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The purpose of this article is to report the development and implementation of a STEM teacher attraction intervention based on person-environment (and person-vocation) fit theory. Study 1 reports the administration of an 'realistic job preview' (RJP) intervention requiring participant responses, followed by experienced teacher feedback and a tailor...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... RJPs were initially developed for use in situational judgement tests for selection into initial teacher education programmes (see Klassen et al. 2020b). Figure 1 provides an example screenshot of one of the scenarios with participant options and Figure 2 provides an example of the teacher feedback. For each scenario, participants: ...
Citations
... STEM education has been advocated and intensively implemented all over the world over the past years [12,57,63,68]. However, it is reported that there is a severe shortage of qualified STEM teachers around the world [69][70][71], which has hindered the implementation of STEM education reforms [12,69,70]. One of the most important causes of the shortage is STEM teachers' low levels of JS and high turnover rates [13]. ...
... STEM education has been advocated and intensively implemented all over the world over the past years [12,57,63,68]. However, it is reported that there is a severe shortage of qualified STEM teachers around the world [69][70][71], which has hindered the implementation of STEM education reforms [12,69,70]. One of the most important causes of the shortage is STEM teachers' low levels of JS and high turnover rates [13]. ...
It is reported that teachers’ satisfaction levels are lower and stress levels are higher than other professional groups in many countries. This is especially true for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers. Considering job satisfaction has a direct impact on turnover intention, low satisfaction levels have led to high turnover rates and thus exacerbated the shortages of STEM teachers. Hence, there is an urgent need to explore the antecedents of novice STEM teachers’ job satisfaction. This study proposes a new model to show how novice STEM teachers’ personality traits and perceived social support influence their job satisfaction. A total of 2592 novice STEM teachers in eighteen randomly selected high schools in China were recruited. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling approach. The results illustrated that most novice STEM teachers had low levels of job satisfaction. Novice STEM teachers’ personality traits could directly and indirectly impact their job satisfaction. Meanwhile, novice STEM teachers’ job satisfaction was also directly influenced by work engagement and indirectly influenced by their perceived social support. Our findings theoretically contribute to the understanding of the determinants of STEM teachers’ job satisfaction and have important practical implications.
... Factors affecting teachers' work Note. Adapted Aragon, 2016;Barth et al., 2016;Cowan et al., 2016;Dolenc et al., 2021;Geske & Ozola, 2015;Han et al., 2018;Klassen et al., 2022;Kuijpers et al., 2022;Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000;LIZDA, 2016;OECD, 2020;Richardson et al., 2014;Schutz et al., 2001;Toropova et al., 2021;UNESCO, 2022. Factors related to the work environment describe teacher job satisfaction. ...
Teaching is an increasingly important profession that contributes to the sustainable social and economic development of societies by providing quality education and promoting the development of pupils, while teacher shortages are the most widespread problem in Europe and worldwide. The role of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teacher is to facilitate the application of science, mathematics, technical and engineering knowledge to solve everyday or societal problems, making the learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics more meaningful. Fewer and fewer students choose to become teachers. This situation is particularly problematic in science education, so the aim of the study was to find out the views of students in science faculties on the choice of science teaching as a career. In order to achieve this goal, the research question was put forward: what factors determine the choice of science students to become/not to become a science teacher? Using the QuestionPro e-platform, 285 students of Bachelor and Master degree programmes at the Faculties of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Mathematics and Optometry of the University of Latvia were surveyed in 2022. The results showed that there was no difference in the opinions of students from different science faculties. The main factors that would determine the choice of a teaching profession were the teacher's working environment, the student's personal views and professional qualifications. The most common socioeconomic perceptions mentioned were the low prestige of the teaching profession, the workload of teachers with no fixed hours and inadequate salaries. Students appreciated the role of the teacher in developing young people's interest in studying science. Thus students, few of whom have worked as a teacher alongside their studies, have a fairly good idea about the work of the science teacher.
... Other studies suggest that an individual's perceived job fit also has an influence on their career decision-making (Klassen et al., 2022;Uggerslev et al., 2012). Klassen et al. (2022) conducted a psychological experiment where respondents were presented with a realistic portrayal of the job/teaching to see how they respond to real life classroom scenarios. ...
... Other studies suggest that an individual's perceived job fit also has an influence on their career decision-making (Klassen et al., 2022;Uggerslev et al., 2012). Klassen et al. (2022) conducted a psychological experiment where respondents were presented with a realistic portrayal of the job/teaching to see how they respond to real life classroom scenarios. Their responses were then matched with the attributes required for a teaching career as determined by experienced teachers. ...
This paper reports on a comprehensive review of international evidence, synthesising the findings of some of the strongest empirical work on the main factors influencing people's decisions to be teachers or not. Four search engines, including Google and Google Scholar and five electronic databases identified 517 studies of which 212 were included in this narrative synthesis. These studies highlighted three main motivating factors: intrinsic, altruistic and extrinsic, although the order of the ranking varies with subjects, phase of education and gender of teachers. In general, these studies reported that women are more likely to report being motivated by intrinsic and altruistic reasons, while men are more likely to cite extrinsic reasons. Across all cultures, men are reported to be more strongly influenced by social norms and expectations and were less likely to choose primary and early years teaching. Women are also more likely to experience higher levels of career satisfaction and less social dissuasion than men. Research on motivation to teach is also often focused only on those who have already made the decision to teach. Therefore, policies based on these studies might only be attracting those who are already persuaded. This paper argues that to improve recruitment of under‐represented groups (e.g., males and STEM subject graduates), attention should instead be on those who might otherwise have gone into teaching, but have not. For this group, the review found that it is the status of the profession, the working environment and salary over the long term that are important.
Context and implications
Rationale for the study
The widespread shortage of teachers is a global concern. There are particular challenges in attracting and retaining men, STEM subject teachers and ethnic minority groups to teaching. There is currently no systematic synthesis of international evidence on how to get under‐represented groups into teaching.
Why the findings matter
Our findings matter because recruitment and retention of teachers is a pressing issue facing many countries. Our review considers a much more comprehensive range of factors than previous research. We weight the strength of evidence of each study so that policies to address shortages of under‐represented groups are based on the strongest evidence.
Implications for policy makers
Our review found that the strongest determinants of who go into teaching or not are the individuals' sociological background and choice of subject at school. Therefore, policies to attract more into teaching should focus on those who are still in school. For men and STEM subject graduates, extrinsic factors (status, prestige and working conditions) matter. Therefore, policies to recruit under‐represented groups should focus on these factors. Most previous research on this topic excludes non‐teachers, resulting in misleading results. This has implications for future research and government policies. Policies to attract people into teaching should consider the career drivers of those who might have otherwise gone into teaching, but did not.
... Access to online tools can also help prospective career changers in their decision making. A UK study offered university students in STEM-related subjects with 'Realistic Job Previews' (RPJ), an online intervention tool to provide a realistic view of situations that can be expected from a job (Klassen et al., 2020). The use of such mechanisms can be explored in industry settings among prospective career changers. ...
This literature review examines strategies and sets out recommendations for recruiting, engaging and retaining experienced and qualified professionals working in STEM-related industries to teach in classrooms in NSW public schools. The review, prepared for the NSW Department of Education, forms part of a research project undertaken by UNSW’s Centre for Social Impact, to lay the foundations for addressing teacher shortages in science and mathematics subjects and increasing STEM knowledge and skills among students in NSW public schools.
This article describes an undergraduate physics module at a university in England that places year 3 student physicists in secondary school classrooms for a semester. This is done as a way of introducing them to the occupation of secondary physics teaching using a realistic job preview approach. The module helps the undergraduate students develop their communication and professional skills and supports the physics learning of pupils in the schools where they are placed. The perceptions of the participating students toward secondary school physics teaching are then investigated. Two themes emerged from this research: The difficulty of explaining physics concepts to children and the need to make school physics enjoyable.
Practice involves two aspects: Actions that constitute what it is the teacher does, and professional knowledge, which includes knowledge about mathematics, mathematics education curriculum and pedagogy, knowledge about learning, knowledge about the learners themselves and their characteristics, and knowledge of local and national policy and legislation. This chapter focuses on discussing both aspects and is intended to help mentors understand and develop their role in beginning teachers experiential learning, as they become confident, knowledgeable and skilled practitioners. The foundations of mentoring practice focus on supporting a beginning teacher through cycles of experiential learning. The mentor uses the professional capability they have developed from their own experience to allow space for the beginning teacher to learn, plan, act and make mistakes. Many people working in education experience a culture that promotes long working hours, and this is likely to reduce the confidence of teachers and beginning teachers.
Realistic job preview (RJP) has been considered an effective way for organizations to provide job candidates with snapshots of both positive and negative aspects of the jobs they apply for. However, research on examining the efficacy of virtual reality-assisted RJP (VR-assisted RJP) is still limited, not to mention the examination of VR-assisted RJP’s capacity on predicting person-organization fit (P-O fit) and person-job fit (P-J fit) and turnover. In this chapter, we review the development of RJP in the past few decades and the development of VR-assisted RJP and discuss concerns of VR-assisted RJP. Implications and future research directions are discussed.KeywordsRealistic job previewVirtual realityPerson-organization fitPerson-job fitTurnover
One way to build a stronger teacher workforce is to improve the way we recruit teachers. The goal of this article is to describe a competency-based approach to two facets of teacher recruitment: attraction and selection. We begin by examining current teacher attraction and selection efforts worldwide, and then describe how education organizations can improve their recruitment efforts by (a) identifying key competencies relevant to their context, and (b) choosing reliable and valid methods to evaluate these competencies. We conclude with three suggestions for next steps in teacher recruitment research and practice.
