Collaborative Research: A Research Study of Teacher Retention and Network Formation in Noyce Communities of Practice

这个诺伊斯轨道4研究项目是一个合作的奋进，以检查教师诱导作为教师准备的一个方面，影响教师成为嵌入在他们的专业社区的方式。 它将着眼于如何成为一个特定的实践社区（CoP）的成员影响教师身份，在他们的个人教学能力的信念，并希望留在与教师保留相关的职业。这项研究中的机构（斯托尼布鲁克大学的纽约州立大学、肯塔基州大学、肯尼索州立大学、明尼苏达大学、威斯康星大学奥什科什分校和密苏里大学圣路易斯分校）横跨美国，代表了具有各种招聘策略（例如，职业改变者），入职支持结构（例如，在线），和教师安置（例如，农村与城市）。这六个网站也将允许诺伊斯和非诺伊斯教师从不同的教师准备计划出现的比较。 目标是确定一组核心程序特征是否有助于每个诱导程序的成功，或者不同的程序特征是否对独特的人群有用（例如，定期为职业转换者举行面对面会议，或为城市教师提供在线支持）。该项目还试图确定哪些程序功能导致不同的社区结构（例如，主要与学校内外的教师合作），以及该社区如何影响教师对职业的看法（例如，教师与全州的专业人士有联系，并希望继续从事这一职业）。本研究中使用的主要研究方法是社会网络分析，它将用于确定教师与谁交换与他们的教学相关的信息。这项研究将有利于该领域的突出感应战略适当和有效的不同的教师群体，并导致增加保留在劳动力的愿望。这项研究将告知劳动力问题的组织科学，其中有限的工作已经明确采用了社会网络的方法来解释人力资源outcomes.The理论正在研究中，该项目是在何种程度上教师识别形成与持久性的专业可以检测到参与者的社交网络和相关的诺伊斯准备和感应功能。 三阶段的研究设计将包括记录网络形成的前因，教师网络和网络的结果。在第一阶段，将收集有关每个研究中心的支持结构的信息，以及哪些活动和人口统计数据代表了参与者在诱导期间的经历。将审查每个方案的计划重点与参与者的经验之间的一致性。在第二阶段，将使用以自我为中心的网络调查（数据集中在给定教师的当地联系社区，例如CoP）从参与者那里收集社交网络信息，了解每位教师与谁交换与教学内容和教学法相关的信息，互动发生的频率，以及联系是否发生在当地学校或跨区域，州或国家层面。调查数据将被转换成生成STEM教师网络所需的矩阵，并利用最新的社交网络分析软件包，对规模、密度、联系强度以及与教师的地理距离进行检查。第二阶段的网络属性将使用第一阶段的数据进行建模，以确定哪些活动和支持结构有助于不同的结构CoP。在第三阶段，研究将收集教师对教学自我效能、专业认同感和继续从事专业的看法。第三阶段数据将使用第二阶段网络数据建模，以确定哪些CoP影响理想的教师成果。为了加强定量分析的因果关系，教师将被问到哪些活动影响他们的CoP网络，网络的哪些部分影响他们的结果。第一阶段和第三阶段的工具将分别与NSF年度参与者调查和教育部教师跟踪调查保持一致，因此本研究的结果可能会在未来的研究中推广到国家数据。

This Noyce Track 4 Research project is a collaborative endeavor to examine teacher induction as an aspect of teacher preparation that affects the way teachers become embedded within their professional community. It will look at how being a member of a specific Community of Practice (CoP) influences teacher identity, belief in their personal teaching abilities, and desire to remain in the profession related to teacher retention. The institutions (SUNY at Stony Brook University, University of Kentucky, Kennesaw State University, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis) in this study span the U.S. and represent successful Noyce teacher preparation programs with a variety of recruitment strategies (e.g., career changers), induction support structures (e.g., online), and teacher placements (e.g., rural vs. urban). These six sites will also allow for a comparison of Noyce and non-Noyce teachers emerging from the different teacher preparation programs. The goal is to determine whether a core set of program features contributes to the success of each induction program, or if distinct program features are useful for unique populations (e.g., periodic face-to-face meetings for career changers, or online support for urban teachers). The project also seeks to determine which program features lead to different community structures (e.g., collaborating mainly with teachers inside or outside the school), and how that community affects a teacher's perception of the profession (e.g., teacher is connected to professionals across the state and wants to remain in the profession as a career). The primary research methodology used in this research study is Social Network Analysis, which will be used to determine with whom teachers exchange information related to their teaching. The study will benefit the field by highlighting induction strategies appropriate and effective for diverse teacher groups, and lead to a desire for increased retention in the workforce. The study will inform workforce issues in the organizational sciences, in which limited work has explicitly adopted a social network approach to explain human resource outcomes.The theory being examined in this project is the extent to which teacher identify formation linked to persistence in the profession can be detected in participants' social networks and correlated to Noyce preparation and induction features. The three-stage research design will include documenting the antecedents of network formation, teacher networks, and the outcomes of networks. In Stage I, information will be collected about the support structures present at each site, and which activities and demographics represent the participants' experiences during induction. Coherence between the planned focus of each program, and the experiences of the participants, will be examined. In Stage II, social network information will be collected from participants using an ego-centric network survey (with data focused on a given teacher's local community of ties, e.g. the CoP) of who each teacher exchanges information with related to teaching content and pedagogy, how frequently the interactions occur, and whether the contacts occur in the local school or across regional, state, or national levels. Survey data will be transformed into matrices needed to generate STEM teacher networks, and examined for size, density, strength of ties, and geographic proximity to the teacher, utilizing the latest social network analysis software packages. Network properties from Stage II will be modeled using Stage I data to determine which activities and support structures contribute to different structural CoPs. In Stage III, teacher perceptions of their teaching self-efficacy, identity within the profession, and outlook on remaining in the profession will be collected. Stage III data will be modeled using Stage II network data to determine which CoPs influence desirable teacher outcomes. In order to strengthen claims of causality from the quantitative analyses, teachers will be asked which activities influence their CoP network, and which portions of the network effect their outcomes. Stage I and III instruments will be aligned to NSF Annual Participant Surveys, and Department of Education Teacher Follow-up Surveys, respectively, so results from this study may be generalized to national data in future studies.