Understanding A Transitional Teacher Education In Globalised And Neoliberal Contexts
Author(s):
Diane Mayer (presenting / submitting) Mary Dixon Julianne Moss Jodie Kline
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
10. Teacher Education Research
Format:
Paper

Session Information

10 SES 07 C,

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-09
17:15-18:45
Room:
209.Oktatóterem [C]
Chair:
Kari Smith

Contribution

Like many countries, teacher education in Australia is a highly scrutinized domain. Since the 1970s there have been more than 100 reviews of teacher education, and in 2014 yet another review was announced with the report still to be delivered early in 2015. The focus of this most recent review – on pedagogy, subject content and professional experience – highlights the current policy foci for teacher education in Australia. Teacher education policy is often positioned as a mechanism for achieving ends determined elsewhere according to urgent political agendas (Bates, 2005) In this way, teacher education is positioned as a ‘policy problem’. 'When teacher education is defined as a policy problem, the goal is to determine which of the broad parameters that can be controlled by policy-makers (e.g. teacher testing, subject matter requirements, alternate entry pathways) is most likely to enhance teacher quality' (Cochran-Smith, 2008, p.273). This is the current situation in Australia with various ‘national solutions’ being promulgated via federal policies.

Grossman (2008) has suggested that ‘as researchers and practitioners in the field of teacher education, we seem ill prepared to respond to critics who question the value of professional education for teachers with evidence of our effectiveness’ (p.13). Recently, the Australian Government Productivity Commission highlighted the need for an evidence base to inform an evaluation of the delivery of initial teacher education and which also tracks the subsequent performance of teachers (Productivity Commission, 2012, p.119). However, high quality, larger-scale research into teacher education and its effectiveness is lacking. Reviews of teacher education research in Australia have concluded that it is characterised by isolated small-scale investigations (e.g.Murray, Nuttall, & Mitchell, 2008). The findings from these isolated small-scale studies do not produce the convergent findings policy makers are seeking; indeed they never set out to do so. In this absence, attention turns to the quality of the entrants into teacher education and control of the content of the teacher education curriculum as proxies for ensuring quality teachers for the profession. This is reflected in the current Australian context with frenzied media and political attention to entry standards for initial teacher education entrants and tighter regulation through standards while at the same time moves to bypass initial teacher education as it has been traditionally designed and offered.

This proposal draws on a project designed to provide an evidence base in relation to the effectiveness of teacher education in Australia. ‘Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education’ (SETE) has been a four-year longitudinal study (2011-2014) funded by the Australian Research Council. It followed 2010 and 2011 teacher education graduates in two Australian states, Queensland and Victoria, to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of their teacher education programs for their current teaching positions, and their career pathways. In addition, it investigated their principals’ perceptions of the graduate teachers’ effectiveness.

The project addressed the following research questions:

  • How well equipped are teacher education graduates to meet the requirements of the diverse settings in which they are employed?
  • What characteristics of teacher education programs are most effective in preparing teachers to work in a variety of school settings?
  • How does the teacher education course attended impact on graduate employment destination, pathways and retention within the profession?

This proposed paper interrogates findings which highlight the centrality of a transitional phase of learning to teach - transition from preservice teacher education to early career teaching, and how the way in which early career teachers think about their teacher preparation and their effectiveness as beginning teaching is mediated in complex ways by a range of conditions of work as experienced by these teachers.

Method

Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) is a four-year, mixed-method, longitudinal study investigating graduate teachers’ perceptions on the effectiveness of teacher education. SETE employed a mixed method approach to systematically collect, record and analyse mutually informing data sets over time, including on–line survey research, database analysis/contextual mapping and case studies. Most often, mixed methods approaches follow a sequential explanatory design where the quantitative data is collected and analysed, then supported by qualitative data. Some projects use mixed methods for triangulation or have one method embedded within another (Creswell, 2003). This project employed a recursive strategy with first year case study data informing first year survey instruments. In the following year, first year survey findings informed second year case study foci. This pattern continued over the data collection period. Each of the methods also produced stand-alone findings. The main target population were new teacher education graduates (those who graduated in 2010/2011) registered as teachers in Victoria and Queensland. The secondary target population were the school principals in those schools where the graduate teacher was employed. Identification of the main target population is drawn from Teacher Registration Authority databases. The quantitative component of the SETE project involves tracking teacher education graduates through a series of four surveys, collecting data on the influence of initial teacher education on graduate teachers’ perceptions of their preparation and effectiveness across key areas and in diverse school settings. Analysis of over 6,500 responses collected from three rounds of teacher surveys (March 2012 – April 2013) is used to construct point-in-time snapshots framed in relation to the themes of curriculum, pedagogy, catering for diversity, assessment, and creating safe learning environments. Emergent trends and the potential implications for teacher education are discussed and related to data collected in intensive case studies (n=170) and principal surveys (n=950+). The longitudinal components of the quantitative and qualitative data highlight graduate teachers’ changing perspectives on the effectiveness of their teacher education over time in the profession. The storylines of teacher education entrenched in the schooling and policy discourses are concurrently challenged and reflected. The large-scale evidence-base relating to teachers’ preparedness and performance in their early years of their career is central to shaping current and future policy debates by foregrounding the issues and needs of the graduate teacher education workforce in Australia.

Expected Outcomes

In this proposed paper, we draw on the SETE findings to ask what teacher education and beginning teaching might look like in the future as part of a continuum of learning teaching as a basis for re-thinking teacher education policy, structures and practice. Green (2009) has argued the need for “a cumulative program of connected multi-disciplinary and multi-focused work in teacher education that concerns itself with issues of practice and policy, curriculum and pedagogy across the continuum of preparatory, transitional, and continuing teacher education, and involves both universities and the profession”. This notion of a ‘Initial -> Transitional -> Continuing’ continuum depicts teacher education as a journey from novice to expert, but it is not linear nor staged-based. It is mediated by the local context (universities and schools) as well as the broader political context and by local conditions of work, it builds on pre-existing knowledge and it develops as a result of accessing a knowledge base for teaching and practice-based inquiry. However, a lack of connection between teacher education in universities and teacher education and teaching practice in schools is highlighted by the SETE project and the current literature base, and is popularised as a theory-practice divide and a disconnect between learning teaching and doing teaching. These play out as dichotomies in the literature and also in policy. The recent British inquiry into the role of research in teacher education “demands an end to the false dichotomy between higher education and school-based approaches to initial teacher education” (British Educational Research Association (BERA), 2014). Likewise, SETE highlights the importance of focussing on the ‘transitional’ part of the continuum. We interrogate associated questions – Where will it happen? Who is involved? Where does employment and teacher certification occurs and (re)occur along this newly conceived continuum?

References

Bates, R. (2005). An anarchy of cultures: the politics of teacher education in new times. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(3), 231-241. doi: 10.1080/13598660500298056 British Educational Research Association (BERA). (2014). Research and the Teaching Profession: Building the capacity for a self-improving education system. Final Report of the BERA-RSA Inquiry into the Role of Research in Teacher Education. London: BERA. Cochran-Smith, M. (2008). The new teacher education in the United States: Directions forward. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 14(4), 271-282. Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Green, B. (2009). Understanding and Researching Professional Practice. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Grossman, P. (2008). Responding to our critics: From crisis to opprtunity in research on teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(1), 10-23. Murray, S., Nuttall, J., & Mitchell, J. (2008). Research into initial teacher education in Australia: a survey of the literature 1995-2004. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 225-239. Productivity Commission. (2012). Schools Workforce, Research Report. Canberra.

Author Information

Diane Mayer (presenting / submitting)
University of Sydney
Faculty of Education and Social Work
Sydney
Mary Dixon
Deakin University, Australia
Julianne Moss
Deakin University, Australia
Jodie Kline
Deakin University, Australia

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