Attrition of certified teachers in secondary education during the induction phase

Teacher attrition is generally considered problematically high, with attrition rates of beginning teachers up to 50%. This study shows the problem is not as big as has been claimed before. Previous studies have often focused on the attrition within 5 years, showing a quarter or more of beginning teachers leaving the profession. However, this disregards the fact that teachers leave at later stages as well, and the fact that some beginning teachers are not qualified to work as a teacher. Using administrative data from payroll administrations of schools in the Netherlands for secondary education a reliable measure of teacher attrition was made. Administrative data on diplomas in higher education were used to establish if teachers are certified at the start of their career. The results of this study show that the attrition rate of beginning teachers is only high within the first year of their career. The attrition rate within 1 year of experience is around 12% until the early 2000s, rising to close to 20% in more recent years. In comparison with other countries this seems relatively modest. However, after the first year, a base rate of attrition (retirement excluded) remains fairly constant at approximately 3% to 5% every year, explaining the gap with high attrition rates found in earlier studies. Attrition of certified teachers within one year is about 9%, with very little variation over time, versus the 12% to 20% of all beginning teachers. This 9% attrition rate of certified teachers is much lower than many earlier studies suggest

Does teachers' pedagogical content knowledge affect their fluency instruction?

The relation is studied between teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of reading and the quality of their subsequent classroom behaviour in teaching fluent reading. A confirmatory factor analysis model with two latent variables is tested and shows adequate goodness-of-fit indices. Contrary to our expectations, the results of structural equation modelling reveal a small but significant gamma-value of .29, indicating that only 8% of the variance in teachers' classroom behaviour in teaching fluent reading is accounted for by teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of reading. Presumably teacher knowledge is not as stable and conclusive as one might think. More research is needed in determining the factors that work restricting for teachers in putting their knowledge into classroom practice. It is recommended that preservice and in-service teacher training should not be limited to transfer of knowledge, but should also assist teachers in designing and performing effective fluent reading instruction

Student teachers' participation in learning activities and effective teaching behaviours

Teacher learning is essential to the teaching profession, because it has been strongly linked to improved teaching practices and teacher quality. The source for teacher learning is initial teacher education, a crucial phase in the learning-to-teach continuum. To gain insight into this influential period for student teachers’ long-term professional lives, this exploratory study investigates student teachers’ participation in learning activities and explores whether it is connected to their own effective teaching behaviours in a school-based teacher education setting for secondary education in the Netherlands. The results indicate that student teachers vary in their self-reported learning and that this learning relates positively to observations of their effective teaching behaviour. These findings have several implications for teacher education programmes that aim to enhance the likelihood that their student teachers will become career-long learning professionals