Teacher Professional Competence for Effective Classroom Management (TCM) – Analyzing its Link to Opportunities to Learn during Transition from Training into Teaching in Regional Contexts of Germany and Switzerland

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Classroom management (CM) refers to instructional and organisational teacher behavior and action to ensure order and effective time use during lessons. Meta-analyses have repeatedly shown effective CM has positive effects on student learning outcomes. In Germany and Switzerland as well as in other countries worldwide, expectations exist that teacher education should prepare pre-service teachers so that they can cope with such professional demands of CM when entering the teaching profession. However, early career teachers are often challenged heavily: They indicate CM is their highest priority and they do not necessarily feel well prepared. Teacher education programs have been criticized for its low effectiveness in CM preparation. The overarching objective of this project is to generate new knowledge about early career teacher professional competence for effective classroom management (TCM). Three major research questions are focused on: (1) How can TCM of teachers at the end of their training and at their entry into teaching be conceptualized and measured across the contexts of Germany and Switzerland? (2) How can teachers’ opportunities to learn (OTL) with regard to CM be conceptualized and measured during their transition from training into teaching across the contexts of Germany and Switzerland? (3) How are OTL related to TCM of teachers at the end of training and at their entry into the teaching profession in the contexts of Germany and Switzerland? The project’s working scheme consists of three major phases: (1) On the basis of existing instruments of the research group, a new inventory of measurement instruments will be developed to operationalize TCM in the area of knowledge and skills as well as to capture CM-specific OTL that are valid across Germany and Switzerland. (2) The second project year starts with a survey of TCM and OTL (t1) using regionally representative samples in Germany and Switzerland targeting pre-service teachers in their final year of training before they are eligible to become in-service teachers. At t1, we assess TCM as teacher education outcome and the pre-service teachers are extensively surveyed on their OTL related to CM. When entering in-service teaching, we will monthly capture teachers’ CM-OTL on a micro-level. (3) One year after, participants who have entered the teaching profession are followed up (t2). We will assess their TCM again and survey their entry situation including CM-specific OTL. Our study aims at contributing to the discourse on a shared understanding of TCM in Germany and Switzerland: It will provide novel insights into the assessment of teacher competence, its transformation at the transition from training into teaching, and how it is affected by learning opportunities in different teacher education contexts. Building on this, in a succeeding study starting from 2025 onwards, we plan to examine predictive validity of TCM for instructional quality and student learning.