Abstract

This study investigated the learning performance of teacher education students (TESs) engaged in a school-based interdisciplinary curriculum and the perceptions of their engagement in an online mentoring program (OMP) that incorporated synchronous videoconferencing technology. A nonequivalent control group posttest-only design was adopted to examine the effects of synchronous mentoring. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Eighty TESs participated in this study, of which fifty-four TESs chose to join the experimental group (thirteen subgroups), and twenty-six chose to join the control group (six subgroups). The TESs in the experimental group attended a synchronous OMP, whereas those in the control group attended an in-person course as a part of a traditional mentoring program (TMP). This study discovered that the TESs in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in terms of the contextual problem awareness and theme design components of a school-based interdisciplinary curriculum. However, the effectiveness of online mentors and university course lecturers in guiding the TESs to create teaching plans and perform integrative tasks did not differ significantly. Additionally, the online mentors successfully promoted cognitive involvement among the TESs in the OMP. Although the TESs in the TMP exhibited higher behavioral involvement than those in the OMP, this did not necessarily translate into superior performance in all dimensions of curriculum design. The study suggests that online mentors supplement, rather than replace, the role of university course lecturers in addressing curriculum design deficiencies.