The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions of novice teachers in 1 school district regarding their professional experiences. Novice teacher was defined as someone with 5 years or fewer in the teaching profession. The study was of an emergent design using phenomenological qualitative methods that included face-to-face interviews, triangulation of information, and analyzation with specific adherence given to understanding the social phenomena of the lived experience from the participants’ perspectives. Specifically, the study addressed possible relationships between novice teachers’ experiences and perceptions of success and self-efficacy that contribute to their choice of continuing in the profession of teaching. Participants in this study ranged from 23-55 years of age, represented male and female gender, encompassed all levels of grade configuration within the school district (elementary, middle, high school), and covered experiences within each of the 5 years of defined novice work. Information was collected through individual one-on-one interviews covering preparatory programs, individual school sites, district induction programs, and the relationships developed within each spiraled experience. This study identified reasons for retention in the population of novice teachers and possible obstacles that might cause a novice teacher to leave the profession during or at the end of the 5 year apprenticeship. Information collected revealed that age, timing of entrance into a teaching career and preparatory programs had an effect on novice efficacy and job success. In addition data suggested that job support, job fulfillment, as well as future career choice were influenced by experiences a novice lived through within a school culture including type of administrative support, peer mentoring, collegial socialization, district expectations, and induction involvement.

This study is an auto-ethnographic examination of reflections of a novice itinerant art teacher. The teacher taught at four schools within her first two years of teaching. Reflections of her first two years are recorded, then analyzed, and suggestions for other novice itinerant teachers are provided

Novice teachers experience a unique set of challenges as they enter the field of professional teaching. While extensive research regarding the reflective practice of expert teachers exists, there has been a shortage regarding the relationship between reflective practice and novice teachers. This study investigated this relationship and how reflective practice in novice teachers is specifically affected by the novice teachers' perception of the audience to their reflective dialogues.This qualitative study employed three case studies of novice teachers in their first year of professional teaching. Each case was constructed using data gathered through extensive field notes, in-depth interviews, and collection of written artifacts produced by the subjects. In addition, secondary subjects were observed and interviewed regarding their perceptions of the reflective process of the novice teachers. This data was analyzed in an iterative process and coded for themes to create individual cases as well as expedite cross-case comparisons. The novice teachers in this study exhibited important commonalities in the sources they chose for reflective dialogues and their attitudes regarding those sources. Important themes emerged regarding their perception of audience that affected the topics they chose to discuss in their dialogues. In addition, the nature of the authenticity of their dialogues was investigated and findings emerged indicating various layers of authenticity including: truthfulness, relevance, timeliness, and accuracy. Findings in this study assist in understanding the process of acclimation for beginning teachers and their progression from novice towards the tacit knowledge and practice of an expert teacher. The investigation also drew conclusions regarding the role of administrators, mentors, peers, induction programs, and non-professional support as they related to the assistance of novice teachers.

This study is an auto-ethnographic examination of reflections of a novice itinerant art teacher. The teacher taught at four schools within her first two years of teaching. Reflections of her first two years are recorded, then analyzed, and suggestions for other novice itinerant teachers are provided

Novice teachers face a variety of challenges when they enter the teaching profession. They are confronted with the harsh realities of the teaching profession and are expected to cope with immense demands and responsibilities. Heads of Department are responsible for co- ordinating and providing guidance to novice teachers. However, little is known about the experiences of novice teachers in terms of the support they get from Heads of Department. This study explored novice teachers’ experiences of Head of Department support. Purposively sampling was used to select five novice teachers and four Heads of Department from three primary schools situated in the Tshwane South School District. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The semi-structured interviews were analysed using a thematic data analysis procedure and the documents through content analysis. The findings of the study highlighted similarities in the challenges and the support needs as expressed by the novice teachers and by the Heads of Department. The novice teachers in this study articulated the need for more guidance and mentorship to be provided whereas the Heads of Department stated that due to the demands of the professional task in terms of the multiple roles they play and time constraints, the support they give to the novice teachers is inadequate. The study concluded that both novice teachers and Heads of Department struggled with managing the demands of their profession and novice teachers called for further support and mentorship to be provided on aspects that contributed to their holistic development of teaching abilities and attributes. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

The mobility rates within the Kindergarten--Grade 12 teacher workforce are distressing, and the teaching profession has a relatively high turnover rate compared to other occupations. The Commonwealth of Virginia encounters many challenges when attempting to retain highly qualified teachers in schools. Despite the state's efforts to staff all schools, high teacher turnover rates persist. Novice teacher attrition is more prevalent in schools identified as hard-to-staff. Turnover affects not only the composition of faculties at individual schools and the stability of these schools but the quality of the teacher workforce as well. The factors that affect the retention of novice teachers in hard-to-staff high schools in Virginia were examined in this study. Similar to Giacometti's (2005) study, compensation, pre-service preparation, external forces, school culture, in-service training support, motivation to teach, and emotional factors were variables used in this investigation. Demographics, principal leadership actions, and economic conditions were added to Giacometti's original theory of novice teacher retention, and some of Giacometti's variables were refined to improve the theory and the quality of the measurements. Following descriptive and exploratory bivariate analyses, binary logistic regression was applied to predict teacher retention with two levels: planning to leave the school and planning to stay in the school. Results indicate that teachers who planned to leave were more likely to be minorities, to perceive less school cultural support, and to perceive less parental support than those who planned to stay. The results of the study have significant practical implications for school leaders, especially those who serve hard-to-staff high schools, in developing retention plans to keep their highly qualified novice teachers. / Ed. D.

The increase in cultural diversity within the K-12 U.S. student population has resulted in a greater focus on preparing future teachers to enact culturally responsive pedagogy (Villegas and Lucas, 2002). Over the past two decades, various scholars have studied the perceptions and dispositions of teachers in regard to topics of multiculturalism, diversity, and social justice education. However, there remains a limited number of studies which address beginning teachers' transitions from the conceptualization to the implementation of culturally responsive teaching. This study employs a qualitative approach to examining one first-year teacher's understandings of culturally responsive pedagogy and her experiences with implementing a culturally responsive curriculum unit. The researcher took on the role of a participant-observer to engage in-depth data collection and analysis through the use of a variety of data sources including: interviews, lesson planning sessions, classroom observations, field notes, analytic memos, and reflective journal entries. The findings of the study reveal the importance of coursework on culturally responsive pedagogy during teacher education and the need for increased support, through mentoring and modeling, to assist preservice and novice teachers in their efforts to translate culturally responsive theory into practice. Longitudinal studies which begin in teacher education and follow participants into their first year of teaching are needed to contribute further insight regarding the challenges faced by, and needs of, novice teachers who attempt to teach in culturally responsive ways. / Doctor of Philosophy / The increase in cultural diversity within the K-12 U.S. student population has resulted in a greater focus on preparing future educators to teach in ways that are responsive to the needs of their culturally diverse students. Over the past two decades, more research has been conducted on topics of multiculturalism, diversity, and social justice education. However, there remains a limited number of studies which address beginning teachers' transitions from their understanding to their implementation of culturally responsive teaching. This study examines one first-year teacher's understandings of culturally responsive teaching and her experiences with implementing a culturally responsive curriculum unit. The researcher conducted in-depth data collection and analysis through the use of a variety of data sources including: interviews, lesson planning sessions, classroom observations, field notes, memos, and reflective journal entries. The findings of the study reveal the importance of coursework on culturally responsive teaching during teacher education and the need for increased support, through mentoring and modeling, to assist preservice and novice teachers in their efforts to translate the concepts of culturally responsive teaching into practice.

Teachers encounter numerous challenges within their first years of teaching. More support needs to be provided to assist novice teachers with navigating challenges that have been persistent in the literature on novice teachers. This study considered how engaging in guided reflective inquiry could support novice teachers' abilities to notice and respond to the challenges they encounter. In particular, this study explored the different identities from which novice teachers can draw inspiration to understand how they may support or constrain the process of responding to challenges. Participating in guided reflective inquiry encouraged novice teachers to explore their responses to individual "wobble moments" (Fecho, 2011) and view those uncertainties as moments of growth. The theories of dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981) and dialogical self theory (Hermans and Hermans-Konopka, 2010) provided a lens through which meanings were created from the generated data. This study focused on six novice teachers within their first three years of full-time teaching and implemented elements of transactional analysis (Stewart, 2011) to analyze the narratives, memos, reflections, and interview discussions generated from the participant and researcher. The ways in which novice teachers noticed the challenges they encountered, used the concept of wobble to engage in dialogue with those challenges, and considered how the exploration of one's identity supported or constrained that process were examined in this study. Three generated understandings indexed the importance of enacting approaches to teacher induction that better support novice teachers: (1) challenges encountered by the participants aligned with persistent struggles that have been well-documented in the literature on teacher challenges, (2) participant responses to wobble moments involved a two-step process of an initial reaction and a decided-upon action, and (3) participant developing teacher identities were influenced by numerous aspects of their dialogical self. The implications of this study point to the need to enact approaches to teacher induction that use guided reflective inquiry as an adaptable structure to support novice teachers' abilities to bring their identities into dialogue with the tensions from challenges they experience in their individual teaching contexts. / Doctor of Philosophy / The purpose of this study was to examine ways in which novice teachers can be better supported through the challenges that are often within the first years of teaching. This study employed the theoretical frameworks of dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981) and dialogical self theory (Hermans and Hermans-Konopka, 2010) to consider how engaging in guided reflective inquiry could support a novice teacher's abilities to notice and respond to the challenges encountered. An in-depth exploration of the novice teacher's identity supported the process of examining influences on their responses to challenges. Six teachers participated in this study after meeting the criteria of being employed as an English or Language Arts teacher, teaching students within secondary 6th-12th grades, and being within their first three years of full-time teaching. The study involved three stages: an intake interview, three rounds per participant of submitting a wobble narrative and then discussing the wobble moment via Zoom, and a final reflection and interview. Transactional analysis (Stewart, 2011) assisted in the process of coding and analyzing the data to develop three generated understandings: (1) challenges encountered by the participants aligned with persistent struggles that have been well-documented in the literature on teacher challenges, (2) participant responses to wobble moments involved a two-step process of an initial reaction and a decided-upon action, and (3) participant developing teacher identities were influenced by numerous aspects of their dialogical selves. The implications of the understandings promote the necessity for teacher induction to implement guided reflective inquiry as a way to better support novice teachers through the challenges they encounter.

This case study examined what happened when a novice teacher worked from a critical, dialogic stance to explore difference in his secondary English classroom. The study focused on a second-year teacher, employed at a suburban middle school, who had been trained in dialogic pedagogy during his teacher preparation program. Methods included lesson planning sessions, daily observations of the participant's classroom instruction, and participant interviews. Multiple data sources, including recordings of planning sessions, interview transcripts, classroom observation field notes, and analytical memos were generated and analyzed to establish new understandings about how dialogic practice affected his and his students' classroom experiences. These understandings suggested that the participant's efforts to enact a dialogic stance both benefited and complicated his practice. Insights generated by this study offer implications for teacher educators seeking to guide teacher candidates towards the translation of pedagogical theory into successful classroom practice in field placements and early-career classrooms. / Doctor of Philosophy / This case study examined what happened when a novice teacher worked from a critical, dialogic stance to explore difference in his secondary English classroom. The study focused on a second-year teacher, employed at a suburban middle school, who had been trained in dialogic pedagogy during his teacher preparation program. Methods included lesson planning sessions, daily observations of the participant’s classroom instruction, and participant interviews. Multiple data sources, including recordings of planning sessions, interview transcripts, classroom observation field notes, and analytical memos were generated and analyzed to establish new understandings about how dialogic practice affected his and his students’ classroom experiences. These understandings suggested that the participant’s efforts to enact a dialogic stance both benefited and complicated his practice. Insights generated by this study offer implications for teacher educators seeking to guide teacher candidates towards the translation of pedagogical theory into successful classroom practice in field placements and early-career classrooms.

The focus of this study was to investigate the experiences of novice teachers of induction in three selected schools in Oshana region, Namibia. The point of departure is that the experiences of novice teachers of induction and support are not known. The problem was investigated by means of a literature study and empirical investigation, using a qualitative, phenomenological approach. Findings revealed that novice teachers do not have the same needs and do not have similar experiences of support. Key findings reveal that novice teachers’ problems can be solved better if support is given timeously and over a longer period, with all the stakeholders’ equal involvement in the induction process. Novice teachers are capable of making meaningful contributions to schools, and schools can benefit from them. The study recommends that novice teachers’ voices be heard and their views be incorporated when planning future induction programmes, to suit their individual and contextual needs. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)