Improving the first year: How opportunities for faculty collaboration, support from administrators, reduced workloads and formal induction experiences impact first-year teachers.

摘要

Rising enrollments and an aging workforce have left policy makers rightly concerned about the supply of qualified teachers for our nation's schools. Unfortunately, while recruitment efforts continue to bring novices into the profession, 40 to 50 percent of teachers leave teaching within their first five years (Ingersoll, 2003). While prior research has focused on the rigors of the first-year, as well as on the causes of teacher dissatisfaction, few studies have looked specifically at the factors that contribute to beginning teachers' attrition.;Eileen Mary Weiss (1999), however, examined the effects of perceived workplace conditions on first-year teachers using the U.S. Department of Education's Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data sets. She found that school cultures that supported teacher collaboration contributed to first-year teachers' plans to stay in teaching. Weiss' conclusion echoed much of what I found when I examined first-year teachers' narratives (Brown, 2000). For many of these teachers, even for those who participated in formal induction programs, the first year in the classroom was professionally isolating.;I build upon these studies to explore the relationships between workplace conditions and first-year teachers' commitment to teaching. Given Weiss' finding, I examine the impact that opportunities for faculty collaboration, as well as regular, supportive communication with administrators, has on first-year teachers. Given the extensive literature on first-year teacher "overload," I also focus on teacher workloads. Finally, I consider the impact of formal induction experiences since so much has been written about their role in supporting new teachers.;This study analyzes the 1999--2000 Schools and Staffing Survey data set, which provides a nationally representative sample of first-year teachers in public, private and charter schools. Using logistic and linear regression, I found that first-year teachers who have greater opportunities to collaborate with colleagues, and who receive regular, supportive communication from administrators, are more likely to report that they plan to stay in teaching. Since I discovered no clear relationships between formal induction programs and first-year teacher outcomes, this study lends support to those who suggest that ongoing, informal interactions among faculty and administrators most influence the experiences of novices.