Introduction
Education is a complex system of teacher-student interaction. The effective work of this system is presupposed by the teacher’s willingness and abilities to foster in a student the burning desire to know and the student’s readiness to collaborate with the teacher to become proficient in this or that sphere. Though curriculum, facilities and resources play a significant role in the process of education, to the greatest extent the letter is dependent on the professionalism of the teacher.
No one would deny the fact that teaching is a challenging profession. During one’s teaching experience one encounters a lot of difficulties related both to his or her personal and professional development. It is especially true when it comes to young teachers who just start their teaching careers and face a lot of challenges during their transition from being students of teaching to teachers of students. It is very important that at this stage the beginners receive an adequate support not to lose their spirits and abilities to inspire others for learning.
The current paper is concerned with the problem of induction support for beginning teachers. We seek to investigate the induction program through analyzing the findings of the three articles focusing on the problem under consideration. Namely, the articles are: Do Teacher Induction and Mentoring Matter? (2004) by Richard M. Ingersoll and Thomas M. Smith from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University, correspondingly, First-Year Teachers and Induction Support: Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens (2007) by Sara Winstead Fry from Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and Examining the Consequences of Inadequate Induction for Beginning Teachers (2008) by Heather Sharp, the University of Southern Queensland.
Do Teacher Induction and Mentoring Matter? (2004)
In teaching the term induction is referred to support, guidance, and orientation programs intended for beginning elementary and secondary teachers during the transition into their first teaching jobs.
In the first article under analysis Ingersoll and Smith focus on the different types and components of induction with the purpose to explore the effects that such supports have on the retention of beginning teachers. The authors’ research starts from a general overview of the problem of induction. According to Ingersoll and Smith (2004) “Historically, the teaching occupation has not had the kind of structured induction and initiation processes common to many white-collar occupations and characteristic of many of the traditional professions.” (28) The authors consider the most common kinds of occupational ills that prevent young teachers from succeeding in their careers. This overview is done to encourage the reader to realize the necessity of induction programs’ implementation. The authors claim that the induction programs are expected to cure the occupational ills and, therefore, implemented in a growing number of states and school districts in recent decades (Ingersoll & Smith 29).
Further, a clarification of the concept of induction program is made: “Theoretically, induction programs are not additional training but are designed for those who have already completed basic training”, “Teacher induction can refer to a variety of different activities such as classes, workshops, orientations, seminars, and especially, mentoring.” (Ingersoll & Smith 29) Though the main objective of teacher induction is to provide newcomers with a local guide, the purposes of the programs can differ: some are primarily designed to foster growth on the part of newcomers, others “weed out those deemed ill-suited for the job.” (Ingersoll & Smith 30) Depending on the objectives, duration and intensity of the programs vary. Also, the programs differ in the numbers of new teachers they serve.
On outlining the basics of the program the authors speak of the existing gap in the research and state the aims of their own one:
- to examine how widespread induction programs are across the nation;
- whether their prevalence has increased over the past decade;
- what kinds of activities, supports, and components the induction experience usually includes;
- what are the effects of receiving these different kinds of supports on the likelihood that beginning teachers remain with or depart their jobs (Ingersoll & Smith 31).
The data the research is based on comes from the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) along with its supplement, the Teacher Followup Survey (TFS). SASS includes separate questionnaires for administrators and for a random sample of teachers in each school, whereas TFS includes all teacher turnover or departures. The two types of the sources are evaluated by the authors with the focus made on beginning teachers. The advantage of the large-scale data source is rooted in its breadth: the survey of this type does not only represent a wide range of teachers and schools across the nation, but allows “the analysis to control for a wide range of other factors that might conceivably affect beginning teacher retention.” (Ingersoll & Smith 38)
The data reveal that the beginning teachers provided with multiple supports were less likely to change their working places and less likely to leave the teaching occupation altogether after the first year of their work. Some forms of assistance and support, however, did not appear to increase beginners’ retention (Ingersoll & Smith 38). The authors found out that the proportion of beginning teachers involved in induction programs has increased significantly over the past decade. The kinds and number of supports provided by schools to beginners in terms of the induction programs vary and it influences differently the retention of the recipients.
All findings of the paper considered, one should take into account the limitations of the study, that is, its lack of depth and specialty. The authors only state that some programs are effective, some are less effective and others are not effective at all without telling exactly which are which. What is also important is that the study does not address how the effectiveness of induction and mentorship programs interacts with other characteristics of effective schools, such as principal leadership, academic orientation of the curriculum and an organizational climate conducive to instruction (Ingersoll& Smith 39).
Further research
Another article under consideration is S. W. Fry’s First-Year Teachers and Induction Support: Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens. The author investigated how the first-year teachers were supported during induction and how they responded to this support. As well as in the previous work the research starts from introduction to the problem. The author suggests the basics of the induction: it is a period of difficult adjustment that lasts for the first three years of teaching and influences the whole teaching career. Four first year teachers’ experiences are given the author’s close examination with the purpose to analyze the challenges and successes they faced during their transformation from being students of teaching to teachers of students.
The Literature Review section that follows is important for the reader’s understanding of how deeply the problem is investigated. Here we find the reference to the paper discussed above. Fry speaks of the benefits and limitations of the research and concludes that her own investigation is expected to contribute to the induction literature “by using qualitative research methods to determine how four 1st-year teachers were supported during induction and how they responded to this support.” (Fry 218)
Further, the author speaks of the participants of the study. The four teachers with elementary education degrees took part in the experiment on a voluntary basis. Involvement of these very women into the study was determined by appropriateness of the skills they possess for the current research. Earlier the teachers participated in the original study where they demonstrated their writing and speaking strengths and strong reflective abilities that are of much importance in teaching career. Moreover, the author of the study developed personal relationships with the young teachers, as she was their professor and supervisor.
The author’s interest in the research is also determined by her own teaching experience. During Fry’s first year of teaching she was provided no induction, whereas while being the second and the third year teacher she participated in the induction program and was far more successful in her teaching.
As far as the research framework is concerned the author resorted to a case study research design, as it “provided insight into beginning teachers’ responses to their induction support.” (Fry 219)
The author’s initial objective was to explore beginning teachers’ induction experiences and their retrospective evaluation, in the course of research the focus was changed with respect to the themes that emerged in the data. The latter was primarily received from monthly semi-structured phone interviews. The data collection went along with data analysis. The researcher decided to do this simultaneously for two reasons: it allowed her “to structure subsequent data collection efforts based on emerging themes and hunches, while avoiding collecting unfocused, repetitious, and voluminous data” and “to use the participants’ first-hand knowledge of the phenomenon under investigation to create a two-way dialogue about the meaning of the emerging data.” (Fry 221) To identify categories of data and major themes Fry used open coding technique, the data was coded within descriptive and interpretative techniques. QSR NUD*IST NVIVO qualitative research software program was used to facilitate data analysis. A multi-step process based on Miles and Huberman’s work appeared to be a useful tool in analyzing the data. Objectivity, accuracy and validity of the results achieved were sustained by the use of member checking technique.
The author’s findings demonstrated that the participants had different support needs and received variable forms of it. The one common experience that the researcher observed was the inadequate nature of induction support that each teacher was provided with. In the discussion section the author offers a list of suggestions for how the participants’ induction experiences could have been strengthened: Fry considers mentoring, practical support and administrative and mentoring evaluations issues. Researcher reflections that come afterwards may be considered as example of how reflection is used to analyze one’s own achievements. What is more, reflective abilities always contribute to the teacher’s success, not to the researcher’s only.
The limitations of the study are also outlined by the author. They are determined by the small, heterogeneous sample and therefore cannot be generalized to the larger population of beginning teachers. Still the research has significant implications for beginning teachers and suggests wide opportunities for further quantitative investigations with larger samples.
Sharp’s Examining the Consequences of Inadequate Induction for Beginning Teachers
One more article focusing on the problem of induction is H. Sharp’s Examining the Consequences of Inadequate Induction for Beginning Teachers. The title of the study speaks for itself: the author investigates the consequences of inadequate inductions and provides recommendations for effective professional support to young teachers. Admitting the abundance of the factual information on the problem the researcher uses the documentation on Queensland schools as a springboard for her investigation. The Teachers Board of Registration’s survey states that there exist significant “negative issues associated with inductions and in retaining beginning teachers in the profession.” (Sharp 3)
The problem of induction was treated in three ways by the author:
- by analyzing the current policy document set out on employee induction;
- offering a literature review on current research and reports on the topic of support through induction the beginning teachers were provided;
- conducting of anonymous online survey where beginning teachers in Queensland were invited to participate (Sharp 4).
The author used a qualitative approach for the data collection. It was completed through online surveys which were formed into individual case studies that are widely used in educational research.
The participants of the research (24 persons) were teachers who had entered the teaching profession in the Queensland government school system within the past five years. As the data was collected through an online survey their anonymity was guaranteed. The research lasted for four weeks; this period was considered adequate as it gave beginning teachers a defined period to respond within.
To report the results achieved the author singles out consequences of no induction, consequences of inadequate induction, geographically isolated teacher issues, behaviour management and student effects and consequences of ineffective inductions. The researcher concludes:
when beginning teachers are inducted properly the flow-on student effects are positive, as teachers feel confident about their teaching, and they are more likely to have an accurate view of the expectations placed on them. The participating beginning teachers who responded that they did receive an adequate induction are far more likely to have feelings of high satisfaction in their position […] A comprehensive and adequate induction needs to be provided to all beginning teachers, regardless of locality, teaching role and teaching status—contract or permanent (Sharp 21).
Conclusion
Thus, the three articles discussed though differ in the aspects analyzed do not differ in the main claim that the authors make. All of them speak of the necessity of the induction program implementation into teaching experience as it will not simply arouse temporal satisfaction of the beginning teachers from their position, but will ensure their personal and professional growth during their overall teaching career.
Works Cited
Fry, Sara Winstead. “First-Year Teachers and Induction Support: Ups, Downs, and In-Betweens.” The Qualitative Report. 12.2 (2007): 216-237. Web.
Ingersoll, Richard M. & Smith, Thomas M. “Do Teacher Induction and Monitoring Matter?” NASSP Bulletin. 88.638 (2004): 28-40.
Sharp, Heather. “Examining the Consequences of Inadequate Induction for Beginning Teachers.” Web.