The purpose of this study is to compare teacher candidates and first-year teachers by gender and licensure level, in terms of their perceptions of preparation program quality, efficacy beliefs, and concerns about teaching.
This study presents findings from an ongoing, state-wide longitudinal project in a large Midwestern state involving all 50 institutions of higher education that prepare teachers. This Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) study provided preservice (n=7503) and inservice (n=1380) survey data, involving perceptions of teacher preparation program quality (Quality), teacher efficacy beliefs (Efficacy), and teacher concerns about their teaching (Concern).
Respondents were mostly White (94.4%) and female (78.3%). Overall, they rated Quality and Efficacy high, and Concern somewhat average.
A 2*2*3 factorial MANOVA design based on Experience, Gender, and Licensure was used with Quality, Efficacy, and Concern as the dependent variables.
Results indicated that all main effects are significant and that there are no second- or third-order interaction effects. Although statistically significant results were found, the effect size in each case was small.
In terms of Experience, teacher candidates had higher ratings for Efficacy and Concern compared to first-year teachers, whereas the ratings for Quality were similar. Gender comparisons show that female participants had higher Concern than their male counterparts, but no gender effects were found for Efficacy and Quality. For the Licensure effect, an interesting pattern emerged, namely the lower the licensure grade level, the higher the ratings for Quality and Efficacy. The ratings of Concern were the same across the 3 licensure levels.
Future studies might consider the multilevel effects of institution and respondents using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Also more elaborate subscales related to Quality might be included, such as characteristics of field experience, faculty characteristics.