Presenters: Eva Bjerkholt, Tonje Harbek Brokke

This symposium introduces preliminary findings from the STEP project (Partnership for Sustainable Transition from Teacher Education to the Profession. Becoming a professional teacher). STEP follows the first generation of students with a five-year master's degree for primary school teachers during the last year of study and the first two years as teachers.  

STEP is a collaboration and research project funded by the Research Council of Norway (NFR).  The partners are the Norwegian Teacher Student Union, Union of Education Norway (UEN), The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS), University of Tromsø: The Artic University of Norway (UiT) and the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN).  

The primary objective is to develop research- and experience-based knowledge on the transition from teacher education into the teacher profession in order to influence the further development and implementation of the Norwegian framework for induction and mentoring Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs).  

This symposium is based on preliminary findings from analyzing policy documents, digital questionaries (with open spaces for comments) and interviews with different actors.  

STEP investigates induction and mentoring NQTs from different actors’ perspectives: teacher-students, NQTs, mentors, colleagues at schools, head teachers and employers.  Our preliminary findings show that the employers and actors in schools have predominantly positive expectations of the NQTs, but the graduating students themselves are unsure whether they have the necessary competence to handle the challenges they expect to face.  

The papers are: 

1. Challenges and Possibilities. Collaboration between researchers and policymakers  

2. Rethinking the Crisis of Teacher Recruitment and Attrition: Problems and Solutions  

3. Student Teachers’ Perception of their Professional Readiness  

4. Preparing for Relational Competence: Insights from Final-Year Students in Teacher Education 

The first paper is on collaboration between the different partners, built on data from an open spaced questionnaire answered by the STEP partners. The paper discusses their experience, both tensions and new possibilities in partnership.  

The second paper suggests that we should consider rethinking our strategies on teacher recruitment and attrition. This paper is based on comparative critical discourse analysis (CDA) inspired by the works of Fairclough (2013) and Ball (2021). It presents analyzed policy documents from three countries Norway, Finland and Australia and points at the need to challenge the ‘deficit perspective’ on NQTs. 

The third paper analyzes the results from the open comment sections in a digital questionnaire from graduating student-teachers. The paper questions the ambitious reform of Norwegian teacher education and whether it has fully achieved its intended goals.  

The fourth paper is also drawing on the preliminary findings from the student teachers' comments in the digital questionnaires. The focus in this paper is the student teachers' perspectives on their relational competence.  The paper claims that the relational competence of student teachers remains an underexplored domain in teacher education. According to the student-teacher's perspective there is a perceived gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. They point out a gap, with insufficient focus on real-world teaching scenarios and the student teachers’ possibilities to develop interpersonal skills during their education. 

The preliminary findings and the discussions in these papers represent important knowledge about how to develop the content of induction and mentoring programs in Norway. The students point out the need for establishing partnerships and more collaboration between teacher education and teacher training schools on the transition from teacher education to profession.  

Antonsen, Y., Aspfors, J., & Maxwell, G., (2024) Early career teacher’s role in school development and professional learning. Professional Development in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2024.2306998 Antonsen, Y., Portela, A.P., Stenseth, A. M. & Skytterstad, R, (2024) Early career teachers’ beliefs and management of work intensification in Norway and Spain. Journal of educational change. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-024-09524-x Antonsen, Y., Toom, A., Ulvik, M., Drageset, O.G., Olsen, K.R., Hjardemaal, F.R., & Sæther, K-A. (2024) Research approaches in master-based teacher education preparing student teachers for professional work. Frontiers in education. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1418398 Ball, S. J. (2021). The education debate. Policy Press. Bjerkholt, E., & Brokke T. H. (2020). STEP: Partnership for Sustainable Transition from Teacher Education to Profession: Becoming a Professional Teacher. Application to the Research Council of Norway. Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. Routledge. Skytterstad, R., Antonsen, Y., Aspfors, J., & Heikkinen, H. L. T. (2025) Reframing New Teacher Induction: Opportunities Over Deficiencies. Teacher and teacher education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2024.104910 Skytterstad, R., Antonsen, Y., & Stenseth, A-M. (2024) Remediating Deficits? Problem Representations in Norwegian Policies for Newly Qualified Teachers. Journal of educational policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2380761