Australian Association for Research in Education Symposium 2010
Symposium presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education International Education Research Conference (December, 2010). Melbourne, VIC.
Symposium: New ways of investigating early career teacher retention: Resilience theory
Early career teacher retention is an international concern. Resilience theory provides a set of resources for examining issues around the phenomenon of early career teacher retention in different ways. The papers presented in this symposium report on research investigating various issues related to the resilience and retention of early career teachers. They illustrate research findings of projects that investigated the issue from pre-service to in-service teachers. The research findings presented in this symposium have implications for pre-service teacher educators, school leadership personnel, system representatives and most importantly early career teachers themselves.
Discussant: Professor Nan Bahr, Queensland University of Technology
Paper 1:
Keeping cool: Building resilience in initial teacher education curriculum
Anne Price and Caroline Mansfield
Murdoch University
Teacher resilience has emerged as an important field of research, particularly in contexts where there are high rates of teacher attrition, stress and burnout. There is a wealth of research regarding the factors that contribute to teacher attrition, such as workloads, lack of support, behaviour management, meeting the complex and diverse needs of students and low professional status (Friedman, 2004; Kyriacou, 2001; Wilhelm, Dewhurst-Savellis, & Parker, 2000; Wilson, 2002). Another approach to investigating these issues has been to examine why teachers remain in the profession, despite experiencing challenges, and the types of characteristics and experiences that contribute to teacher resilience (Gordon & Coscarelli, 1996; Gu & Day, 2007; Howard & Johnson, 2004). Teachers who possess characteristics of resilient individuals are more likely to persevere in adverse situations, find it easier to adapt to change and ultimately may be less inclined to consider leaving the profession. Attributes such as a strong sense of competence, efficacy and accomplishment, humour (Bobek, 2002), purposeful career decision making, self-insight, professional freedom and agency (Sumsion, 2004) have also been identified as important. Conversely, teachers who are less resilient are more likely to experience stress and burnout. A shift in thinking from attrition to resilience offers the potential for more effective interventions to occur (Sumsion, 2003).
Given that the first five years of a teacher’s career seem to be the most critical in terms of attrition, it is important to consider how resilience may be promoted among pre-service teachers and investigate how attributes associated with resilience may have an impact on beginning teachers’ experiences. A recurring theme in the literature on teacher attrition, stress and burnout is the notion of the gap between pre-service teacher expectations of their teaching career and the realities they face when they begin teaching. In their 2003 paper “Retaining quality beginning teachers in the profession”, Ewing and Smith report that beginning teachers describe the ‘idealism of the pre-service preparation’ (p. 17) as a contributing factor to some students’ feelings about not being prepared for the ‘real world’ of teaching. Similarly, Friedman has described this “reality shock” as “shattered dreams” (2004, p. 312). It would seem critical then, that teacher educators carefully examine the curriculum of teacher education programmes with a view to modifying curriculum to better prepare students for their professional careers.
This paper reports the progress of a two year study investigating how resilience for teaching may be developed among pre-service teachers and how teacher resilience can be embedded in teacher education programmes. Specifically, this paper will address the following questions.
How is teacher resilience conceptualised in the existing literature?
- What factors of teacher resilience may be embedded into teacher education programmes and how might these be implemented?
Using qualitative and quantitative data gathered from 220 graduating students, preliminary findings from the empirical data as well as the relevant field of literature will be used to discuss these questions. Findings will have implications for the developing literature regarding teacher resilience and for teacher educators.
References
Bobek, B. L. (2002). Teacher resiliency: A key to career longevity. The Clearning House, 75(4), 202-205.
Friedman, I. A. (2004). Directions in teacher training for low-burnout teaching. In E. Frydenberg (Ed.), Thriving, surviving, or going under: Coping with everyday lives (pp. 305-326). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Gordon, K. A., & Coscarelli, W. C. (1996). Recognising and fostering resilience. Performance Improvement, 35(9), 14-17.
Gu, Q., & Day, C. (2007). Teachers resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23, 1302-1316.
Howard, S., & Johnson, B. (2004). Resilient teachers: Resisting stress and burnout. Social Psychology of Education, 7(4), 399-420.
Kyriacou, C. (2001). Teacher stress: Directions for future research. Educational Review, 53(1), 27-35.
Sumsion, J. (2003). "Bad days don't kill you; they just make you stronger": A case study of an early childhood educator's resilience. International Journal of Early Years Education, 11(2), 141-154.
Sumsion, J. (2004). Early childhood teachers' constructions of their resilience and thriving: A continuing investigation. International Journal of Early Years Education, 12(3), 275-290.
Wilhelm, K., Dewhurst-Savellis, J., & Parker, G. (2000). Teacher stress? An analysis of why teachers leave and why they stay. Teachers and Teaching, 6(3), 291-304.
Wilson, V. (2002). Feeling the strain: An overview of the literature on teachers' stress (Report: ED469429): Scottish Council for Research in Education.
Paper 2:
A Framework for Supporting Early Career Teacher Resilience[1]
Bruce Johnson (UniSA), Barry Down (Murdoch), Rosie Le Cornu (UniSA), Judy Peters (UniSA), Anna Sullivan (UniSA), Jane Pearce (Murdoch), and Janet Hunter (ECU)
This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study that is investigating how early career teachers negotiate and deal with challenges to their personal and professional wellbeing during their first years of teaching. The research is funded by the Australian Research Council and involves collaboration between the University of South Australia, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University and eight stakeholder organisations including employer groups and unions in South Australia and Western Australia. It aimed to investigate the dynamic and complex interplay among individual, relational and contextual conditions that operate over time to promote early career teacher resilience. Furthermore, it aimed to develop a framework that could be used to examine policies, practices and resources that promote early career teacher resilience.
Research on early career teacher resilience is particularly significant at this time given the current economic, social and political context which surrounds the teaching profession. There is no dispute that these are tough times to be a teacher. Many factors have been identified as impacting on teacher wellbeing and competence including an expectation that teachers continually adapt and keep up with different types and functions of families, changes in work patterns, as well as new and different information and communication technologies (eg Pillay et al, 2005). As teachers’ work has continued to expand and increase in complexity, the public profile and standing of the profession has fallen (MCEETYA, 2003). For these and other reasons, many Western nations are experiencing difficulties attracting new teachers and retaining them once they are in the profession (Moon, 2007).
What is lacking in the literature currently is an in-depth understanding of the interplay of personal and contextual factors around early career teachers’ experiences. We believe that resilience affords a new lens through which to examine the complex issues of retention of beginning teachers and new teachers’ learning. By resilience we mean ‘the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances’ (Masten, Best and Garmezy, 1990, p 425). However, we are adopting a socially critical orientation to resilience where we not only acknowledge the psychological dimensions of resilience that help to explain some differences in human agency, but also the broader social, economic and political forces on human experience (see Johnson & Down, 2009).
The methodology for the study is a critical enquiry drawing on the traditions of narrative enquiry and critical ethnography. Sixty beginning teachers from the two states were interviewed at the beginning and end of 2009 and again mid way through 2010. Towards the end of 2009 interviews were also held with a member of the leadership team in their schools. Data were also collected from a series of Roundtables held in each of the two states and attended by representatives from stakeholder groups. NVivo8 was used to manage a thematic approach to data analysis.
Preliminary analysis identified five major themes or domains that support early career teacher resilience. The domains are: (a) relationships, (b) school culture, (c) teacher identity, (d) teachers’ work, and (e) system policies and practices. These domains became the basis for the development of a draft framework of conditions that promote early career teacher resilience. The framework was trialled with 7 schools and the Roundtables in each state during 2010 and further developed. The latest version of the framework will be explored in this paper as well as its potential as a heuristic to consider how the resilience of early career teachers can be supported and enhanced.
References
Masten, A., Best, K., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contributions from the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 425-444.
MCEETYA (2003). Demand and Supply of Primary and Secondary Teachers in Australia. Carlton South, Victoria: Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs.
Moon, B. (2007). Research analysis: Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers: A global overview of current policies and practices. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
Pillay, H., Goodard, R, & Wilss, L. (2005). Well-being, burnout and competence: Implications for teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 30(2), 22-33.
Paper 3:
Doing it tough but getting through: The importance of early career teacher resilience in remote Australian schools
Anna Sullivan, Vanessa Biedrzycki, and Bruce Johnson
University of South Australia
Across Australia, remote schools struggle to attract and retain teachers (Herrington & Herrington, 2001). Teacher transience often has a negative impact on students who are already significantly disadvantaged (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 2000). Research has identified many reasons that contribute to this high teacher transience such as professional and personal isolation (Herrington & Herrington, 2001; Irinaga-Bistolas, Schalock, Marvin, & Beck, 2007; Sharplin, 2002), limited professional support (Herrington & Herrington, 2001) and poor pre-service preparation (Baills, Bell, Greensill, & Wilcox, 2002; Halsey, 2006; Sharplin, 2002). Despite these clearly identified difficulties associated with teaching in isolated areas, early career teachers are often enticed by employing bodies to work in remote schools by promises of permanent employment. Such enticements can satisfy early carer teachers’ extrinsic need for employment security, but are often not accompanied by the tangible supports they need to cope with the challenges of beginning teaching in isolated and remote schools. We, and our colleagues[2], identified a need for research that investigates early career teachers’ experiences of teaching generally, and more specifically, teaching in remote schools, with a particular focus on the factors that support them.
The case study discussed in this paper was drawn from a larger study that investigated the resilience of early career teachers more generally (Johnson, Down, Le Cornu, Peters, Sullivan, Pearce, & Hunter, 2010). A data set was created for one early career teacher who was employed in a remote Australian school. The data were gathered from two semi-structured interviews which were held with an early career teacher at the beginning and the end of the school year. Additionally data from an interview with the principal held towards the end of the year was included. These interviews were transcribed and imported into Nvivo8. An inductive process of analysis was used. Finally, we used an emerging conceptual model of resilience to analyse our data (Papatraianou, Sullivan, & Johnson, 2009). This model conceptualises resilience as a situated construct with three domains of factors: (a) the personal domain, (b) the situated domain, and (c) the systemic domain. The factors within these domains can either enable or constrain an individual’s resilience. This broad model of resilience affords a lens through which to examine the issues of early career teachers working in remote schools. This human resilience theoretical framework was used “as an intellectual tool to interpret the narrative text” to help create “new understandings” (Kim, 2008, p. 254).
The findings of this study indicate that despite many extreme challenges to her wellbeing, this early career teacher managed to sustain her commitment to her students and to the position she accepted. The findings are framed by the “Draft Profile of Conditions that support Early Career Teacher (ECT) Resilience” that arose from the larger project (Johnson, et al., 2010). They indicate that four of the domains in the Profile were enabling factors that supported this early career teacher’s resilience: (a) Relationships, (b) Policies and Practices, (c) Teacher Identity, and (d) Teachers’ Work. However the fifth domain “School Culture” was not evident as an enabling factor.
In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that employing bodies should consider implementing policies and practices that support early career teachers on personal, situated and systemic levels to be resilient.
References
Baills, L., Bell, S., Greensill, B., & Wilcox, L. (2002). Bridging the gap between beginning teachers and isolated/rural communities. Education in Rural Australia, 12(1), 55-62.
Halsey, J. (2006). Towards a spatial 'self-help' map for teaching and living in a rural context. International Education Journal, 7(4), 490-498.
Herrington, A., & Herrington, J. (2001, December 2-6). Web-based strategies for professional induction in rural, regional and remote areas. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Fremantle, Western Australia.
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. (2000). Emerging themes: National enquiry into rural and remote education: (HREOC).
Irinaga-Bistolas, C., Schalock, M., Marvin, R., & Beck, L. (2007). Bridges to success: A developmental induction model for rural early career special educators. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 26(1), 13-22.
Johnson, B., Down, B., Le Cornu, R., Peters, J., Sullivan, A. M., Pearce, J., et al. (2010). Conditions that support early career teacher resilience. Paper to be presented at the Australian Teacher Education Association Conference.
Papatraianou, L. H., Sullivan, A. M., & Johnson, B. (2009). Re-defining resilience: Moving towards some conceptual clarification. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education International Education Research Conference.
Sharplin, E. (2002). Rural retreat or outback hell: Expectations of rural and remote teaching. Issues in Educational Research, 12.