Teaching self-efficacy, goal directedness, persistence and GPA influences upon preservice teacher retention and completion.

Year: 2017

Author: Boon, Helen

Type of paper: Abstract refereed

Abstract:
Teacher quality, considered to be an influential factor in student attainment, is a growing focus of educational reform worldwide, with new policies attempting to ensure that only the 'best and brightest' are selected for the teaching profession. Nonetheless a large proportion of preservice teachers drop out of their courses before completing their qualification for a range of reasons. Prior studies have attempted to identify predictors of preservice teachers' academic and professional success with a large number focusing upon teaching self-efficacy beliefs. Self-efficacy has been found to be a key predictor of intentions as well as of the persistence to complete a task. Self-efficacy not only affects expectations of success or failure, but also influences success through motivation and goal setting.
This paper reports results of a longitudinal study which tracked a cohort of 190 preservice teachers enrolled in a B.Ed. degree or a Graduate Diploma of Education at a regional Australian university. To obtain ratings of their teaching self-efficacy, goal directedness and persistence, the undergraduate students tracked through the study were surveyed two times: once at the end of their first semester at university and once at the end of the third year. The post-graduate preservice teachers were surveyed at the end of the first semester at university. Survey results were Rasch analysed and then imputed into structural equation models to examine the links between the test constructs and timely course completion. The characteristics of those who changed courses or dropped out were also compared to those who completed their degree.
Results showed no significant differences between undergraduate and post-graduate students' teaching self-efficacy, persistence and goal directness and indeed no significant differences between those who completed their degrees and those who did not, except in their GPA results. Post-graduate preservice teachers were more likely to complete their course than undergraduates and within the undergraduate cohort those specialising in Early Childhood Education were least likely to complete their degree. Goal directedness and GPA were the strongest predictors of a timely completion, while behaviour management self-efficacy was the only sub-factor of teaching self-efficacy that predicted a timely completion, with pedagogical and pupil motivation self-efficacy having no effect upon timely degree completion. Finally persistence positively predicted GPA results. Further analyses between initial and final teaching self-efficacy measures revealed no significant differences as a result of training and experience. These findings pose a number of questions in relation to preservice teacher recruitment and training.

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