How Prepared Do Newly-Qualified Teachers Feel? Differences between Routes and Settings?

From Section:
Beginning Teachers
Countries:
England
Published:
Feb. 15, 2017

Source: Journal of Education for Teaching, VOL . 43, NO . 1, p. 3–19, 2017
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)

This article addresses the issue: whether there are key differences in the type and quality of preparation that newly-qualified teachers (NQTs) receive.

Methods
This article is based on a re-analysis of the2015 Department for Education survey of 7,770 NQTs in England.
Furthermore, administrative data collected by the National College for School Leadership (NCLS) about the former trainees and their training.

Findings

The findings reveal that, in general, there is a high level of reported overall satisfaction with induction of teacher education (ITE), and that this is true across all routes. There was less satisfaction with specific features such as preparation for handling special needs, behaviour and reading.
The average levels of satisfaction for NQTs are largely un-stratified by sex, disability, age and ethnicity. Adding all available variables, including those aggregated and examined as interactions with others, can explain only around 20% of the unexplained variation even in the strongest models.

It was also found that the minority groups (males, older, flagged as any disability and flagged as any ethnic minority) are slightly more satisfied.
Within the two main routes of school- and university-led there is almost as much variability as there is between them. Once other factors are taken into account, the differences in reported satisfaction between routes and providers are small. There is, therefore, no particular reason to promote or support one route at the expense of the other – at least in terms of NQT satisfaction.


Updated: Oct. 12, 2021
Keywords:
Attitudes of teachers | Beginning teachers | Teacher development | Teacher supply and demand