Preparing to fail – Ben Lawless
Introduction
Teacher quality is of major political concern in Australia. Research suggests teacher quality is the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes (Hattie, 2009, 2012), so the concern is warranted. With Australia’s results in national (NAPLAN) and international (PISA, TIMSS) assessments dropping at an alarming rate, finding ways to improve teacher quality is paramount.
This article details a research project that examined how much classroom management instruction exists in Victorian teacher training. First, a discussion of the reasons for the project are given. Next, a literature review will determine how important classroom management instruction, and training in it, is. Third, data from Victorian universities will be examined, to see how much classroom management training is provided to secondary teacher trainees. Finally, recommendations will be presented.
The need for the study
This research project is significant because it concerns teacher quality, an important contemporary educational political issue. Techer quality has been a major talking point in the past four years (see, for example, Birmingham, 2016; COAG, 2013; Gillard, Carr, Shorten, & Emerson, 2013; Gillard & Garrett, 2013; Pyne, 2015).
One of the reasons for this investigation was my own experience as a secondary teacher trainee in 2012. During a two-year course from a university that advertises having the second highest ranked education faculty in the world (The University of Melbourne, 2014), there was one 50 minute lecture on classroom management. During professional placements, schools either had well behaved students that did not require well-developed classroom management skills, or the assigned mentor teacher was not an effective classroom manager.
Most of the teacher training I encountered was theoretical, and a lot of my professional placement was unstructured. Anecdotal evidence suggests this experience was similar amongst my peers. Discussions with university staff on this point often resulted in the claim that classroom management could not be taught, but was instead either learned over many years of experience, or was something someone was born with. Upon entering the teaching workforce at a state school with a number of challenging students, I felt inadequately prepared.
For the purposes of this article, classroom management is define as teacher efforts to oversee learning, social interaction and student behaviour, and preventing or responding to specific acts of inappropriate student behaviour (Edwards & Watts, 2008)
What does the research say?
Three themes emerge from a survey of the literature:
classroom management is extremely important for both student and teacher outcomes
teacher training is perceived by pre-service teachers as not currently containing a great deal of classroom management instruction
new teachers are insufficiently trained in classroom management
Research on classroom management notes its positive influence on student achievement (Hattie, 2012; Woodcock & Reupert, 2013). An analysis of over 50 years of research by Wang, Haertal and Walberg (1993/1994) suggests classroom management might be the most important factor influencing student outcomes. Moreover, it is commonly stated in the literature that more training for teachers in classroom management improves student outcomes (Ergul, Baydik, & Demir, 2013; Reupert & Woodcock, 2010).
New teachers commonly cite classroom management as their major concern (Clement, 2010; Marks, 2010; O'Neill & Stephenson, 2012). From a similar study (O'Neill & Stephenson, 2011), we learn that primary teacher training in Australia does not equip new teachers well for managing classrooms.
A look at Victorian universities
The present study examined the secondary graduate teaching courses offered by the five Victorian education faculties with the largest enrolments – Deakin University, La Trobe University, Monash University, RMIT and The University of Melbourne. The online handbooks of these institutions were surveyed, to determine how many subjects in each course included instruction in classroom management. The results indicate that classroom management training is not a substantial feature of secondary teacher training courses in Victoria. The data was gathered in 2013, but there is no evidence to suggest that there have been any major changes to the amount of classroom management training in these courses.
Every compulsory and elective subject from each of the degrees under examination was investigated. The text describing each subject was imported into a spreadsheet, where data analysis was performed. The subject descriptions were searched for the presence of the following search terms: classroom management, behaviour, student discipline, social, challenge or challenging, and learning environment. These search terms are based on those used by O’Neill and Stephenson (2011, p. 38).
Table 1. Instances of keywords in subject descriptions
A further stage of analysis involved reading each subject description in detail to see whether the instances of these keywords were in fact related to classroom management. Table 2 shows the results.
Table 2. Total number of subjects with relevant instances of keywords
Out of 218 subjects from the five degrees examined, 114 had instances of the research keywords. Only 17 of these used the keywords in such a way as to suggest they contain classroom management material.
Table 3 contains a calculation of the minimum classroom management instruction that a secondary teaching student would be exposed to if they attended one of Victoria’s five biggest teacher training institutions. The table does not include non-compulsory subjects.
The calculation is based on the minimum that every graduate is exposed to. It multiplies the percentage of the entire course that each subject takes by the portion of classroom management in that subject. So, for example, if a degree had five compulsory subjects, and only one of these
subjects taught classroom management, 10% of its content, the total would be 2%, because 0.2 x 0.1 (20% x 10%) = 0.02 (2%). Finally, all compulsory subjects’ portions are added together. Figure 1 compares the totals of the universities.
Table 3. Total compulsory classroom management instruction by subject and degree University
1. Comparison of total compulsory classroom management instruction by university.
Two points need to be made about these findings. First, most compulsory classroom management instruction comes via professional placements. However, professional placements are not a
particularly good way to impart classroom management skills. As Clement (2010) notes, relying on mentor teachers to provide classroom management instruction has two drawbacks: they themselves might not have any training in classroom management, and mentors often do not use researchbacked classroom management strategies. Perhaps, as some commentators suggest, professional placement should take place over a much longer period of time, akin to an apprenticeship (Reupert & Woodcock, 2010).
Second, given the importance that research places on classroom management, especially for new teachers (Ergul et al., 2013), it seems prudent to include a reasonable amount of it in teacher training programs. Four the five institutions surveyed have less than three percent of their total course content devoted to classroom management.
Recommendations
The findings suggest three areas policymakers could examine: the quantity of classroom management in teacher training, the quantity of research about teacher training in Australia, and a change in how classroom management is taught.
The examination of the literature and data is evidence for the need to focus more on classroom management. Research shows the numerous benefits of new teachers having higher classroom management skill levels. One strategy could be to provide more hours devoted to classroom management by, for instance, including it in more subjects or requiring all students to complete a classroom management subject.
There is also a lack of knowledge about the current status of classroom management training offered in Australian teacher training (O'Neill & Stephenson, 2012). Without more information, it may be difficult to provide ample evidence to policymakers to inform their decisions. Furthermore, there may also be other defects in Australian teacher training programs such research could uncover.
How classroom management is taught is also cause for concern. Research has shown that classroom management taught within tertiary institutions is often too simplistic (Marks, 2010), or overly theoretical (Panesar, 2010). The current mentoring model has a number of problems, including the unknown level of classroom management skill of mentors, the lack of mentor training, and the short lengths of time pre-service teachers spend in classrooms before going into the workplace (Putnam, 2009). These problems could be dealt with by including a form of internship or apprenticeship-style training for new teachers, something advocated by members of the Victorian state government (Preiss, 2013)
For decision makers, the message is clear: classroom management is crucial for enhancing teacher quality and improving student outcomes. Not enough time is spent on developing teacher expertise in this area.
References
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