingersoll and Strong (2011) discuss the effects of traditional and alternative techniques for professional development as well as the effects of mentoring on teacher retention. Alternatively, their conclusions are mainly based on experiences and results obtained from general educational environments that may not capture the dynamics of PE contexts.

Besides, McGee (2019) also points out how informal mentoring is not sufficient, because it fails to focus on relevance disciplines, arguing that the population of professional mentors for students interns are insufficient ( Sharer, 2015 ). This observation is quite relevant to the PE context as mentor has to respond to the context under which the student interns’ skills can be improved ( Smith, 2021 ). Eby et al. (2022) also present the working conceptualization for mentoring relationships and distinguish the main concepts such as development function, role modelling, and career sponsorship. However, this framework does not clearly explain how each of these components plays out in terms of PE mentorship, and this is a known research limitation.

Multicultural competence is seen by Sanger & Gleason (2020) , Banks (2020) and Hodge et al. (2017) as relevant to learning contexts. Based on their results, Eby et al. (2022) emphasiesd need to educate student interns in multicultural classrooms. However, there are no specific suggestions as to the way that the competencies navigating this balance are developed on the part of the PE mentors, which is indicative of a promising avenue of research ( Lynch & Soukup, 2016 ).

The current literature review on mentorship reveals several empirical gaps in the literature, especially in PE. There is little information available specifically concerning PE internships and while a lot of literature generally discusses the benefits of mentorship programmes. This leads to a research on mentoring oractices and career development in PE.

This study examined the impact of mentors’ mentoring practices on the career development of PE student interns from the University of Education, Winneba during their internship. More importantly, it determines which mentoring practices are strong predictors of career development and to what degree these practices contribute toward shaping the professional growth and preparedness of PE student interns for future teaching careers.

The multiple linear regression explains mentors’ mentoring practices on career development among PE student interns. Table 1 shows that most of the nine mentors’ monitoring practices investigated statistically predicted PE student interns career development F (8, 202) = 18.065, p < 0.05, R = 0.668, R² = 0.446 and Adjusted R = 0.421 specifically, respect for diversity (β = 0.020, t = 0.351, p < 0.05), good leadership qualities (β = 0.136, t = 2.193, p < 0.05), accessibility (β = 0.209, t = 3.768, p < 0.05), mentors’ expectation (β = 0.215, t = 3.900, p < 0.05), mentors’ feedback (β = 0.274, t = 4.446, p < 0.05), systematic and regular supervision (β = 0.106, t = 1.839, p < 0.05) and positive mentoring relationship (β = 0.015, t = 0.270, p < 0.05) contributed significantly to interns’ career development. However, model teaching (β = 0.069, t = 1.137, p > 0.05) and mentoring philosophy did not produce an individual significant impact on the career development of student interns (β = 0.019, t = 0.270, p > 0.05). It is deduced from these results that mentors’ mentoring practices, such as respect for diversity, good leadership qualities, accessibility, mentors’ expectations, systematic and regular supervision, mentors’ feedback and positive mentoring relationships are critical factors to be considered as the key mentoring practices that influence the career development among student interns.

Source: Fieldwork data, 2020. F-ratio = 18.065, df = (8, 202), p < 0.05.

The results from this study predict a positive connection between mentors’ mentoring practices and PE interns’ growth development. These outcomes correspond to precedents, which suggest that mentors who grant openings for practical work, through internships, are the ones who have the most influence on the student interns career development ( Hobson et al., 2015 ; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011 ). These methods also enable interns to acquire the necessary experience and self-confidence for teaching as a full-time professional.

The main outcome that this research revealed was that the mentors’ feedback is an essential role in the career development of PE student interns. This result seems to signal that feedback or criticism does not only improve developmental, but works more effectively when it is apposite, quick and clear ( Kesselring et al., 2016 ; Tinning & Rossi, 2016 ). Thus, former research confirmed that feedback is a successful component of the mentoring process ( Rockoff, 2008 ). Additionally, learners can think over their teaching and then make corrections in case the lesson does not result in successful professional growth ( McGee, 2019 ). For example, mentors with effective leadership qualities, accessibe, favourable mentoring bonding, and the prowess in the ability to provoke and inspire students’ interns, were observed as the most contributing factors to career development ( Darling-Hammond, 2020 ; Clarke et al., 2014 ; Ambrosetti, 2014 ). These results suggest that mentoring techniques that focus on establishing human good, promoting cultural diversity and addressing training and supervision strongly need interns to have the potential to develop authentic teaching skills ( Hobson et al., 2015 ; Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2013 ).

However, it was also observed that teaching philosophy and model teaching did not significantly predict the career development of PE interns. This result contrasts with the prevailing literature, which highlights the importance of teaching philosophies in shaping educators’ approaches to classroom management and instructional methods ( Zhao & Zhang, 2017 ). The lack of significant observation on the concept in this study may suggest that interns did not perceive their mentors’ teaching philosophies and modelled teaching practices as critical to their professional development. Nevertheless, well-defined teaching philosophies are essential for guiding mentors’ instructional practices and promoting student-centered teaching, creativity and problem-solving skills better ( Faryadi, 2015 ). Mentors who effectively articulate and model these philosophies can therefore help interns to develop a robust framework for their future teaching careers ( Simons et al., 2012 ; Kesselring, 2016 ).

Findings from this study suggested that mentors give preference to the development and practice of clear, student-centred teaching philosophies that comply with the curriculum and foster creativity and critical thinking in PE classrooms, as earlier documented by Darling-Hammond (2020) . Through this, mentors will be able to provide well-rounded career guidance to young teachers who are well-versed in the intricate processes of modern-day teaching. In addition, programmes for mentorship ought to concentrate on promoting the mentors’ capability to give worthwhile feedback and lead the students because these are the two main consequences of the benefits that mentorship has on interns’ career and professional development.

The outcomes of this research demonstrate that mentoring practices are the most significant determinant factors in the career development of 21^st-century PE student interns. The current research focuses on the importance of mentoring practices that influence the careers of physical education (PE) student interns. Whereas constructive feedback was identified as the leading predictor of career development, the analyses showed that all variables of mentoring contributed to nearly half (44.6%) of the variance in interns’ outcomes except model teaching and mentoring philosophy. These two non-predictive mentoring practices need further improvement by exploring them at the early stage of the internship.

Based on the results, it is appreciated that structured programmes are necessary to improve the competencies of the mentors. More specifically, there was a further significant enhancement in the effectiveness of the other levels of the mentoring approaches including areas like mentoring philosophy and model teaching through frequent training to fully impact the quality career development of the student interns for national development.

Drawing from the findings of this study, it is recommended that the Institute for Teacher Education and Continuing Professional Development (ITECPD) at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), implements regular training programmes for mentors focused on effective mentoring practices. These training sessions should emphasize the development of a mentoring philosophy, model teaching strategies and methods for observing interns’ teaching both formally and informally as well as provide them with constructive feedback. These elements are crucial for quality teacher preparation.

In addition, mentors should be trained regularly to enhance their understanding of their roles as coaches, collaborators, facilitators, critical friends and co-inquirers in both teaching and research. By fostering these aspects of a mentor’s role, the relationship between mentors and student interns can be strengthened and enable both parties to work towards achieving shared goals in professional development.

Furthermore, mentors should receive training on how to effectively model their teaching practices, including disciplinary and managerial skills. This will provide PE student interns with valuable opportunities to observe and analyse their mentors’ professional practices, facilitating reflection and experimentation that is essential for their career development. Such experiences will help PE student teachers cultivate the critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills necessary to thrive as 21^st-century educators.

Furthermore, future research should explore the challenges that affect the quality of mentoring for PE student interns to identify potential areas for improvement in the mentoring process.

The findings of this study emphasize that model teaching and mentoring philosophy are critical components of effective mentoring for student interns during their internship. When these practices are neglected, the risk of producing poorly qualified teachers increases and negatively impacts the quality of PE teaching and learning. To address this issue, it is essential that mentors consistently model their teaching in alignment with their mentoring philosophy for a minimum of three weeks before student interns begin their teaching assignments. This approach will provide student interns the opportunity to observe effective teaching strategies and classroom management techniques, fostering their confidence and sense of authority in the classroom. Ultimately, by experiencing high-quality mentoring, student interns are more likely to view teaching as a rewarding and viable career path, leading to improved outcomes in their professional development as future PE educators.

Firstly, data are self-reported and, therefore, might be susceptible to a degree of social desirability bias. A second limitation is that a possible focus on PE student interns at the University of Education, Winneba, could limit the generalization of findings beyond other contexts than that represented here and, indeed, beyond Ghana. These limitations are addressed by the consent forms which were signed by participants to participate in this study, assuring them of anonymity to ensure more candid responses. Conclusively, the outcome of this study, as framed by the design and sampling technique, deserves to result in reliable information on similar studies in various disciplines that touch on teacher education, mentoring, and career development for student interns around the world.

The participants signed informed consent before the questionnaires were given to them.

The participants gave their consent for publication of the paper.

The research was not funded.