10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Study of the Conditions Supporting the Professional Development of Early Career Teachers
Geneviève Lameul
Université Rennes2, France
Presenting Author: Lameul, Geneviève
The investigation reported in this paper continues and deepens a study initiated several years ago (Lameul, 2008, 2016; Eneau, Lameul, & Bertrand, 2014) aimed at understanding the construction of a subject in his or her personal as well as professional posture - the two being intimately related. To date, our research has defined the notion of posture as "the physical or symbolic manifestation of a mental state, shaped by our beliefs and oriented by our intentions, which exerts a guiding and dynamic influence on our actions, giving them meaning and justification" (Lameul, 2006). This can be studied from the following structuring dimensions: biographical, psycho-sociological, sensitive socio-cognitive, pragmatic, and ethico-cultural. Within the framework of a phenomenological approach, posture is situated at the heart of the professional development process at the interface of two axes: one that goes from the subject to the social and another in which the personal and professional dimensions of the process meet. This is what leads us today to question the work and training environment of beginning teacher-researchers. We will take an eco-anthropological approach and focus on the conditions that are more or less favorable to their development.
Our paper will report on a study conducted with 15 teachers at the beginning of their careers who were involved in training within the framework of the project Développement d'un Enseignement Supérieur Innovant à Rennes (DESIR), in response to the call for projects Développement d'Universités Numériques Expérimentales (Development of Experimental Digital Universities) and financed by the French National Research Agency. The training of these new lecturers, known as "Training for the first position", combines pedagogical, political and scientific aspects in its structure in three elements :
- A compulsory training module of 32 hours in accordance with the national training framework (decree of February 8, 2018) aimed at deepening the pedagogical skills (general or specific to the disciplinary field) necessary for the exercise of the profession of teacher-researcher.
- A time of discovery of the different activities and services of the university: meetings and dialogues with the vice-presidents of the university concerned (18h).
- The design and implementation of an innovative teaching project, situated in the professional environment to which the student belongs (teaching team, disciplinary department) and accompanied by the educational engineers and researchers of the DESIR Living Lab.
Within the framework of this DESIR project, an empirical survey has been set up for the last three years at the end of the training course which accompanies the new teacher-researchers when they take up their duties. Its objective is twofold: to understand the informal learning that takes place when a new teacher takes up his or her post, accompanied by pedagogical training; to identify the dimensions that come into play in order to build and/or consolidate a professional posture. The aim is to continue exploring the process of constructing a posture by trying to understand, close to the teacher-researchers in training, what in their environment would "make an ecological niche" (Guérin, Simonian and Thiévenaz, 2023, forthcoming). In the course of our interviews with 15 teachers, we will therefore pay attention to everything that can have an amplifying or conversely annihilating effect on certain dimensions of posture considered to be a key element of professional development.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedOur survey is conducted with 15 teachers whose context we have just described above. Our questioning grid is based on the 8 conditions identified as potentially facilitating - or at least influential in the process studied - in our previous work. These 8 items are as follows:
1. "Rupture": frequent realization through moments of rupture and transition in a journey (Kaddouri and Hinault, 2014)
2. "Tensions": Exploitation of the variety of tensions caused by its dynamics of successive and interrelated changes (Engeström, 1987, 2011)
3. "Intimate dialogue": Emanating from an ability to bring deep structure and provisional identity into dialogue (Linard, 2002)
4. "Reflexivity": Deployment in the dynamics of a reflexive approach that relates experience and inquiry (Thievenaz, 2017)
5. "Human mediation":The determining importance of the encounter with benevolent mediators in accompanying this process (Bandura, 1998; Albero, Linard and Robin, 2009)
6. "Resilience": Necessary anchoring in life experience (all personal and professional experiences) and mobilization of a capacity for resilience that allows one to overcome hardships and bounce back (Dewey, 1938; Cyrulnik, 1999)
7. "Commitment": supported by a personal readiness to move forward and a full commitment to action (intervention and transformation) (Jorro and De Ketele, 2013)
8. "Recognition": the effect of recognition (personal, from others, and institutional) as a support and regulator on professional development (Eneau, 2005).
Assuming that the 8 items of this analysis grid will shed light on what in the teacher's environment is likely to make a niche for a subject, the objective of the survey we are reporting on here is to identify their presence or not, to assess their importance in the eyes of the respondent, and to highlight possible interrelationships between these dimensions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur results confirm the explicit existence of several of these conditions from the phase of entry into the profession for the teachers. For example, a language teacher (A.M) expressed in a few words several types of tension that inhabited her training environment in her first year as a beginning teacher. The expressions of doubt about her ability to perform this academic profession, of her destabilization by the gap between what she thought she knew and what she was confronted with, echo items "rupture", "tensions" and "resilience". Item "human mediation" present in the interview with A.M is more particularly developed in that of Y.V who explains well how the collective (that of the colleagues-learners but also that of the colleagues of the daily professional life is important to support the effort to be made in a "1st job training" device and to concretize in his practice the knowledge acquired during the training. This same analysis reveals that in the context studied, the other items are less frequently present : the reflexive dimension of the conditions for professional development expressed in items "intimate dialogue", "reflexivity" and "resilience", as well as the strength of personal commitment, are almost non-existent. Several hypotheses can be put forward: the methodological conditions of a single, short interview did not facilitate the expression of these results; entry into the profession tends to focus the teacher on the short, immediate time of the response to be given or the face to be saved, or even the survival to be ensured (Mukamurera, Uwamariya, 2005). This observation of a lesser presence of certain items in the description made by novice teachers of their training environment is nevertheless enlightening our project to identify the characteristics of an ecological niche. These are all avenues for further research and inspiration for teacher training.
ReferencesAlbero,B., Linard,M. et Robin,J-Y. (2009). Petite fabrique de l’innovation ordinaire à l’université. Quatre parcours de pionniers. Paris : L’Harmattan
Bandura,A. (1998). Personal and collective efficacy in human adaptation and change. In J. G. Adair, D. Bélanger, & K. L. Dion (Eds.), Advances in psychological science, Vol. 1. Social, personal, and cultural aspects (pp. 51–71). Psychology Press/Erlbaum (UK) Taylor & Francis
Cyrulnik,B. (1999). Un merveilleux malheur, Odile Jacob
Dewey,J. (1938). Experience and Education. New York : Macmillan Company
Eneau,J., Lameul,G., et Bertrand,E. (2014). Place du stage et rapport au stage en formation universitaire : ce que nous disent les documents réflexifs d’accompagnement à la professionnalisation. Phronesis, 3(1-2), 38-48
Engeström,Y. (2001). Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133-156.
Guérin, G., Simonian, S. et Thievenaz, J. (2023 à paraître) (coord.), Activité et environnements de formation. Une approche écologique Prémisses d’une théorie, Octarès
Jorro,A. et DeKetele,J-M. (2013). L’engagement professionnel en éducation et formation. Bruxelles : De Boeck.
Eneau,J. (2005). La part d’autrui dans la formation de soi – Autonomie, autoformation et réciprocité en contexte organisationnel, Paris : L’Harmattan
Kaddouri,M. et Hinault,A-C (2014). Dynamiques identitaires et singularisation des parcours dans les transitions socioprofessionnelles, Sociologies pratiques n°28, 15-18
Lameul,G. (2006). Former des enseignants à distance ? Etude des effets de la médiatisation de la relation pédagogique sur la construction des postures professionnelles. Thèse de doctorat inédite, Université Paris Ouest La Défense
Lameul,G. (2008). Les effets de l’usage des technologies d’information et de communication en formation d’enseignants sur la construction des postures professionnelles. Savoirs, 17, 71-94
Lameul,G (2016). « Le développement professionnel des enseignants-chercheurs : entre recherche et enseignement, l’élaboration d’une posture d’expertise ». Habilitation à diriger des recherches en sciences de l’éducation, 2016https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01496804
Lameul,G. (2019). Posture : une notion centrale pour la compréhension de l’activité des acteurs dans les dispositifs de formation, Éducation et Formation - e-313
Linard,M. (2002), Conception de dispositifs et changement de paradigme en formation. Éducation permanente, 152, 143-155.
Mukamurera,J. Uwamariya,A. (2005). Le concept de « développement professionnel» en enseignement : approches théoriques. Revue des sciences de l'éducation, 311, 133–155
Simonian, S. (2015). L’affordance socioculturelle une approche éco-anthropocentrée des objets techniques. Le cas des environnements numériques d’apprentissage, HDR Université Rennes2
Thievenaz,J. (2017). De l’étonnement à l’apprentissage. Enquêter pour mieux comprendre. Louvain-la-Neuve : De Boeck
Wittorski,R. (2008). La professionnalisation : note de synthèse, Savoirs, 17, 11-38
10. Teacher Education Research
Paper
Early-career Teachers’ Burnout: The Role of Personality and Self-efficacy
Iris Marušić, Dora Petrović, Mirta Mornar, Ivana Jugović, Josip Šabić, Jelena Matić
Institute for Social Research, Croatia
Presenting Author: Marušić, Iris;
Mornar, Mirta
The initial years of teaching are a critical period in teachers’ careers characterized by stress and high rates of attrition (Borman & Dowling, 2008). The provision of adequate support to teachers during their early career is important for the development of their professional competence in a complex school environment and, subsequently, for their plans to remain in the profession (Schuck et al., 2018). This is a particularly important aspect of teacher policy in light of the widespread concern about teacher shortages in many European countries, where a number of qualified teachers plan to leave the profession within the first five years of teaching (EEPN, 2019). The research on individual and contextual determinants of teacher well-being and future career plans is therefore of growing importance for European teacher policy.
Recent studies underline the important role of personality (Kim, Jörg, & Klassen, 2019) in a number of relevant teacher outcomes. However, there is a lack of research exploring the contribution of personality dimensions to various aspects of early-career teachers’ well-being and teaching performance.
Meta-analytic findings demonstrated significant relations between five personality dimensions and evaluated teaching performance (Klassen & Tze, 2014). Specifically, teachers’ extraversion, conscientiousness and openness show moderately positive relations to teacher effectiveness as reflected in students’ evaluations of teaching. Accumulated evidence suggests that all five personality dimensions have important implications for various aspects of teaching quality, particularly interpersonal relations and support provided to students, and for aspects of teachers’ occupational well-being, such as enthusiasm and burnout. Existing findings indicate that personality dimensions are related to teacher self-efficacy (Djigić, Stojiljković, & Dosković, 2014) and to teacher outcomes such as teaching effectiveness and burnout. Meta-analytic data also indicate that teacher burnout seems to be most strongly associated with neuroticism (Kim, Jörg, & Klassen, 2019; Roloff, Kirstges, Grund & Klusmann, 2022). Also, a summary of research findings indicates that self-efficacy is related to teacher well-being (Bardach, Klassen & Perry, 2021).
However, evidence on the role of teacher personality in teaching and teacher well-being is still scarce and calls for research from various educational contexts. In recent years, Croatian educational system has been increasingly witnessing the problem of attracting and retaining qualified teachers in schools. Croatian teachers report a disproportionately lower self-efficacy regarding their ability to promote the value of learning among their students (OECD, 2014). They perceive their profession as demanding and important, and express high job satisfaction but predominantly feel that teaching is not valued in society. They also report a number of difficulties that burden the teaching profession, generated by inadequate educational policy (Burić, Slišković & Macuka, 2018). Our study aims to fill in the gap in the existing research, expanding studies on the role of personality and self-efficacy in burnout of early-career teachers to improve the understanding of the mechanisms that would efficiently support the retention and well-being of teachers in Croatian schools. Our focus on teachers at the beginning of their careers is of particular importance as they are at risk for burnout and, consequently, leaving the profession.
The aim of this research is to explore the nature of the contributions of early-career teachers’ personality and self-efficacy to the prediction of teacher burnout.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis survey is part of the research project “The role of personality, motivation and socio-emotional competencies in early-career teachers' occupational well-being” funded by Croatian Science Foundation. The research was conducted during the first academic term of school year 2022/2023, from October 2022 to January 2023. Research participants are 484 early-career teachers with up to 5 years of teaching experience employed in lower secondary schools in Croatia. Teachers participated in the survey by completing an online questionnaire. We sent participation invitations to school principals who forwarded an e-mail with a survey link to early-career teachers working in their schools. The research was conducted according to ethical standards and with the approval obtained by the Ethics Committee of the authors’ institution.
We used BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017) to measure teachers’ personality. BFI-2 consists of 60 items and answers are given on a five-point Likert scale, providing results for both 5 broad personality traits and 15 personality facets. For the purpose of this study, we used results of the five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience) and all scales demonstrated high reliability with Cronbach’s alpha scores 0.84, 0.81, 0.89, 0.88, and 0.82, respectively.
To measure teachers’ self-efficacy, we used Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) adapted for TALIS (OECD, 2019). Scale consists of 13 items and answers are given on a 4-point scale (Not at all - A lot). Results are provided for three dimensions of teacher self-efficacy (in student engagement, in instructional strategies and in classroom management) and all subscales had adequate reliability, with Cronbach’s alphas measuring 0.75, 0.74, and 0.84, respectively.
We measured teacher burnout with Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT; Schaufeli, De Witte & Desart, 2020). BAT consists of 23 items with a 5-point frequency scale (never – always) and measures four core burnout symptoms (exhaustion, emotional impairment, cognitive impairment and mental distance) as well as one total score. For the purpose of this study, we used total score as an indicator of teachers’ burnout level. The scale demonstrated high reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.94.
We tested a hierarchical regression model with five personality dimensions as predictors in the first step, three self-efficacy dimensions in the second step, and burnout as a criterion variable.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPersonality and self-efficacy explained 45% of variance in burnout. Personality traits alone explained 43.6% of burnout variance with significant independent contribution of all traits except extraversion. Early-career teachers who are more emotionally stable, agreeable, open to experience and conscientious, experience lower levels of burnout. Self-efficacy additionally explained significant 2.2% of burnout variance, but only self-efficacy in classroom management had significant independent contribution. Early-career teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy in classroom management experience lower levels of burnout.
Our results suggest that the personality of early-career teachers could play an important role in the prevention of burnout. Teachers with higher neuroticism, lower agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience are at greater risk of experiencing burnout. Early-career teachers’ self-efficacy in classroom management also plays an important role in the prediction of burnout. Teachers who lack the skills to keep their students focused on their academic tasks and to prevent disruptive behaviors in their classrooms report higher levels of burnout. Hence, burnout interventions centered on early-career teachers should take into account their personality profiles. These interventions should focus on supporting the development of adequate coping mechanisms as well as self-regulating and relational skills that could help early-career teachers to cope with the demands of their everyday teaching.
ReferencesBardach, L., Klassen, R. M., & Perry, N. E. (2022). Teachers’ psychological characteristics: Do they matter for teacher effectiveness, teachers’ well-being, retention, and interpersonal relations? An integrative review. Educational Psychology Review, 34(1), 259–300.
Borman, G., & Dowling, N. (2008). Teacher Attrition and Retention: A Meta-Analytic and Narrative Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research, 78(3), 367-409.
Burić, I., Slišković, A., & Macuka, I. (2018). A mixed-method approach to the assessment of teachers’ emotions: development and validation of the Teacher Emotion Questionnaire. Educational Psychology, 38 (3), 325-349.
Djigić, G., Stojiljković, S., & Dosković, M. (2014). Basic personality dimensions and teachers’ self-efficacy. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 112, 593-602.
European Education Policy Network on Teachers and School Leaders (EEPN, 2019). Teacher recruitment, retention and motivation in Europe, Desk Research Report no. 3.
Kim, L. E., Jörg, V., & Klassen, R. M. (2019). A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Teacher Personality on Teacher Effectiveness and Burnout. Educational Psychology Review, 31(1), 163–195.
OECD (2019). TALIS 2018 Technical Report. Retrieved on September 13, 2022 on https://www.oecd.org/education/talis/TALIS_2018_Technical_Report.pdf
OECD (2014). TALIS Country profile Croatia. Retrieved on April 24, 2022 on http://www.oecd.org/education/school/TALIS-Country-profile-Croatia.pdf.
Roloff, J., Kirstges, J., & Grund, S. et al. (2022). How Strongly Is Personality Associated With Burnout Among Teachers? A Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 34, 1613–1650. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09672-7
Schaufeli, W.B., De Witte, H. & Desart, S. (2020). Manual Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) – Version 2.0. KU Leuven, Belgium: Unpublished internal report.
Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, 117-143.
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing and elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 783-805.
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