This explanatory sequential mixed methods study was designed to determine, from the perspective of beginning teachers, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic affected their intentions to remain in teaching. There were two additional goals in conducting the study: (a) to determine the key practices, supports, or events that played a role in impacting teachers' intentions to remain in teaching during a crisis; and (b) to determine the key practices, supports, or events teachers believe the district or school could do that might further impact their intention to remain in teaching during a crisis. In Phase 1, a survey was administered to teachers who began employment in the studied district in academic years 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In Phase 2, a semi-structured focus group interview was conducted with volunteer participants who had taken the survey to develop a deeper understanding of the patterns observed from the survey responses. While this study was designed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers' intentions to remain in teaching, a statistically significant result was not identified. This study identified practices, supports, and events that impacted beginning teacher retention, focusing on what was effective, ineffective, and could have been added to increase effectiveness. Beginning teachers self-identified that mentorship within their subject and grade level, salary and benefit increases, and supportive cultures were helpful in retention. In contrast, strategies deemed ineffective included a lack of preparation for the challenges that they faced and impractical professional development. Beginning teachers explained that retention might have been increased if school leaders allowed greater opportunities for networking, as well as a greater focus on training teachers in technology and software systems for classroom use.

Britt (1998) indicated that to get to the heart of the complex issues first year teachers face, it is necessary to give first year teachers an opportunity to tell their own stories of their experiences as neophytes. The purpose of this study was to share the experiences of first year teachers. Of particular interest was how well these first year teachers believed their teacher preparation program had prepared them. The research question posed for this study was: How do graduates of Mississippi State University describe their first year teaching experience? A multiple-case design was used in this research study. Because this research was exploratory and descriptive, and because it had multiple cases, the replication approach to multiple-case studies was employed. The researcher was the instrument used for the collection of data. Five first year teachers participated in this study. All graduated from Mississippi State University and were teaching for the first time during the 2003-2004 school year. Six major themes emerged from the data. These themes were: (a) a feeling of being overwhelmed, (b) dealing with student misbehavior, (c) concern for student learning, (d) ineffective mentoring, (e) understanding the local culture, particularly in the area of discipline, and (f) lack of commitment to remain in the teaching profession. Three additional concerns of three participants emerged as well. These were: (a) negative student teaching experience, (b) conflict with parents, and (c) difficulties with other professionals. Recommendations included: (a) re-examining the practicum experience throughout the teacher education program, (b) implementing a follow-up program for graduates of the teacher education program, (c) re-examining the critical needs scholarship, and (d) implementing a study concerning student teacher placement.

Several states introduced alternative certification (AC) programs in the mid-1980s to alleviate the teacher shortage situation, and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is an example of just such a curriculum. Three research questions for this study were: 1) what were the challenges beginning MAT teachers faced? 2) what were beginning MAT teachers? perceptions of their training program?, and 3) what were the beginning MAT teachers? attitudes toward their teaching career? Case methodology was conducted to highlight the research questions. Six beginning MAT teachers that graduated from Mississippi State University participated in this study. Data were drawn from interviews, observations, and a concomitant related document analysis. Results revealed three themes as challenges for the majority of MAT teachers: (a) students? low motivation, (b) No Child Left Behind (NCLB)ountability, and (c) lack of parental support. In terms of perception regarding their training program, all six MAT teachers exhibited gratefulness for their training programs availability, especially for the opportunity to gain teacher licensure. In addition, they reported they were confident about their teaching preparation. However, some teachers agreed that there was room for improvement. All participants suggested the following as potential enhancements for their MAT program: (a) exhibit more specificity concerning program requirements, (b) contain more content knowledge courses, (c) assign a mentor, (d) make the certification process easier and less complicated, and (e) add any training applicable to their future teaching career. Again, these findings could be perceived as guidelines for the improvement of the MAT program and as methods for ensuring effective AC teachers graduate from the training program. Among the six participants, five wanted to quit teaching in the near future, with only one, an older second career seeker teacher, deciding to remain in the profession. Most importantly, she was the only one whose previous educational background and job experience were the same as the subject she taught. The above findings filled several research gaps when compared with previous studies. For example, there is an inconsistency between MAT teachers? licensure area and content knowledge background. Further studies are needed to investigate samples of graduates from other AC programs.

No description available.

No description available.

On-farm apprenticeships are gaining momentum as an important strategy for beginning farmer training. They are also a space for identity work and rehearsal of alternative agrifood movement practice (AAMs; MacAuley and Niewolny, 2016; Pilgeram, 2011). AAMs embody and recursively construct values of biophysical sustainability, food quality, egalitarianism, and agrarianism (Constance, Renard, and Rivera-Ferre; 2014). However, AAMs have been critiqued for disproportionately representing upper- to middle-class white cultural norms (Allen, 2004; Guthman, 2008a; Slocum, 2007), for romanticized agrarian ideology (Carlisle, 2013), and for mechanisms reproductive of neoliberalism, which buttresses the dominant agrifood system (Guthman, 2008b). These AAM discourse elements are expressed in on-farm apprenticeships. On-farm apprenticeships are variably understood as beginning farmer training (Hamilton, 2011), as inexpensive farm labor (MacAuley and Niewolny, 2016; Pilgeram, 2011), and as sites of tension between economic and non-economic attributes (Ekers, Levkoe, Walker, and Dale, 2016). I illuminate these dynamics within on-farm apprenticeships through the complementary theoretical lenses of cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 1999), cognitive praxis (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991), and cultural identity theory (Hall, 1996). I employ critical ethnographic case study methodology to explore issues of power, social reproduction, and equity. I conducted 53 days of participant observation, worked alongside 19 apprentices on six farms for 37 days, conducted interviews (n=25), and completed a document analysis (n=407). I observed white spaces and class-based work values re/produced, mediated by AAM discourse. Furthermore, I observed three distinct objectives within the activity system: beginning farmer training, inexpensive labor for farms, and an authentic farm lifestyle experience. In contrast to the first two, this third objective, the authentic lifestyle, resists market-based logics. Instead, logics that did govern behavior include membership in a movement; an ascetic bent; the valorization of farmers and the authentic farm lifestyle; alignment with clean, healthy, and dirty parts of the job; and communitarianism. These logics point towards the creation of a third type of nonmarket/quasimarket space (Gibson-Graham, Cameron, and Healy, 2013). I describe several considerations for on-farm apprenticeship to lead to greater equity, reproduction of viable small farm labor models, and stabilized and legitimate nonmarket understandings of what makes on-farm apprenticeship function. / Ph. D.

The average age of principal farm operators rose from 50.3 years in 1978, to 57.1 years in 2007, as farmers retire and new farmers do not enter farming (NASS, 2013).With declining numbers of entrants into farming, agricultural educators and service providers must better understand strategies for effectively preparing beginning farmers. On-farm apprenticeships in the U.S. show promise as a means to prepare farmers and are increasing in number (Niewolny and Lillard, 2010). Lave (1988) writes 'knowledge-in-practice, constituted in the settings of practice, is the locus of the most powerful knowledgeability of people in the lived-in world' (p. 14). Thus, farming, as a complex set of interwoven skills, is best learned in situ, as situated learning. On-farm apprenticeships therefore may allow learners to construct knowledge in context, and build identities as farmers. In this thesis, I share findings from a mixed methods study that explored what kinds of on-farm apprenticeships are available, and to whom; and important educational practices, structures, and institutions that support on-farm apprenticeship learning. This study comprises data from a survey (N=45) of Virginia farmers who host apprentices, and interviews (N=12) with farmers and on-farm apprentices. Findings describe who undertakes on-farm apprenticeships, and suggest that apprentices develop expert identities through situated learning with farmers. Findings describe how farmers participate as educators, and how farms function as sites of situated learning. This study also found that on-farm apprenticeships are embedded within alternative food movements, with social reproduction potentially occurring. I also explore broader implications for preparing beginning farmers. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

Although there is an extensive amount of literature on the developmental stages of beginning therapists and the challenges they face, little is known about one of their most difficult challenges; transferring theory learned in class to their practice. This study is a qualitative look at how beginning therapists learn to apply theory to their practice. Ten students who were beginning therapists with at least 75 hours of client contact hours were interviewed from four different universities with accredited marriage and family therapy programs. The study was conducted using a phenomenological perspective to explore how beginning therapists begin to apply theory to their practice. Using the constant comparison method of analysis, five major themes emerged from the interviews as well as a general developmental process that help to describe how beginning therapists apply theory to their practice. The main themes found include before seeing clients, early process of theory application, what was helpful, later process of theory application and a reflection of that process. Implications for beginning therapists and training programs as well as future research are indicated. / Master of Science

The focus of this study is the phenomenon of beginning teacher competence. In Queensland, the context for the research presented here, the competence of beginning teachers is appraised by their supervisor (usually the principal) at the end of their first year of full-time employment. This appraisal is conducted on behalf of the Queensland Board of Teacher Registration and a positive outcome enables beginning teachers to achieve full teacher registration. Although there exists research suggesting that principals bring to the appraisal process their conceptions of competence, there is a dearth of knowledge about beginning teachers' conceptions of their own teaching competence. The research presented here adds to the debate about competence by including the voice of the beginning teacher. This focus, located within the context of local issues, is used to explore important themes that are relevant to other systems of beginning teacher appraisal. The selection of phenomenography as the research approach adopted for this study is based on its appropriateness to the investigation of a phenomenon such as competence. Phenomenography aims to describe, analyse and understand the ways in which people experience aspects of the world around them. The point of departure that sets apart this approach from many others, is the principle that phenomenography seeks to investigate neither the phenomenon, nor the people who experience the phenomenon, but the relation between the two. The results of a phenomenographic study are presented as a description of all of the possible conceptions that a specific group can have about a particular phenomenon. For the research presented here, eighteen beginning teachers were interviewed individually in order to identify and describe the variation in their conceptions of competence. Research participants representing State, Catholic and Independent school systems were drawn from preschools, special, primary and secondary schools of one provincial city, in one regional area of South East Queensland. Two major outcomes emerged from the research presented here. Firstly, beginning teachers were identified as experiencing competence in a number of ways. Although these conceptions were varied, their number was quite limited. Six distinct conceptions of beginning teacher competence were identified, with a further finding that individual beginning teachers were not limited to one conception, but conceived of competence in multiple ways. Because the relational nature of competence demands that it be investigated within the context in which it is experienced, this study also identified five different approaches to competence appraisal, as understood by the beginning teachers who had undergone the appraisal process. Comparisons of both conceptions of competence and approaches to appraisal were then compared to existing research in this area. This thesis presents an alternative view of competence and appraisal that may be used to further develop the process of appraisal and indeed, the professional development of beginning teachers.

The aim of the diploma thesis was to find out how beginning teachers perceive the influence of the higher education and the support of the school environment in the course of their first years of practice and also how they subsequently propose to improve the quality of the higher education and the support of the school environment. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve beginning teachers with a one to five years of experience. The data were processed by the method of the grounded theory. It was discovered that the beginning teachers' perception of the higher education and the support of the school environment is influenced not only by the form of those two elements but also by the teachers' perceived problems, which are very individual. The factors that cause the individuality of the problems and subsequently the point of views of the beginning teachers are discussed in the thesis. It is not possible to determine the form of the higher education and the support of the school environment that would suit everyone given the individuality of the beginning teachers' views. On the other hand, there are some trends across the opinions of beginning teachers and thus they are presented in the thesis. Key words: beginning teacher, problems of beginning teachers, higher...