Queensland study reveals beginning teachers perform just s well as their colleagues
A new Queensland study has revealed beginner teachers perform just as well as those with several years of experience, but it found there is a point when performance drops and the overall quality of teaching could be higher.
Education
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NEW teachers perform just as well as their colleagues with several years of experience but performance drops after four or five years in the role, according to a new Queensland study.
QUT’s professor Linda Graham led a study observing 80 Queensland Primary school teachers of Prep to Year 3 in three groups of workers with experience between zero and three years, four and five years, and more than five years.
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The study found there was no evidence that graduate teachers performed at a lower quality compared to those with more than five years of experience, despite new teachers’ being constantly under the microscope.
“Contrary to reports suggesting Australian teachers are poor at managing behaviour, Behaviour Management was among the highest scoring dimensions for all three groups,” the report said.
But the researchers found evidence that some teachers are struggling at about four or five years into their careers, according to the study published in the Teaching and Teacher Education journal.
Professor Graham added that the study didn’t gather evidence on why teachers’ performance dropped from four to five years in, but suspects from prior studies that it could be due to “increasing workload, reduction of support, and emotional burnout.”
Subsequently, better support and professional development was necessary to improve the quality of teaching for all teachers, not just those at the beginning of their career, Professor Graham said.
“The findings from this research suggest that beginning teachers are doing as well or better than teachers with more years of experience, but that the overall quality of teaching could be higher,” the report said.
Professor Graham said the continued focus of beginning teacher and university education as the problem suggested politics was being prioritised over evidence during policy making.
“This distracts attention from the real issues affecting student engagement, learning and behaviour, and prevents us from implementing real solutions,” she said.
“One of the areas for which teachers are really criticised for is behaviour management but actually our research shows that that‘s not where the problems lie.”
Professor Graham said some of the problems included productivity, and ensuring that learning was seamless so there are no lulls and downtimes in classes which create problems.