Although success in classroom management may be linked to the success of practitioners, especially novices, the field of inquiry of classroom management is scarcely in the focus of educational research (Evertson &Weinstein, 2006). The definition of classroom management may vary according to the educational perspective. From a behavioristic perspective classroom management involves discipline, motivation and obedience (Kohn, 2008). From an ecological perspective classroom management entails practices aimed at maintaining order, is dynamic and multifaceted since there are relationships among various components within the classroom setting – teacher, student, and the learning environment (Doyle, 2006). In most definitions of classroom management one may find teachers' actions aimed at maintaining order, engagement or cooperation of students (Emmer & Stough, 2001:103), student's behavior, interactions and learning (Martin & Sass, 2010). Based on existing literature we could infer that there are differences in the ways experienced teachers and novices perceive classroom management. Experienced teachers or experts, set learning as their most significant goal in classroom management (Wolff, van den Bogert, Jarodzka & Boshuizen, 2015), whereas novices struggle to maintain order (van Tartwijk, Veldman & Verloop, 2011), and focus on student's behaviour (Stoughton, 2006). Attitude surveys and questionnaires reveal that when experts were asked to describe their future actions in classroom situations they focused on learning and on designing the learning environment to enhance learning (Martin & Sass, 2010). This study stems from an ecological approach (Evertson & Weinstein, 2006), is qualitative in nature and aims to study which issues of classroom management are of most concern to novices.  In order to find out the issues in classroom management that novices found challenging, the issues and research questions that novices had chosen to investigate in qualitative studies they carried out while practicing teaching were the focus of our investigation. The research question was: What issues of classroom management had novices chosen to study? We assumed that the choice of issues by novices would reveal the most relevant issues or problems they were facing as novices, and at the same time reflect their educational approaches. 

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