One for all, all for one? A study regarding collegial efficacy as a means to support English teachers in their teaching

This study sets out to explore English teachers’ perceptions of aspects concerning theirworkplace and collegial collaborations. At the present time in Sweden, there is a need fornew qualified teachers, and furthermore, a considerable amount of the current teachersemployed are considering resignation. This has resulted in that many unlicensed teachers,who are not properly qualified, have been hired. In some schools, this has causedcompetence development to stagnate, having teachers rely more on getting through theirwork-days rather than to develop the quality of their teaching. Furthermore, reports havesurfaced that reveal heightened stress levels, and workload to be causing more sick leaveand burnout. However, a concept called collective efficacy, have been found to countermany of these issues. By prioritizing collective collaboration and efforts that are wellstructured and supported by the school leadership, personnel have been shown to improvein both efficacy and well-being. This is why we wanted to examine what perceptionsEnglish teachers had of their current workplace situation, communication, opportunities forcollegial exchanges, supportive measures and competence development in regard toteaching English. The study was conducted using a mixed methods approach. We gathereddata through a questionnaire with 34 respondents, and through semi-structured interviewswith two English teachers. A majority of the teachers in the study were positive to theperception that they collectively could improve student results. They were also positive tothe benefits of collegial exchanges. However, time is frequently identified as the leadingfactor as to why they can not, under ruling circumstances, incorporate more structuredcollegial exchanges. This implies that schools and school leadership would need todedicate both time and to structure formal and functioning meetings for these collegialexchanges at their schools - should they chose an approach such as this.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-35592
Date January 2019
CreatorsAndersson, Emil, Olsson, Jimmy
PublisherMalmö universitet, Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle (LS), Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för lärande och samhälle (LS), Malmö universitet/Lärande och samhälle
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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