EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EVALUATING THE PERCEPTIONS OF SUCCESS

OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION TEACHING GRADUATES

Introduction

When teachers enter the classroom, they report numerous challenges including dealing with individual differences, motivating students, building relationships with students and parents, organizing classroom activities, and engaging effective classroom management (Veenman, 1984). Recent research reports similar challenges (Huling-Austin, 1990; Ingersoll & Smith, 2003; Ingersoll, Smith, & Dunn, 2007). Without appropriate support beginning teachers will abandon the profession.

Originally stated in 1968, the most recent revisions of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education ([NCATE] 2008) called for teacher education institutions to track graduates of their programs. In a recent newsletter (Cibulka, 2009), NCATE outlined their vision for redesigning accreditation to promote transformation of teacher preparation and P-12 education.Institution activities should align with one of their initiatives, which could include “follow-up performance data and its effective use in improving educator preparation” (Cibulka, 2009).

The purpose of this summary is to provide an overview of data collected from current teachers who graduated from NC State regarding their perceptions of success, intentions to remain in the profession, and feelings of preparedness. Methods, findings, and discussion follow.

Methods

The data came from a convenient sample of NC State University graduates from May 2006 to May 2008, identified through the Office of Professional Development and the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (N=418). Data collection used the Perceptions of Success Inventory for Beginning Teachers(PSI-BT) (Corbell, 2008), which has eight factors measuring Mentor Support, Colleague Support, Administration Support, Classroom Management, Student Success, Instructional Resources, Assignment and Workload, and Parental Contacts.

Findings

In all, 71 beginning teachers took the survey, with the most coming from Math, Science, and Technology Education (n=36) and the fewest coming from Elementary Education (n=3). Trends from the current data include:

  • Graduates agreed that NC State’s Teacher Preparation program prepared them to use instructional technology in the classroom and effectively instruct learners.
  • Graduates disagreed NC State’s Teacher Preparation program prepared them to teacher students who are English as second language learners or interpret standardized test data.
  • Graduates perceive themselves to be most successful in managing their classroom but do not agree that NC State adequately prepared them for dealing with disruptive students.
  • Graduates perceive themselves to be least successful in assessment and evaluation. However, when split by classroom and standardized assessments, graduates perceived themselves lower in interpreting standardized assessments than classroom assessments.
  • Of the 2008 graduates (n=28), 64% plan to remain in the profession, almost 11% are leaving or are making preparation to leave and 25% are considering the possibility of leaving but have not made a decision.

Conclusions

Taking into consideration the trends in the findings above and small sample size the following conclusions are made. First, NC State is preparing teachers to provide effective instruction for students and their graduates have high perceptions of success with encouraging student success. Specifically, they feel successful in using a variety of teaching strategies, teaching students from diverse backgrounds, and teaching students with a variety of abilities. In addition, NC State teacher graduates feel highly successful in creating clear and consistent routines and procedures in their classrooms.Although graduates perceive themselves to be successful in dealing with disruptive students in the classroom, they rate their perception of preparedness low in the same area.

Graduates have lower perceptions of success regarding working with English as second language learners. Undergraduate academic programs should continue to provide explicit instruction in coursework and field placements regarding working with English as second language learners and their families. This instruction should be integrated in all content area courses with field placement activities that focus on strategies teachers use to meet the needs of English as second language learners.

Finally, NCATE utilizes a performance-based accreditation system that focuses on both candidate performance and its impact on student-learning. For this reason, the College of Education should be lauded for its efforts to collect high quality evidence regarding graduates’ perceptions of classroom performance. It is a cost effective means of longitudinally tracking graduates. The College should continue to survey graduates regarding their perceptions of performance and preparation. Perceptions of performance are directly related to retention intentions and indirectly related to student achievement.