Longitudinal Teacher Education and Workforce Study (ltews) Final Report

Longitudinal Teacher Education and Workforce Study (LTEWS)

Final Report

November 2013

MAIN REPORT

  

ISBN 978-1-74361-913-1 [PDF]

ISBN 978-1-74361-914-8 [DOCX]
© Commonwealth of Australia 2014

With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, the department’s logo, any material protected by a trade mark and where otherwise noted all material presented in this document is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/) licence.

The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website (accessible using the links provided) as is the full legal code for the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 AU licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/legalcode).

The material must be attributed as the Longitudinal Teacher Education & Workforce Study developed by Deakin University under contract with the Commonwealth of Australia as represented by the Department of Education. The material builds on and incorporates the following pre-existing copyright material: datasets and relevant findings from the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education in which copyright is owned by Deakin University and was developed with support under the Australian Research Council's Linkage Projects funding scheme (project number LP110100003).

As far as practicable, all other material for which the copyright is owned by a third party will be clearly labelled. The department has made all reasonable efforts to ensure that this other material has been reproduced in this document with the full consent of the copyright owners.

Copyright requests and enquiries concerning further authorisation should be addressed to:

The Copyright Officer, Department of Education, Location code C10MT1 GPO Box 9880 Canberra ACT 2601 or emailed to [e-mail].

The terms of use for the Commonwealth Coat of Arms are available from the It's an Honour website.

Where a copyright owner, other than the Commonwealth, is identified with respect to this material, please contact that third party copyright owner directly to seek permission.

Research team:

Diane Mayer (Victoria University)

Brenton Doecke (Deakin University)

Pauline Ho (Research Fellow, Deakin University)

Jodie Kline (Deakin University)

Alex Kostogriz (Deakin University)

Julianne Moss (Deakin University)

Suzanne North (Research Fellow, University of Melbourne)

Bernadette Walker-Gibbs (Deakin University)

Supported by Phillipa Hodder (Research Assistant, Deakin University)

Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project

The Longitudinal Teacher Education and Workforce Study (LTEWS) was funded by the former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). This report also includes findings generated as part of the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project that is focused on early career teachers in Queensland and Victoria. The SETE research is supported by the Australian Research Council (Project LP110100003) and the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (QDETE), the Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT), and the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT). The SETE research team is Diane Mayer (Victoria University), Brenton Doecke (Deakin University), Mary Dixon (Deakin University), Alex Kostogriz (Deakin University), Andrea Allard (Deakin University), Simone White (Monash University), Bernadette Walker-Gibbs (Deakin University), Leonie Rowan (Griffith University), Claire Wyatt-Smith (Griffith University), Richard Bates (Deakin University), Jodie Kline (Deakin University), and Phillipa Hodder (Deakin University).

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of:

• 
  All state teacher regulatory authorities;
  
• 
  All state departments of education; and,
  
• 
  Catholic and independent employers.
  

We thank the teacher educators, graduate teachers and principals who participated for their time, generosity and patience.

We acknowledge the ongoing input of the members of the Sub-Group of the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee (AEEYSOC) Teaching Workforce Dataset Working Group: Jim Tangas (Victoria); Elsa Lat and Dianne Wasson (New South Wales); Gary Frances (Queensland); Paul Hunt and Deepthi Wijesekera (Australian Government Department of Education, formerly Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, DEEWR).
This study was funded by the Australian Government former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
The content of this report does not reflect the views of the former Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations or any other institutions, individuals or systems that provided data.


Table of Contents

Tables 6

Figures 10

Executive Summary 10

1.Introduction 20

1.1 Purpose of the Study 22

1.2 Structure of the Main Report 23

2.Methodology 25

2.1 Research Focus 25

2.2 Research Design 25

2.2.1 Graduate Teacher Surveys and Principal Surveys 28

2.2.2 Mapping of Initial Teacher Education Programs in Australia, 2011 33

2.2.3 Telephone Interviews with Graduate Teachers 37

3.Career Progression 41

3.1 Profile of Graduate Teacher Respondents and their Schools 42

3.1.1 Demographic and professional characteristics of graduate teacher respondents 42

3.1.2 Characteristics of the schools in which graduate teacher respondents were employed 50

3.2 Utilisation of New Graduate Teachers 56

3.2.1 Distribution of graduate teachers across teaching areas 58

3.2.2 Utilisation of Graduates in Teaching Employment 62

3.2.3 Graduates who did not enter teaching 73

3.3 Teacher Mobility 83

3.4 Attraction, Retention and Attrition 92

3.4.1 Attraction to teaching 96

3.4.2 Retention in teaching 99

3.4.3 Leaving teaching in the early years 105

3.5 Factors influencing Position and Location Changes 114

3.6 Long-term career intentions of graduate teachers and factors influencing these intentions 119

4.Teacher Education Relevance and Effectiveness 125

4.1 Mapping of Initial Teacher Education Programs in Australia, 2011 127

4.2 Teacher Education Programs and Graduates’ Decisions to Teach 131

4.2.1 Teacher education programs and graduates’ decisions about teaching employment 134

4.2.2 Structures, approaches and content considered by graduates and principals as being effective in preparing teachers for initial employment 139

4.2.3 Influence of teacher education programs on career retention or advancement 152

4.3 Content and relevance of teacher education programs for subsequent classroom teaching 158

4.4 Entry into Teacher Education 201

4.5 The Practicum 206

4.5.1 The nature of the practicum and graduates’ decisions about whether or not to seek teaching employment. 210

4.5.2 Structures and approaches in practicum considered by graduates and principals as being effective in preparing teachers for initial employment. 212

4.5.3 The ways in which the practicum appears to influence or support graduates’ career retention or advancement 219

4.5.4 The extent to which the practicum is adequate for subsequent classroom teaching 220

4.6 Discipline Areas Studied and then Taught in Schools 233

4.6.1 The relationship between the discipline area studied and the extent to which graduates enter, and remain in, teaching. 235

4.6.2 The extent to which graduates who enter teaching teach the subject disciplines they studied in teacher education programs 241

4.6.3 The extent to which the discipline areas studied in teacher education programs were adequate in content and relevance for subsequent classroom teaching 243

4.7 Preparation to Teach Culturally, Linguistically and Socio-Economically Diverse learners, ICT, and Numeracy and Literacy 246

4.7.1 The extent to which preparation in these areas appears associated with graduates who seek and obtain teaching employment and the school in which they work 247

5.Conclusion 260

6.References 269