Background/Purpose Mentoring is an important process in the development of coaches (Jones, 2009). The ability of mentors to perform different roles during the course of the relationship appears in the literature as a vital attribute (Roberts, 2000). However, no measure exploring mentor relationships in coaching has been developed. The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument that measures the roles of a coach's mentor in their mentoring relationship.
Method A literature review indicated the Mentor Role Instrument (Ragins & Cotton, 1999; Ragins & McFarlin, 1990) to be among the most popular instruments to measure mentor roles. After modification, the new version, the Adapted Mentor Role Instrument (AMRI), which spoke directly to coaches and their most influential mentor relationships, was administered to 30 coaches who had five years of experience as head coaches at the high-school level or assistant or head coaches at the college level. Two to four weeks later, AMRI and Scandura and Ragins' (1993) multidimensional mentoring measure (SRMMM) were administered to estimate reliability and validity respectively.
Analysis/Results Two-way intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC= .83, CI95 = .67 – .92), revealed a non-significant difference of means between test (M=126.4, SD=13.51) and retest (M=124.4, SD=17.77) of the AMRI (F1, 29 = 1.38; p > .05; Cohen's D = 0.13). Convergent validity was shown by a high, positive correlation between AMRI and SRMMM (r=.90, p < .05).
Conclusions The findings of this study support the AMRI as a valid and reliable measure of the important construct of mentoring in coaching.
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