Mentoring Roles of the School Principals in Turkey: A Literature Review

It is important to explain the scope of the concept of mentoring, which has been becoming increasingly important in training and supporting the professional development of educational administrators. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the concept of mentoring, the functions of mentoring, and the studies carried out on the mentoring functions of school administrators in Turkey. For this purpose, the study was designed as a literature review, and the studies which were indexed in the TR index and Council of Higher Education Thesis Center between the years 2000 and 2020 were analyzed. As a result of the analysis, it was found out that there were 16 studies conducted on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey, and they were carried out as graduate studies at Master’s level. It was also concluded that the studies generally focused on the mentoring functions of the education administrators in public schools, the level of mentoring functions of the school administrators, and the correlation between the mentoring functions of the school administrators and the job satisfaction of the teachers and vice-principals, academic optimism, organizational adaptation, and professional development. As a result of the study, it may be suggested that more studies are needed for a better understanding of mentoring among the school principals in Turkey.


Introduction
The presence of competent teachers is important for schools to fulfill their goals and to provide quality education. For this reason, it is important to ensure the professional development of teachers in the workplace and guide teachers (Özalp, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2016). At the same time, schools need administrators with strong leadership skills to create a development-oriented school culture. Especially in recent years, it has come to the fore that school administrators are regarded as leaders who can be effective in the development of school performance and teaching qualifications, rather than just appointed authorities (Gülşen, 2019). Therefore, mentoring, which contributes to the individuals and professional and social skills of employees, has gained importance in school administrations. In addition, that school principals are assigned with the duties of training and supervising their employees in many different legislations (DMK, 1965;MEB, 2015;MEB, 2016;Şahin, Bilecik, & Saçlı, 2020) increases the importance of mentoring behavior of school administrators.
Mentoring emerged as an innovative movement in education in the 1980s (Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011). Many studies show that mentoring has a significant impact on areas such as individuals' professional and personal development, organizational commitment, and organizational adaptation (Eröz, 2019;Özalp, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2016;Şerefhanoğlu, 2014). Considering the benefits it provides to the organization, mentoring is a widely used process to train school administrators in many countries such as Canada, the USA, England, Singapore (Kocabaş and Yirci, 2011) and to prepare teachers for the profession in countries such as France, Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland (Britton, 2006). In addition, recent studies emphasize the importance of mentoring roles of school administrators towards teachers and students (Gülşen, 2019).
Compiling the results of the studies conducted in the literature and presenting them with a more holistic approach contribute to mentoring studies both for theorists and teachers as it provides access to information from a single source. In addition, this study aims to discuss the results of the studies conducted on mentoring in more detail and to reach more eclectic results.

Literature Review
Mentoring, which dates back to Greek mythology, has been used in the literature, science, art, and entertainment sector for centuries (Allen & Eby, 2007). Since its first use in a modern sense in the book "Les Aventures de Telemaque" written by Fenelon in 1699 (Kocabaş and Yirci, 2011), mentoring maintains its importance in the field of training employees (Bakioğlu, 2015).
Mentoring is defined as "helping a person who is considered a novice in their profession by an experienced person" (Bakioğlu, 2015). In the field of education, mentors are people who can help new teachers and school administrators in professional and personal matters (Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011). Mentors are also referred to as advisors because teachers can consult them when needed (Bakioğlu, 2015).
Traditionally, mentoring is defined as a relationship between an older, more experienced person and a younger, less experienced individual to help and develop the career of the less experienced individual (Kram, 1983;Levinson, 1978). Noe (1988) defines mentors as entrusted and experienced employees who guide inexperienced young people to increase their skills and use their career opportunities effectively for professional and personal development. Guetzloe (1997, p.100) expresses the concept of mentoring as a relationship between an older person and a young person that lasts for a certain period and focuses on supporting the development of the young person. Similarly, Schunk & Mullen (2013) define mentoring as a long-term professional relationship between more experienced mentors and less experienced proteges (mentee), where mentors help mentees for their professional and personal development. Ragers & Kram (2007) state that when the definitions of mentor and mentoring are examined in the literature, some definitions refer to a specific person as a mentor. In some definitions mentoring focuses on the career of the person. In addition, while some definitions focus on a hierarchical difference between mentor and mentee, few definitions consider mentoring as a relationship between peers (Ragers & Kram, 2007).
Although mentoring has changed over the years, a basic feature that defines mentoring relationships and distinguishes it from other personal relationship types is that mentoring is a career-oriented developmental relationship (Ragers & Kram, 2007). To fully understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to consider the following points (Allen & Eby, 2007): • Mentoring reflects a unique relationship between two individuals. • Mentoring is a learning relationship. • Mentoring is a process that offers different support to inexperienced individuals. • Although mentoring is a reciprocal relationship and the mentor benefits from the process, the main focus of mentoring is to help the inexperienced individual. • Mentoring is a dynamic process that changes over time.
Mentoring provides many benefits both for the mentor and the person being mentored (mentee). Kram (1983) states that mentoring has the career and psychosocial functions. The career function, which focuses on the professional development of the mentee, consists of five elements: sponsorship, visibility, coaching, protection, and challenging assignments (Kram, 1983). Sponsorship provides desirable projects for the mentee, visibility provides tasks for to mentee to help them to be noticed; coaching provides ideas, suggestions, and feedback for the mentee, protection helps mentee avoid unnecessary risks, and challenging assignments provides challenging tasks for the mentee to get experience.
Mentoring also has psychosocial functions that benefit the development of competence, identity, and work-related roles (Kram, 1983). Among these functions, being a role model enables the mentee to develop right attitudes, values, and behaviors, acceptance and confirmation gives positive messages mentee under all circumstances, counseling allows the mentee to openly share their fears and concerns, and friendship can be expressed as establishing an informal relationship in the workplace (Noe, 1988). Scandura (1992), on the other hand, defines being a role model as a third mentoring function to emphasize the desire that mentees have to resemble their mentors (Schunk & Mullen, 2013). Mertz (2004) also states that mentoring benefits both the personal and career development of the person and emphasizes that the mentor undertakes different roles during this process. The different roles that the mentor should play in the mentoring process are shown in Figure 1. According to Mertz (2004), communication and interaction between the parties increase from the first level to the sixth level. The level of psychological development includes the parties getting to know each other, and professional and career development occurs after this level is fulfilled.
Practices carried out within the scope of mentoring emerge in two basic ways as informal and formal mentoring. Informal mentoring is when mentors and mentees agree to work together based on shared understandings, interests, and goals. These relationships may be psychosocial relationships where mentees can get support. Thus, informal mentoring involves people participating in peer mentoring groups created through alliances between colleagues and sometimes their mentors. This type of mentoring offers emotional support to increase the self-confidence of mentees to advance their careers. Formal mentoring programs are organized by workplaces or professional organizations. These programs are carried out about organizational or administrative problems such as transferring knowledge and skills within the organization, forming teams, diversifying the workforce, implementing total quality management, and developing leadership skills (Hansman, 2016).

Mentoring in Education
In the field of education, a mentor is defined as a more experienced teacher who is assigned to contribute to the professional competencies of the novice teacher and to adapt the teacher both to the school and the teaching profession (Bakioğlu, 2015). Mentoring can also be called instructional coaching, as it involves the process when a more experienced teacher guides less experienced teachers (Aydın, 2016). When considered in terms of teachers' professional learning, mentoring is of great importance because it shows continuity and focuses on the needs at school regarding a particular subject. It can make significant contributions to the professional development of teachers (Bakioğlu, 2015;Kane & Rosenquist, 2019). In addition, mentoring is important in terms of training vice principals (Barnett, Shoho, & Okilwa, 2017).
Though the mentor was initially seen as an experienced teacher observed by the inexperienced teacher, in time, they have begun to be considered as an active participant, researcher, and critical thinker. In this way, the role of the mentor has also changed from an adviser and problem solver to an inquiring, listener, and reflective thinking model (Niday et al., 2009). Sullivan (2000) states mentoring in education as the support and help that an experienced educator gives to improve the professional skills of their colleagues (Cited by Aydın, 2016). Mentors should act as teaching-improving friends rather than judgmental or critical individuals. In this way, a trust-based relationship can be maintained between the mentor and the mentee (Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011).
As in all other fields, mentoring provides important contributions to individuals in the field of education. However, for mentoring practices to be beneficial, the mentor must have certain characteristics. Boreen & Niday (2003) state that a mentor teacher should have the following basic characteristics (Cited by Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011): (1) Being an expert in basic teaching skills, (2) Being open to flexibility in actions and attitudes, (3) Competency in using different pedagogical methods, (4) Problem solving, and (5) Professional vision.

Mentoring Roles of School Administrators
Schools are open systems that serve to educate citizens by the features needed by society. In this system, school administrators are important to provide education in line with the aims and the needs of the era. It is important for school administrators to mentor by focusing on talent and encouraging personal development and success for the realization of school goals and the creation of an effective school (Özalp, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2016). In this context, mentoring behaviors of school principals provide benefits for both teachers and vice-principals.
First of all, mentoring helps less experienced or novice teachers to learn the intricacies of the profession and to cope with the stress and anxiety they feel due to professional cases (Britton, 2006;Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011;Niday et al., 2009). Mentoring also helps newly recruited teachers to get knowledge about the organizational culture and values and to adapt to the organization (Bakioğlu, 2015;Şerefhanoğlu, 2014). Mentoring also has a positive effect on the organizational commitment (Özalp, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2016) and job satisfaction (Eröz, 2019;Özalp, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2016) of teachers and assistant principals.
In addition, mentoring has several benefits for vice-principals and novice principals. A strong mentoring relationship between a principal and viceprincipal helps less experienced vice-principals to demonstrate what it means to be an instructional leader and to reveal the vice principal's capacity as the school leader (Hayes, 2019). Moreover, mentoring has important contributions to school vice principals' ability to observe lessons, give feedback to teachers, budgeting, decision-making, and the management of the buildings (Barnett, Shoho & Okilwa, 2017).
Article 54 of the Ministry of National Education Teacher Appointment and Relocation Regulation (MEB, 2015) authorizes school principals to evaluate teachers. It expects school principals to have sufficient expertise in guiding. In different legislations (DMK, 1965;MEB, 2000), legal obligations are given to school principals regarding teacher supervision. When all legal obligations are considered, mentoring contributes to school principals' fulfilling their contemporary supervisoryoriented leadership roles. It helps school principals to guide teachers in the organization professionally, individually, and socially through methods such as sharing experience, giving advice and feedback on their work, being a role model, and coaching (Cantimer, 2008;Gümüş, 2015;Sezgin, Koşar, & Er, 2014;Şerefhanoğlu, 2014;Yıldırım & Yılmaz, 2013).
Mentoring provides many benefits for the organization itself. Ordering the work done in the organization, transferring the organizational values and organizational culture, supporting the change within the organization, and increasing the quality of the organizational work are the main benefits of mentoring to the organization (Kocabaş & Yirci, 2011).
School administrators have the responsibility of being role model and educating less experienced teachers and assistant principals for their career and psychosocial development. For this reason, it is thought that it is important for school administrators to be aware of their mentoring functions.

Purpose of the Study
This study aims to examine the studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey. In this context, school principals are considered as mentors and assistant principals and teachers as people who benefit from the mentoring process. Within the scope of the study, answers to the following research questions are sought: 1. What are the aims of the studies conducted in Turkey regarding the mentoring roles of school administrators? 2. What are the results obtained from the studies conducted in Turkey regarding the mentoring roles of school administrators?

Method
This study was designed as a literature review, one of the review techniques, to examine studies on school administrators' mentoring roles. The literature review serves to bring many different studies on a particular subject together and present them to the reader in an organized context (Baumeister & Leary, 1997). This study was carried out with the traditional literature review technique, which allows the information scattered in the literature to be handled as a whole.

Data Collection
Studies that were conducted in Turkey within the scope of mentoring after 2000 and indexed in the TR index and YÖK Thesis Center were included in this study. The research was made between March 2021-April 2021 through the terms "Mentoring" and "School administrator," which were the main focus of the study. In addition, terms such as "principal," "assistant principal," "mentor," which are related to the main term, were also included in the research process. As a result of the research, the studies that repeat each other were eliminated, and final studies to be analyzed were determined.

Studies Included in the Research
There were 16 studies examining the mentoring roles of school administrators between 2000 and 2020 in Turkey. Since 3 of these studies were repeated studies (articles adapted from Master's thesis), they were not included in the findings. Studies on mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey are given below chronologically: As a result of the study conducted by Cantimer (2008) to identified the opinions of primary school administrators and primary school inspectors working in primary schools in Sakarya province about their mentoring roles, it was revealed that primary school administrators and primary school inspectors consider mentoring as a role of administration and think that they show mentoring about guidance activities. It was also detected that mentoring contributes to teachers in terms of professional development and trust as well as helping administrators refresh themselves, creating a positive organizational climate, and having job satisfaction due to contributing to the professional development of teachers.
The master's thesis study conducted by Yıldırım (2013) aims to investigate the relationship between the mentoring roles of school administrators and the academic success of the school in terms of some variables. As a result of the study, it was found out the positive correlation between the academic success of the school and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring roles of primary school administrators, such as the role of knowledge, the role of confrontation, and the role of supporting the vision of the administrator, and the sub-dimensions of mentoring roles of secondary school principals such as the role of confrontation and the role of supporting the vision of the administrator. In addition, it was detected that the mentoring roles of school administrators differ significantly according to their professional affection and the number of students in the school. At the same time, there was no significant difference according to the faculty they graduated from.
In their study, Sezgin, Koşar, and Er (2014) examined the level of mentoring roles shown by the school principals according to the opinions of viceprincipals and teachers in primary schools. As a result of the study, which was designed as qualitative research, teachers reported that school principals contributed to the professional development and training of teachers. Still, their contribution to cooperation and professional development within the department groups was weak. Vice principals, on the other hand, reported that school principals were willing to transfer experience and give advice. It was also determined that the mentoring process is important in the professional and social development of administrators and teachers.
In his master's study, Şerefhanoğlu (2014) aimed to investigate the relationship between the adaptation process of teachers who relocated to schools and the mentoring functions of school principals. As a result of the study, it was found out that there is a moderate relationship between the mentoring functions of school principals and the organizational adaptation processes of teachers.
Elbay (2015) aimed to determine the perceptions of teachers about mentoring and the mentoring roles implemented by school principals in his master's thesis study. As a result of the study, it was concluded that teachers welcomed all kinds of help and guidance to be offered to them by their principals through school principals did not fulfill mentoring functions sufficiently. It was also concluded that novice teachers received more help from school principals.
As a result of the master's thesis study conducted by Gümüş (2015), which aimed to examine the mentoring roles of education administrators according to some variables, it was found that school administrators performed their mentoring roles at a high level. It was also detected that the highest mentoring role was the interest-based role, and the lowest mentoring role was being a role model. Baş (2016) aimed to investigate the relationship between the professional development of teachers appointed as assistant principals in administration and the mentoring roles of school principals in his master's study. As a result of the study, it was determined that there was a high positive correlation between the mentoring function of school principals and the professional development of teachers in administration.
The master's study conducted by Bozkurt (2016), it was aimed to identify the level of mentoring roles of school administrators working in private kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, and high schools and the level of teachers' acceptance of these roles. As a result of the study, the administrators stated that they fulfilled their mentoring roles while teachers found school administrators less competent in fulfilling their mentoring roles. Özalp (2016) aimed to investigate the level of vice principals' mentoring functions as the predictor of job satisfaction of vice principals. As a result of the research, it was found out that there is a moderate, positive, and significant relationship between the job satisfaction of vice principals and the mentoring functions of school principals.
As a result of the master's study conducted by Durmaz (2019) aiming to examine the relationship between the academic optimism in middle schools and the mentoring roles of school principals, it was determined that there is a positive significant relationship between academic optimism and all subdimensions of mentoring roles of school principals. It was also detected that as the personality development, professional development, and career development of school administrators increase, teachers' belief in their efficacy and positive attitudes and behaviors towards student success increase.
Eröz (2019) aimed to determine the effect of school principals' mentoring functions on teachers' job satisfaction in his master's thesis study. As a result of the study, it was concluded that mentoring functions have a positive effect on teachers' job satisfaction and that the effect of mentoring functions on teachers' job satisfaction differs according to the age of the teachers.
As a result of the study carried out by Gülşen (2019) to determine the mentoring competencies of the administrators working in public schools to improve teacher performance, it was determined that school administrators generally considered themselves sufficient. Kafalı (2019) aimed to examine the mentoring levels of school principals according to the opinions of teachers. The result of the study revealed that the mentoring levels of the principals were highest at the kindergarten and that the teachers who worked with the same principal for 0-3 years stated that principals fulfilled the mentoring behaviors more.

Findings
In this section, the studies conducted about the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey are examined in their purpose and results.

Aims of Studies on Mentoring Roles of School Administrators in Turkey
Details on the aims of the studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey are given in Table 1.

Table 1: Aims of the Studies on the Mentoring Roles of School Administrators in Turkey
Study Aim Bozkurt, 2016;Cantimer, 2008;Elbay, 2015;Gümüş, 2015;Kafalı, 2019;Sezgin, KoşarveEr, 2014 Identifying the school principals' views on the mentoring roles / the levels of showing mentoring roles Yıldırım, 2013 Investigating the relationship between the mentoring roles of the school principal and the academic success of the school

Şerefhanoğlu, 2014
Determining the relationship between the principals' mentoring functions and organizational adaptation Baş, 2016 Investigating the relationship between the professional development of vice principals and the mentoring roles of school principals Eröz, 2019;Özalp, 2016 Investigating the relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and job satisfaction of assistant principals/teachers

Durmaz, 2019
Investigating the relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and academic optimism

Gülşen, 2019
Investigating the mentoring competencies of school principals to improve teacher performance Within the scope of the studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators, it is found out that studies mostly (7 studies) focus on determining the level of mentoring that school principals show. Apart from these, there are studies that deal with the mentoring roles of school principals and the relationships between different variables. The organizational factors examined in relation to the mentoring roles of school principals are the school's academic success, organizational adaptation, professional development of vice principals, job satisfaction of vice-principals and teachers, academic optimism, and teacher performance. Yıldırım (2013) focused on the relationship between school principals' mentoring roles and the academic success of the school, and Şerefhanoğlu (2014) focused on the relationship between school principals' mentoring roles and organizational adaptation. Baş (2016) tried to determine the relationship between the professional development of vice principals and the mentoring roles of school principals. Eröz (2019) and Özalp (2016) examined the relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and the job satisfaction of vice-principals and teachers, while Durmaz (2019) examined the relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and academic optimism.

Results of Studies on the Mentoring Roles of School Administrators in Turkey
Details on the results of studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey are given in Table 2.  Bozkurt, 2016 It was concluded that though school administrators stated they fulfilled their mentoring role towards teachers, teachers thought school principals were not sufficient in showing mentoring roles.

Cantimer, 2008
It was detected that primary school administrators and primary school inspectors consider mentoring as a role of administration and they think that they perform their mentoring roles while guiding. It was found out that they support teachers in their economic and psychological problems, professional issues, and relations with students. Teachers, on the other hand, fall back up to them in matters related to personal rights, in providing tools and equipment, and in organizing social activities.

Elbay, 2015
It was found out that teachers are in need of support and they welcome any help and guidance offered by their administrators; however, they thought that this was not fulfilled sufficiently.

Gümüş, 2015
It was detected that school administrators perform their mentoring roles at a high level.
It was also found out that school administrators fulfilled the role of interest at the highest level and the role of modeling at the lowest level among the mentoring roles.

Kafalı, 2019
It was concluded that the mentoring level of the principals at the kindergarten level was high, the kindergarten teachers saw their principals as a good mentor, and the teachers who worked with the same principal for 0-3 years believed that their principals fulfilled their mentoring duties more.

Sezgin, KoşarveEr, 2014
It was concluded that teachers are aware of principals contributeto teachers' professional development and school principals' training, but that the function to increase cooperation at school and support professional development in department groups is insufficient. Vice school principals, on the other hand, stated that school principals are willing to share their experiences and tend to give advice.

Yıldırım, 2013
It was found out that there is positive correlation between the academic success of the school and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring roles of primary school administrators such as the role of knowledge, the role of confrontation and the role of supporting the vision of the administrator, and the sub-dimensions of mentoring roles of secondary school principals such as the role of confrontation and the role of supporting the vision of the administrator.

Şerefhanoğlu, 2014
It was concluded that there is a moderate (.608) relationship between the mentoring functions of school principals and the organizational adaptation of teachers.

Baş, 2016
It was concluded that there was a high positive correlation between the mentoring function of school principals and the professional development of teachers assigned to administration. Eröz, 2019;Özalp, 2016 It was detected that there is a positive and significant relationship between the mentoring functions of school principals and the job satisfaction of teachers and vice principals.

Durmaz, 2019
A weak but negative significant relationship was found between the sub-dimensions of academic optimism of schools and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring roles of school administrators in the sub-dimension of self-efficacy, personality development, professional development and career development.

Durmaz, 2019
A very weak and significant relationship was found between the academic optimism of schools and the sub-dimensions of school administrators' mentoring roles, only in the professional development sub-dimension of school principals' mentoring roles. It was concluded that there is a positive and significant relationship between the academic optimism of schools and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring roles of school administrators in terms of total mentoring roles and all sub-dimensions of mentoring roles.

Gülşen, 2019
It was detected that school administrators consider themselves competent to mentor teachers.
Bozkurt (2016), Cantimer (2008), and Gülşen (2019) concluded that school administrators consider themselves sufficient in fulfilling their mentoring roles as a result of their studies. In addition, in their studies, Bozkurt (2016), Elbay (2015), and Sezgin, Koşar & Er (2014) detected that teachers found school principals less competent in terms of demonstrating their mentoring roles, increasing cooperation in the school, and supporting professional development in contrast to principals' views.
In the studies of Gümüş (2015) and Kafalı (2019), it was found out that school administrators perform their mentoring roles at a high level. In his study, Yıldırım (2013) concluded that there is a positive relationship between the academic success of the school and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring role of school administrators in the role of knowledge, the role of confrontation, and the role of supporting the vision in primary schools, and positive relationship between the academic success of the school and the sub-dimensions of the mentoring role of school administrators in the role of confrontation and the role of supporting the vision in middle schools. Şerefhanoğlu (2014) concluded that the mentoring roles of school principals were significantly related to teachers' organizational adaptation processes. Baş (2016) determined a positive and significant relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and their administrative competencies. Eröz (2019) and Özalp (2016) detected a positive and significant relationship between the mentoring roles of school principals and the job satisfaction of teachers and vice-principals. Finally, Durmaz (2019) found a generally positive and significant relationship between the academic optimism of schools and the mentoring roles of school administrators.

Discussion and Conclusion
In this study, we aimed to examine the studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators, which were conducted between the years of 2000 and 2020 in Turkey. To define the studies, we searched the Turkish literature, which is indexed in the TR index and YÖK Thesis Centre. After the search, we have reached 16 studies examining the mentoring roles of school administrators. However, 3 of these studies were repeated studies (articles adapted from Master's thesis), so they were not included. In this sense, we can state that there were quite a few studies conducted on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey. This shows that there is a gap in this area, and more studies are needed.
In detail, it is seen that the majority of the studies on the mentoring roles of school administrators in Turkey are conducted as master's thesis (f=11). Only two of the studies are research articles. In addition, the majority of these studies (f=11) were conducted using quantitative methods, while only two studies were conducted using qualitative methods. This situation differs from studies abroad, most of which were carried out using qualitative methods (Bernett, Shoho, & Okilwa, 2017;Greenwood, 2019;Hayes, 2019;Wren, 2010). In this context, it can be said that there are methodological differences in the trend of studies on mentoring in Turkey and abroad.
It was also detected that most of the studies focused on whether the mentoring roles of school administrators are fulfilled or not and at what level the mentoring roles are performed. There are limited studies dealing with the relationship between school administrators' mentoring functions and different variables such as organizational adaptation, academic success, professional development, and job satisfaction. Thus, it may be suggested more studies can be conducted on the correlation between mentoring practices and other organizational factors. Considering this situation, it can be said that there are a need for quantitative studies designed using causal and correlational designs to examine the phenomenon of mentoring roles of school administrators more comprehensively, and studies designed using a mixed pattern in which quantitative and qualitative research approaches are synthesized to gain a deep understanding of the phenomenon. In addition, it can be said that experimental designs or action researches can be beneficial for maximizing the positive effects of mentoring practices in schools.
It was concluded that although school principals consider themselves competent in performing their mentoring roles (Bozkurt, 2016;Cantimer, 2008;Gülşen, 2019), teachers do not find the level of school principals' mentoring roles sufficient (Bozkurt, 2016;Elbay, 2015;Sezgin, Koşar, & Er, 2014). In this context, it can be said that different studies can be carried out to determine the factors that cause differences between the views of teachers and school administrators.
Another conclusion we reached was that the mentoring functions of school administrators in terms of being a role model (Gümüş, 2015) and increasing cooperation at school and supporting professional development (Sezgin, Koşar, & Er, 2014) are perceived as inadequate by the teachers. In this context, it may be important to design various activities that will increase the awareness of school principals about mentoring functions.
Finally, it was revealed that all of the studies we analyzed describe mentoring as a process in an informal structure. Teachers and vice-principals evaluate the mentoring functions offered to them by school administrators in an informal process. This shows that the school principals are either ignore mentoring or are unaware of it and its advantages. Therefore, it can be said that there is no systematic mentoring in schools in Turkey, whereas; the studies indicate the benefits of mentoring teachers. Some benefits are increased job satisfaction, higher retention, greater effectiveness with diverse students, and better instructional problem solving resulting from being mentored (Boreen et al., 2009).
Furthermore, the principals stated the benefits of mentoring practices in a teacher education project as "increased mentee morale, high willingness to take risks, better problem-solving strategies, and more effective classroom management and instructional strategies" (Moir, Gless and Baron, 1999). Mentoring teachers is beneficial, and school principals can play an important role in assisting teachers. However, a better understanding of mentoring is needed among the school principals in Turkey. For this reason, it is important and necessary that the upper authorities encourage the school principals to handle the mentoring practices in schools professionally.