Some Predictors of Problems of Beginning Teachers

Abstract

characteristics and the types of problems beginning teachers experience. To fit the fragment into its proper context, a brief overview of the procedures in the larger study is germane. For two successive years, beginning non-experienced teachers of Grades 1 through 6 in thirteen Indiana school systems in localities that ranged from eight thousand to one hundred and ten thousand in population were assessed on three instruments as they began teaching: the Teacher Characteristics Schedule, Form E54 (2); Mathematics Teaching Tasks, Form El; and Teaching Tasks in Reading, Form B. More than 97 per cent of the teachers responded to the two task instruments, which were administered face to face. About 80 per cent of the teachers responded to the Teacher Characteristics Schedule, which was sent home with each teacher, to be returned by mail. Two years later for the first sample, and one year later for the second sample, the beginning teachers who were still in the system in which they started were again tested on the Mathematics Teaching Tasks and the Teaching Tasks in Reading, but not on the Teacher Characteristics Schedule.