Session Information
11 ONLINE 51 A, Quality of higher education: Students' perception
Paper Session
MeetingID: 924 2827 8203 Code: 5sZdVt
Contribution
The teacher-training model, in the Spanish context, is a consecutive model (first students receive general education as a Degree and second they enroll in a program of initial professional training). Indeed, the adaptation of university degrees to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has resulted, in Spain, in the creation of a new compulsory Master's degree, which is required to become a secondary school teacher (Ries, Yanes y González, 2016). For this, secondary school teacher candidates have to complete a compulsory master's degree (Master's Degree in Teacher Training in Compulsory Secondary Education and Bachillerato, Professional Training and Language Teaching - MAES), once they have finished a four-year bachelor's degree in a secondary school subject (History, Physics, Philology, Mathematics, etc).
This novelty, together with other needs and demands, has resulted in the initial training of secondary school teachers being a relevant research topic during the last decade (López-Gómez, 2012). The research has focused on the identity of the teacher candidates (Bolívar, 2007), the study of the motivations to become a secondary school teacher (Muñoz-Fernández, Rodríguez-Gutiérrez & Luque-Vílchez, 2019) , among others. However, the career decisions and aspirations of students who enrol in the MAES have been studied to a lesser extent. In fact, it seems that there is a significant gap in this field, at least in the Spanish context.
From this perspective, this study aims to explore the aspirations and career decisions of secondary school teachers in initial training in the context of Spain. The study may be relevant to identify consistent indicators that allow obtaining a first approximation to the career decision and aspirations. This allow emerged contextualized initiatives to be proposed (pre-entry or during the master's degree) in order to reinforce or strengthen aspirations and expectations, which in some way influences the quality of the training provided (López-Gómez, González-Fernández, Medina-Rivilla & Gento, 2020).
Method
To address the research objective we present a quantitative, exploratory, and descriptive study focus on gathering the perceptions of secondary school teachers (in initial training) regarding career decision and aspiration. The participants in this research are 348 students (secondary school teachers candidates) of the Master's Degree in Secondary Education Teacher Training (MAES) of one public university in Spain. The 65.5% are women and the age of the participants is heterogeneous (ranged from 22 to 58; M = 33.72; SD = 8.04). The instruments used were two well-established scales. First, Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (CDSES-SF; Betz, 1996), composed of four factors (goal selection; problem-solving; information gathering; and goal pursuit management). The response format was a Likert-type scale with ranges from 1 to 5, going from "no confidence at all" to "complete confidence". Examples of such items include: Find information about universities and colleges; Determine what your ideal job would be; Change occupations if you are not satisfied with the one you enter. A significant number of studies have examined the psychometrics characteristics of the CDSES and CDSES-SF versions, and it have been shown to be highly reliable and valid. Also, as stated in this study, CDSES-SF has been applied among university students in other contexts (Gaudron, 2011; Kuyukgoze-kavas, 2014). Second, the Career Aspiration Scale (Gregor & O'Brien, 2015), consists of three factors (Achievement, Leadership and Education). As above, the response range was a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being "not at all true for me" and 5 being "very true for me". Examples of items are: I hope to become a leader in my career field; I want to be among the very best in my field; I will pursue additional training in my occupational area of interest. The scales were administered in Spanish. The scale was translated from English to Spanish following the proposal of Beaton et al. (2000) and the suggestion of Hambleton, Merenda, and Spielberger (2005) for the translation of tests in cross-cultural research. The scales were applied online (participation was voluntary and anonymity and confidentiality were ensured). The instruments were distributed to two cohorts of students, during two academic years (2019 and 2020). We reject applying the instrument to the 2021 cohort because the socio-sanitary situation of the pandemic could influence the scale responses. We are currently applying the study to a new cohort of students (2022).
Expected Outcomes
The data analysis is carried out from a descriptive approach with SPSS v21 in order to explore the aspirations and career decisions of secondary school teachers in initial training in the context of Spain. Reliability and internal consistency were tested, with adequate results (alpha´s Cronbach > 0.80), and also conduct normality tests to verify the distribution of the sample. Differential studies have also been carried out considering gender and prior professional experience in the education sector variables (finding a few items with sig. differences). 1) Considering the results of CDSES-SF, the most valued factors were "Information gathering" and "Goal pursuit management", and the least valued were "Problem solving" and "Goal selection". Specifically, the most valued items of the scale as a whole were: Talk with a person already employed in the field you are interested in (M=4.29; sd=1.05) and Define the type of lifestyle you would like to live (M=4.23; SD=0.86). 2) For the Career Aspiration Scale, the least valued factor was "Leadership Aspirations" while the most valued was "Educational aspirations". These results coincide with the recent study by Kunchai, Chonsalasin and Khampirat (2021). The most valued items were: I will pursue additional training in my occupational area of interest (M=4.40; sd=0.74), I will always be knowledgeable about recent advances in my field (M=4.34; sd =0.75), I know I will work to remain current regarding knowledge in my field (M=4.39; SD=0.77). These first results will be discussed further, and provide an initial approach to the career decision and aspirations of future secondary school teachers in Spain. Practical implications are derived from the study in order to promote vocational guidance and to identify valuable aspects that future secondary school teachers identify as decisive about their decision to become a teacher and their professional aspirations.
References
Beaton, D. E., Bombardier, C., Guillemin, F., & Ferraz, M. B. (2000). Guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures. Spine, 25(24), 3186–3191. Betz, N. E., Klein, K. L., & Taylor, K. M. (1996). Evaluation of a short form of the career decision-making self-efficacy scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 4(1), 47-57. Bolívar, A. (2007). La formación inicial del profesorado de Secundaria y su identidad profesional. Estudios sobre Educación, 12, 13-30 Buyukgoze-Kavas, A. (2014). A psychometric evaluation of the career decision self-efficacy scale–short form with Turkish university students. Journal of Career Assessment, 22(2), 386-397. doi:10.1177/1069072713484561 Gaudron J.-P. (2011). A psychometric evaluation of the career decision self-efficacy scale short-form among French university students. Journal of Career Assessment, 19(4),420–430. doi:10.1177/1069072711409713 Gregor, M. A., & O’Brien, K. M. (2015). Understanding Career Aspirations Among Young Women. Journal of Career Assessment, 24(3), 559–572. doi:10.1177/1069072715599537 Hambleton, R. K., Merenda, P. F., & Spielberger, C. D. (Eds.). (2005). Adapting educational and psychological tests for cross-cultural assessment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kunchai, J., Chonsalasin, D., & Khampirat, B. (2021). Psychometric properties and a multiple indicators multiple cause model of the career aspiration scale with college students of rural Thailand. Sustainability, 13(18), 10377. López-Gómez, E. (2012). Propuestas para la formación inicial del profesorado de educación secundaria en España. Perspectiva Educacional, 51(1), 87-108 López-Gómez, E., González-Fernández, R., Medina-Rivilla, A. y Gento, S. (2020). Proposal to Promote Quality of Education: A View from Spain. En H. Flavian (Ed.), From Pedagogy to Quality Assurance in Education: An International Perspective, 29-44. Emerald. Muñoz-Fernández, G. A., Rodríguez-Gutiérrez, P., & Luque-Vílchez, M. (2019). La formación inicial del profesorado de Educación Secundaria en España: perfil y motivaciones del futuro docente. Educación XX1, 22(1), 71-92. Ries, F., Ries, C., y González, R. (2016). A Study of Teacher Training in the United States and in Europe. The European Journal of Social and Behavioural Sciences, 27, 2029-2054.
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