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In this phenomenological study I investigated the experiences of early second-career, tenure-track faculty members who entered academe after working in a position outside of higher education for at least five years. The purpose of this study was to learn about experiences and factors that contributed or impeded to the success of second-career faculty members. Eight early second-career faculty members, from a four-year university located in the Dallas Metroplex area, were interviewed. Participants demographics were ages 34 to 68 with the average age being 45; 50% male and 50% female; and one African American, six Caucasian, and one Hispanic and/or Latino. Participants’ previous professional experience was a benefit in teaching and relating to students, in understanding the complex university bureaucracy, and in setting goals. The participants reported that mentoring, whether formally assigned by the institution or through informal means such as departmental colleagues or professional organizations, was a benefit to all of the participants. A primary area of concern for the participants was collaboration and collegiality with other faculty members. Participants stated that traditional faculty members lack the skills and training to collaborate effectively in researching and in joint teaching endeavors. Participants reported that they had to monitor and restrain their opinions during interactions with departmental colleagues during the probationary period leading up to tenure decisions because the participants fear retaliation by co-faculty members who will vote on whether to grant them tenure. These participants bring a wealth of industry experience and knowledge to the university. Administrators, departmental chairs, and future early second-career faculty members will find that this research provides recommendations that, if heeded, will ensure a long and productive mutually beneficial affiliation.

Thesis advisor: Laura O'Dwyer / In recent decades, the plight of early career teacher turnover has had significant financial ramifications for our nation’s schools and has posed a serious threat to achieving educational equity, with the most disadvantaged schools experiencing the highest rates of turnover. Using data collected from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Survey, this study employed discrete-time competing risks survival analysis to explore the first-year experiences of public middle and high school teachers as predictors of their career decisions to stay in their current school, move to a new school, or leave the profession across the first five years of their career. Four facets were conceived as characterizing teachers’ first-year experiences: 1) policies and programs for first-year teachers provided by the administration including mentoring and induction, 2) perceptions of their preparedness to teach, 3) perceptions of school climate and workplace conditions, and 4) satisfaction with teaching. The research questions are: 1. What are the first-year experiences for teachers in the sample and how do they compare between teachers who are retained in their first school placements and teachers who voluntarily or involuntarily turn over in later years? 2. What first-year teacher experiences predict voluntary and involuntary turnover at the end of years 1, 2, 3, and 4? And, how does satisfaction with teaching in the first year interact with the three other facets of the first-year experience to predict voluntary and involuntary turnover across the early career window? Findings suggest there may be differences in the mechanisms that drive the moving and leaving phenomena, suggesting that policymakers treat the two turnover pathways as separate problems requiring separate solutions. Furthermore, findings suggest there may be more policy-amendable variables that can be manipulated in the first year of teaching to prevent leaving than there are to prevent moving, implying that curbing rates of moving to minimize the localized impacts of teacher migration to other schools may be more challenging than reducing rates of leaving the profession. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between administrative support and retention of early career special education teachers. Research has shown that there is a shortage of special education teachers; however, teachers leaving the field may be driving the shortages. Based on the work of Schein’s (2003) theory of organizational culture, this study identified how different types of support (i.e., emotional, instructional, technical, and environmental) can influence early career special education teachers’ decision to remain in their current position. Participants, including teachers and administrators from a suburban school division in Virginia, completed a modified version of the Administrative Support Survey. A correlational research design was used to answer research questions comparing support perceived by principals to support received by teachers and support perceived by teachers to support provided by administrators. An analysis of variance (ANOVA), independent samples t-test, and descriptive statistics were conducted. Results revealed that the majority of teachers reported they received support and intended on returning to their position. However, the teachers who reported they were not returning to their position indicated receiving little support from their principals. Further, differences in support were also reported by race, grade level, disability taught, licensing status, and delivery model of instruction. Limitations and implications for practice, policy, and research are reported.

The purpose of this study was to explore early-career faculty&rsquo / s needs on teaching related issues and examine the effectiveness of an online environment that was designed as a support to a graduate course on teaching in higher education. The study was carried out through two phases including a needs analysis and evaluation of the online environment. Findings of the needs analysis were used as input data in designing the online environment. An exploratory mixed design was employed to investigate graduate assistants&rsquo / perceptions about the effectiveness of the online environment in general, and the components specifically. Results of the first phase revealed that early-career faculty (n=53) were highly willing to participate in faculty instructional development activities, mostly through workshops and internet-based systems. Having students&rsquo / active participation into class was found to be one of the biggest concerns of new faculty. The second phase of the study provided descriptive data related to graduate assistants&rsquo / (n=10) use of an online environment incorporating a discussion forum, exemplary V teaching case and informative videos. Interaction with people from different academic fields helped the graduate assistants to experience and gain different perspectives about teaching. The graduate course itself raised graduate assistants&rsquo / awareness with regard to the teaching aspect of their profession. Online components generally provided the graduate assistants with different perspectives on teaching, and contemplate their future teaching. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that online technologies have a potential to support faculty instructional development through incorporating visual media and communication tools.

This narrative inquiry began with queries into the identity-making experiences of two teachers, Anna and Penny, at the beginning of their careers. Through weekly research conversations over 2 years, they told stories of their experiences in school. Over time, it became clear that their personal experiences with their families outside school shaped who they were in their classrooms with children. Their professional identities—their stories to live by—began on personal knowledge landscapes and then were recomposed into professional knowledge landscapes. They experienced tension when their familial stories of what it meant to be a teacher were interrupted or challenged. From the midst of teachers’, children’s, and families’ lives together in schools, Anna and Penny worked to make sense of these tension-filled experiences. Travelling between each others’ worlds was complex. Their personal experiences helped them make sense of difficult situations in their classrooms and contributed to their teacher knowledge. Connelly and Clandinin refer to this form of teacher knowledge as “personal practical knowledge” (1988, p. 25). The research presented in this dissertation attends to the personal practical knowledge, the intellectual work, that Anna and Penny used as beginning teachers. This research contributes to the larger practical and social aspects of beginning teachers. Stories of attrition and retention, struggle and survival, have iii shaped previous research literature as well as the professional practical landscape where beginning teachers work. Attending to ways beginning teachers make sense of these stories around them, and the stories of tension in their first classrooms, opens possibilities for teacher educators, administrators, policy makers, colleagues, families, and students to create spaces for new stories to be told. In any new situation uncertainty will occur. This research acknowledges that tension is inherent in any new situation and emphasizes the possibility of sustaining beginning teachers in their stories of themselves as teachers in the midst of that tension. This inquiry makes openings for conversations about the importance of acknowledging familial and personal stories as part of what sustains a person at the beginning of a teaching career.

The United States is currently facing a shortage of qualified teachers; specifically, agricultural education has recorded shortages for several years. Many agriculture teachers will leave the profession well before retirement. Those teachers who leave the profession are often dissatisfied with their chosen career and exhibit low levels of teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction. The purpose of this census study was to describe the current level of teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction among all early career Kentucky agriculture teachers (N = 80). The study also sought to determine if a relationship existed between teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction among early career Kentucky agriculture teachers. Teacher self-efficacy was measured through three constructs: student engagement, instructional practices, and classroom management. It was concluded that early career agriculture teachers in Kentucky are efficacious and generally satisfied with teaching. A variety of relationships were found to exist between each construct and overall job satisfaction between each group of teachers.

The quality of teaching occurring in schools is directly linked to the quality of preservice preparation that teachers receive (Darling-Hammond, 2000). This is particularly important in the area of music teacher education, given the unique challenges that classroom music teachers commonly face (Ballantyne, 2001). This thesis explores early-career music teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of their preservice teacher education programs in Queensland. It also explores influences impacting upon early-career music teachers' perceptions of effectiveness and early-career music teachers' perceived needs in relation to their preservice preparation. The study addresses the research questions through the use of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. In Stage 1 of the research, questionnaires were completed by 76 secondary classroom music teachers in their first four years of teaching in Queensland, Australia. In Stage 2 of the research, 15 of these teachers were interviewed to explore findings from the questionnaire in depth. Findings suggest that preservice teachers perceive a need for teacher education courses to be contextualised, integrated and allow for the continual development of knowledge and skills throughout their early years in schools. This research provides an empirical basis for reconceptualising music teacher education courses and raises important issues that music teacher educators need to address in order to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for classroom music teaching.

Submitted by Morgana Andrade (morgana.andrade@ufes.br) on 2016-03-28T20:15:13Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Valéria M. Zucolotto.pdf: 5529802 bytes, checksum: 1d4143439ec5395449176231c891b47a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Patricia Barros (patricia.barros@ufes.br) on 2016-03-30T15:46:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Valéria M. Zucolotto.pdf: 5529802 bytes, checksum: 1d4143439ec5395449176231c891b47a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-30T15:46:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Valéria M. Zucolotto.pdf: 5529802 bytes, checksum: 1d4143439ec5395449176231c891b47a (MD5) / CAPES / Esta pesquisa focaliza o início da carreira docente na Educação Infantil. No reconhecimento da especificidade da primeira etapa da Educação Básica e na compreensão de que o início da carreira é fundamental para a trajetória profissional dos professores, tem o objetivo de compreender a constituição do início da carreira docente de professoras que têm na Educação Infantil suas primeiras vivências profissionais. O trabalho se estrutura por princípios teórico-metodológicos bakhtinianos (BAKHTIN, 2003), contextualiza o desenvolvimento da docência na Educação Infantil no Brasil e a complexidade no início da carreira, dialogando, deste modo, com os conceitos de saberes docentes (TARDIF, 2002) e desenvolvimento profissional (MARCELO GARCÍA, 1999). A abordagem é qualitativa do tipo exploratória e se apoia no princípio de interação dialógica (BAKHTIN, 2003). Dispõe como fonte de produção de dados entrevistas individuais e coletivas com um grupo de professoras no segundo ano de atuação profissional na Educação Infantil. Nesse movimento, a dialogia orienta a análise das enunciações das professoras sobre início de carreira, no intuito de conhecer as vivências dos novos processos formativos. A análise dos dados produzidos indica que o início da carreira docente na Educação Infantil se constitui em complexas condições e transições de emprego, nas quais residem as principais dificuldades de desenvolvimento profissional. Paralelo às dificuldades encontradas, o aprendizado da docência na Educação Infantil ocorre por meio do desenvolvimento de parcerias com professoras mais experientes e também por meio do reconhecimento das necessidades de cuidado e educação de cada criança. Logo, é evidenciado que as professoras iniciantes reformulam suas perspectivas didáticas e modos de saber fazer em função das especificidades que envolve cada contexto no qual estão inseridas. / This study focuses on the early teaching career in Early Childhood Education (ECE). In acknowledgement of the specifics in the first stage of Brazilian Basic Education and understanding that the early career is fundamental to the career path of teachers, it aims to understand the formation of early teaching career of women teachers who have their first professional experiences in ECE. This study is structured by bakhtinian theoretical­methodological principles (BAKHTIN, 2003), It contextualizes the development of teaching in Early Childhood Education in Brazil and the complexity in the early career, dialoguing, thus, with the concepts of teaching knowledge (TARDIF, 2002) and professional development (MARCELO GARCIA, 1999). The approach is qualitative and exploratory type and is based on the dialogic interaction principle (BAKHTIN, 2003). It presents individual and collective interviews with a group of women teachers in the second year of professional experience in ECE as the source of data production. In this context, the dialogy guides the analysis of utterances from the teachers about early career, in order to understand the experiences of new formative processes. The analysis of the resulting data indicates that the early teaching career in Early Childhood Education occurs amid complex conditions and employment transitions, in which reside the main difficulties for professional development. Parallel to the difficulties encountered, the learning of teaching in ECE occurs through the development of partnerships with more experienced teachers and also by recognizing the needs of care and education of each child. It is therefore evidenced that the beginning teachers reformulate their teaching perspectives and ways of know­make in terms of specifics surrounding each context in which they operate.

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