Assignment # 2 Method

This document summarizes four academic articles related to teacher agency and development: 1) The first article discusses a study that examined how teachers' beliefs influence their agency and decision making in the context of educational reform in Scotland. It found that while individual teacher beliefs are important, collective development and consideration of beliefs is also needed to promote teacher agency. 2) The second article presents research on factors that influence perceived workplace stress in teachers, finding relationships between stress and traits like Type A behavior and personal achievement striving. 3) The third article proposes an ecological view of teacher agency and examines how agency varies based on environmental conditions using a case study of curriculum making. 4) The fourth article re-exam

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Assignment # 2 Method

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The role of beliefs in teacher agency

Abstract
There is an ongoing tension within educational policy worldwide between
countries that seek to reduce the opportunities for teachers to exert judgement
and control over their own work, and those who seek to promote it. Some see
teacher agency as a weakness within the operation of schools and seek to
replace it with evidence-based and data-driven approaches, whereas others
argue that because of the complexities of situated educational practices, teacher
agency is an indispensable element of good and meaningful education. While the
ideological debate about the shape and form of teacher professionalism is
important, it is equally important to understand the dynamics of teacher agency
and the factors that contribute to its promotion and enhancement. In this paper,
we draw from a two-year study into teacher agency against the backdrop of
large-scale educational reform – the implementation of Scotland’s Curriculum for
Excellence – in order to explore these questions. We focus on teachers’ beliefs in
order to get a sense of the individual and collective discourses that inform
teachers’ perceptions, judgements and decision-making and that motivate and
drive teachers’ action. While the research suggests that beliefs play an important
role in teachers’ work, an apparent mismatch between teachers’ individual beliefs
and values and wider institutional discourses and cultures, and a relative lack of
a clear and robust professional vision of the purposes of education indicate that
the promotion of teacher agency does not just rely on the beliefs that individual
teachers bring to their practice, but also requires collective development and
consideration.
Keywords: teacher agency, beliefs, professionalism, teaching, curriculum, educational change

Abstract

Workplace stress and its impact upon retention levels are becoming an increasing concern within the
teaching profession (Brown, Davis, & Johnson, 2002; Jarvis, 2002). Research has largely focused upon
the effects of environmental factors, whilst noting that it is the interplay between the individual and the
environment which may hold the key to understanding this problem (Cox, 1978; Parkes, 1994).
Identifying individual contributory factors is essential in understanding why, under the same
environmental conditions, some people suffer much greater levels of stress than others. This study
examined the influence of Type A behaviour, personal achievement strivings, occupational commitment,
gender and nature/experience of teaching on perceived workplace stress within the teaching profession
(N = 95). It was predicted that perceived stress would be strongest amongst those reporting higher
levels of these factors. A multiple regression analysis indicated that there was a positive relationship
between Type A behaviour, personal achievement strivings, and perceived stress. The relationship
between perceived stress and occupational commitment, however, was found to be negative. The
possible explanations for these findings, and potential implications, are discussed. Future research plans
are outlined for exploring the relationships between these individual contributory factors and
environmental stressors.

Teacher Agency in Curriculum

Making: Agents of Change and
Spaces for Manoeuvre
ABSTRACT
In the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many
parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to
act as agents of change. And yet, teacher agency is
under-theorised and often misconstrued in the
educational change literature, wherein agency and
change are seen as synonymous and positive. This
article addresses the issue of teacher agency in the
context of an empirical study of curriculum making in
schooling. Drawing upon the existing literature, we
outline an ecological view of agency. These insights
frame the analysis of a set of empirical data, derived
from a research project about curriculum making in a
school and further education college in Scotland.
Based upon the evidence, we argue that the extent to
which teachers are able to achieve agency varies from
context to context based upon certain environmental
conditions of possibility and constraint, and that an
important factor in this lies in the beliefs, values and
attributes that teachers mobilise in relation to particular
situations.
PRIESTLEY, M., EDWARDS, R., PRIESTLEY, A. and MILLER, K. (2012), Teacher Agency
in Curriculum Making: Agents of Change and Spaces for Manoeuvre. Curriculum Inquiry,
42: 191–214. doi:10.1111/j.1467-873X.2012.00588.x

Motivations, perceptions, and aspirations concerning

teaching as a career for different types of beginning
teachers
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095947520
8000704
Abstract
The professional plans, satisfaction levels, demographic characteristics,
perceptions and motivations of different teacher types distinguished by cluster
analysis were investigated among graduate-entry primary and secondary
teacher education candidates (N = 510) from three Australian universities in
an ongoing longitudinal study. Participants provided quantitative and
qualitative survey data at two time-points: at their entry to teacher education,
and immediately prior to completion of their qualification. Teacher types were
classified via cluster analysis on the basis of their exit levels of planned effort
and persistence within the teaching profession, and their professional
development and leadership aspirations. Three distinct types were identified:
“highly engaged persisters”, “highly engaged switchers”, and “lower engaged
desisters”. Differences in motivations for having chosen teaching as a career,
perceptions about the profession, and career intentions were contrasted for
the three types, and demographic characteristics compared.

Teacher motivation
Types of teachers
Teaching
Teacher quality

The journey inward and outward: a re-examination of

Fuller's concerns-based model of teacher development
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X03000465

Abstract
This study re-examines Fuller's widely cited model of teacher development.
Fuller's model of teacher development, based on an analysis of teachers’
concerns, posits a three-stage model of teacher development moving from (1)
concerns about self, to (2) concerns about tasks, to (3) concerns about
students and the impact of teaching. The study examined Intern teacher
development during a two-semester Internship program in teaching by
focusing on the patterns of Interns’ evolving concerns and aspirations. Six
Interns were interviewed about their hopes and fears three times one-to-one
and in focus groups over a 6-month period. Our claims both support and
extend Fuller's developmental model. Interns’ concerns appeared to shift, as
Fuller predicted, from self, to tasks to students—a journey outward. However,
their concerns and aspirations also shifted from those about personal capacity
to manage their classrooms to concerns about their personal capacity to grow
as a teacher and person, as their understanding of teaching and all it involves
changed—a journey inward. We argue that the pattern of Interns’ concerns
and aspirations moves outward, as suggested by Fuller, but also inward with
heightened reflexivity and attention to development of self-as-teacher during
the Internship.

‘I’ve decided to become a teacher’: Influences on career

change
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X
05000405
Abstract
The present study explored reasons behind graduates’ decisions to pursue
teaching as a career, in a 1-year pre-service teacher education program at an
Australian university, located in Melbourne (N=74). A survey collected data
about respondents’ reasons for choosing teaching as a career, with open-
ended questions eliciting rich qualitative data to elaborate on rating-scale
responses. Five factors relating to social status, career fit, prior
considerations, financial reward and time for family were identified through
factor analyses. Respondents’ ratings were independent of previous level of
qualification and having children or not, with little evidence for gender
differences. Three distinct clusters of students showed that different
combinations of reasons were relevant to each group's choice of teaching as
a career, and these reasons were further illustrated and discussed in relation
to qualitative data from open-ended survey questions.