Australian Association for Research in Education Symposium 2011
Symposium to be presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education International Education Research Conference (December, 2011). Hobart, TAS.
Symposium:Supporting Early Career Teacher Resilience: Insights from a 5 Year ARC Project1
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 challenging 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 (e.g. Pillay et al, 2005). 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).
This symposium reports the most recent findings of a longitudinal study that is investigating the question: ‘What conditions are conducive to promoting teacher resilience and retention in the first two 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.
The research was designed as a critical enquiry drawing on the traditions of narrative enquiry and critical ethnography (Smyth, Angus, Down and McInerney, 2006). The data are qualitative and were collected over the course of two years through semi-structured interviews with the teachers and a member of the leadership team in each school, followed by workshops with selected school participants. A preliminary thematic analysis was conducted and more fine grained coding categories were then created using NVivo8 software. Five main ‘Conditions for Resilience’ emerged from the analysis: relationships; school culture; teacher identity; teachers’ work; and policies and practices (see Johnson et al., 2010).
The symposium begins with a paper which provides an overview of the final version of the framework and the modules and rich examples currently being developed to support its use by stakeholders. This is followed by two papers which elaborate some of the specific strategies that the research found to be particularly supportive of early career teachers.
Paper 1
Resolving Issues of Research Knowledge Mobilisation with Multiple Stakeholders: Lessons from the Early Career Teacher Resilience Project
1. University of South Australia
2. Murdoch University
3. Edith Cowan University
Collaborative research projects involving multiple industry partners and large research teams confront many unique challenges including how to address competing pressures to ‘do something useful’ with the outcomes of the research enterprise. As these projects typically originate from different sources, serve multiple agendas, and claim to be relevant to diverse audiences, resolving competing calls to produce relevant research ‘outcomes’ can be a difficult, time consuming and sometimes haphazard process. This was the case in the ARC funded Linkage project discussed in this Symposium. With eight Industry Partners and seven researchers working together across two Australian states for 4 years, the range of issues of contention was predictably diverse. Without over-stating or highlighting our differences in the project, it is worth sharing our struggle to resolve competing pressures to ‘mobilise’ the new knowledge generated by the project in worthwhile ways (Levin, 2008).
The competing pressures had their genesis in the different cultures, ideological commitments, political agendas, and career-stage priorities of the key players and organisations associated with the project. For example, our Industry partner representatives consistently, but politely, emphasised the need to communicate the outcomes of our research in practical, non-theoretical, and accessible forms so that the stakeholders they represented – policy makers, school leaders, and teachers – could quickly understand and apply them in their everyday work. Competing with this overwhelming and uncontested ‘practicality ethic’ (Ponder and Doyle, 1969), were the differing concerns and priorities of the researchers who wanted to pursue deeper theoretical themes and produce ‘academic’ outcomes that ‘counted’ towards their universities’ ERA rankings. Compounding this mix of role-defined interests were mostly unstated but nevertheless powerful and legitimate self-interests related to personal ambitions, career development considerations, and interpersonal loyalties. The fact that the project remained focussed, collegial, and productive despite these conflicting priorities is a testament to the professionalism, civility, and generosity of those who worked on the project.
In this paper, we outline how we resolved the project’s ‘knowledge mobilisation’ dilemmas by making a commitment to develop a variety of research ‘products’ over the course of the project. We have reported elsewhere on the nature of various ‘academic’ outcomes of the project. Here we describe – and show – the project’s first major research publication; a ‘glossy’ booklet for early career teachers, their mentors and school leaders, and the policy makers who frame the conditions under which they work.
Paper 2
Supporting Early Career Teachers: The Critical Role of School Principals
Bruce Johnson, Rosie Le Cornu, Judy Peters, Anna Sullivan1 Barry Down, Jane Pearce2, Janet Hunter3
1. University of South Australia,
2. Murdoch University
3. Edith Cowan University
It is widely accepted that school principals play an important role in all aspects of early career teacher employment and retention. For instance, Woods’ (2005) study of principals in 54 high, middle and elementary schools in California identified five critical roles that principals played in the induction of beginning teachers: ‘(a) culture builder, (b) instructional leader, (c) coordinator/facilitator of mentors, (d) novice teacher recruiter and (e) novice teacher advocate/retainer’ (p. 39). Given the current high levels of teacher attrition (Australian Education Union, 2006) it is critically important that we understand principals’ perceptions of early career teachers and the strategies they use to support them.
This paper reports findings from in-depth, open-ended interviews conducted with school leaders from fifty-nine primary and secondary schools across South Australia and Western Australian as part of an Australia Research Council project investigating the conditions that promote early career teacher resilience and retention in the first two years of teaching. This paper aims to illuminate the important role played by principals in developing such conditions in their schools. The principals interviewed all had one or more early career teachers on their staff. The data is qualitative and thematic analysis was used to identify emerging themes and develop narrative portraits.
The findings indicate that the principals valued the contributions of early career teachers who were passionate and showed commitment, curriculum knowledge and the ability to plan, skills in self-management and initiative in actively seeking help as they need it. Many principals in the study also recognised that teachers in the first years of teaching need careful monitoring of their social, emotional and physical well-being and a great deal of support. They provided many rich examples of supportive strategies, some of which are shared in this paper. It was also clear that the most supportive environments for early career teachers were those that focussed on the well-being and development of all teachers. In these schools supporting early career teachers was seen as a responsibility shared by all staff.
Paper 3
Reducing the workload for graduate teachers: Does it support their resilience during their first year of teaching?
Chad Morrison, Anna Sullivan
University of South Australia
The teaching profession is distinctive in its expectation for graduate teachers to fulfil the same duties as more experienced teachers from the onset of employment (Manuel, 2003). Research has clearly shown that such expectations of graduates have lead many of them to feel overwhelmed by the complex, intense and unpredictable nature of their work (Khamis, 2000) placing them at risk professionally. Employing bodies typically offer support through induction initiatives which include mentoring, observation, feedback and professional learning opportunities (e.g. Howe, 2006). More recently, some school systems in Australia have enacted a policy initiative to provide graduate teachers with a provision of extra release time from face-to-face classroom teaching duties. This reduction in workload has been provided to assist graduate teachers in their transition to the workforce. However, there is little research available that has investigated the implementation of this policy, particularly from a professional learning perspective.
This paper reports a study that investigated the provision, allocation and structure of additional release time from face-to-face teaching responsibilities for graduate teachers. Resilience was used as a theoretical framework to guide the study (Johnson, et al., 2010). We created a data set from a larger research project which involved interviewing 59 early career teachers and their leaders. This larger project examined the situational and contextual factors that support the resilience of early career teachers (Johnson, et al., 2010). The data set was created in NVivo8 and was analysed using an inductive and thematic process. Several themes emerged from this analysis relating to the system-based workload reduction, locally interpreted provision and the varying degrees of structure of extra release time.
This study contributes to a greater understanding of graduate teachers’ professional learning during their induction to the workforce. We conclude that reducing graduate teachers’ workload to support them in their transition is not enough. School leaders play an important role in guiding the opportunities for professional learning during this time. In particular, where the reduction of workload was most supportive to graduate teachers, leaders allocated and structured resources and ensured practices were contributing to the wider goals of high-quality teacher induction and sound professional development within the early career stage.
References
Howe, E. R. (2006). Exemplary Teacher Induction: An international review. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 38(3), 287-297.
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 presented at the Australian Teacher Education Association Conference.
Khamis, M (2000). The Beginning Teacher, in Teaching in context, eds. S Dinham & C Scott, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, Vic.
Manuel, J. (2003). 'Such are the Ambitions of Youth': exploring issues of retention and attrition of early career teachers in New South Wales. [Article]. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 31(2), 139.