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Longitudinal Study of 50 New Massachusetts Teachers:
Expectations, Experiences, and Career Decisions
The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Susan Moore Johnson, Principal Investigator
Sarah Birkeland, Susan M. Kardos,
David Kauffman, Edward Liu, & Heather G. Peske, Co-Investigators
In
an effort to understand what it will take to recruit and support the large
number of new teachers entering public schools, the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers began a longitudinal
study in 1999 to explore new teachers’ expectations and experiences with
teaching and their subsequent career decisions. The sample of fifty first-year
and second-year Massachusetts teachers was purposefully selected to include a
diverse group of individuals working in a range of settings. It includes men and
women, teaching at elementary and secondary levels, in charter and conventional
public schools, located in urban and suburban districts. These individuals have
entered teaching from traditional and alternative pathways, some as recent
college graduates, others as mid-career entrants. Respondents were first
interviewed in depth in 1999. Follow-up interviews were conducted 18 months
later, in 2001.
The
study employs both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data to address the following questions:
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What
expectations do new teachers have about teaching and how do they conceive of
a career in teaching?
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What
are their experiences with incentives and rewards, the curriculum they are
expected to teach, and the professional cultures they encounter in their
schools?
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What
are the retention patterns for these teachers?
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Over
time, what factors do these teachers report influence their decisions to
stay in or move from the profession, their schools, or their assignments?
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The
sample included 13 teachers selected to receive the Massachusetts $20,000
signing bonus and to participate in the state’s alternative certification
process. Therefore, we also asked this group of teachers about their responses
to the state’s financial incentive, condensed training, and accelerated
certification process.
We
analyzed interview transcripts systematically to identify recurring themes and
patterns of responses both across the sample and within subgroups -- e.g.
charter school teachers, mid-career entrants. We used descriptive statistics to
identify the characteristics and experiences of the teachers who stay at their
schools, those who move to other schools, and those who leave teaching.
Log-linear modeling is being employed to better understand relationships among
the different variables that emerge.
Initial
findings from the first set of interviews are reported in: “Counting on
Colleagues” (Educational Administration Quarterly, April 2001), “The Next Generation of Teachers,” (Phi
Delta Kappan, December 2001), “Lost at
Sea,” (Teachers College Record,
Volume 104 Number 2, 2002), and “Barely Breaking Even” (full text
available on this web site).
Papers
| "The
Next Generation of Teachers: Changing Conceptions of a Career in Teaching," Phi Delta Kappan, December
2001
by H. G. Peske, E. Liu, S. M. Johnson, D. Kauffman,
& S. M. Kardos
[Summary] |
| "Counting
on Colleagues: New Teachers Encounter the Professional Cultures of Their
Schools," Educational
Administration Quarterly,
April 2001
by S. M. Kardos, S. M. Johnson, H. G. Peske, D. Kauffman, & E. Liu
[Summary] |
| "'Lost
at Sea': New Teachers’ Experiences with Curriculum and Assessment," Teachers College Record, Vol. 104 No. 2, March 2002
by D. Kauffman, S. M. Johnson, S. M. Kardos, E. Liu, & H. G.
Peske
[Executive
Summary]
[Summary] |
| "'Barely
Breaking Even': Incentives, Rewards, and the High Costs of Choosing to
Teach," July 2000
by E. Liu, S. M. Kardos, D. Kauffman, H. G. Peske,
& S. M. Johnson
[Summary]
[Full Text, Adobe Acrobat PDF
file]
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| "Keeping New Teachers In Mind," in Educational Leadership,
March 2002
by S. M. Johnson & S. M. Kardos
[Full
Text] |
| "What Keeps New Teachers in the Swim?" in Journal of Staff
Development, 23 (4), 2002, pp. 18-21
by S. E. Birkeland & S. M. Johnson |
| "Pursuing
a 'Sense of Success': New Teachers Explain their Career Decisions," October
2002 (a revised version is forthcoming in
American
Educational Research Journal)
by S. M. Johnson & S. E. Birkeland
[Full Text, Adobe Acrobat PDF file] |
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