Rethinking teacher recruitment: New approaches to attracting prospective STEM teachers

这个项目的目的是为了更好地了解利用创新技术吸引和招聘STEM本科生进入初始教师教育(ITE)的情况。在英国和世界上几个国家，为ITE重新招收足够高质量的某些学科领域的申请者是一个长期存在的问题。ITE缺乏高素质的STEM申请者，削弱了教师队伍，减少了许多儿童的教育机会，并导致本可用于其他地方的经济资源枯竭(例如，通过持续提供招聘激励措施)。教师短缺是政治、经济和社会因素复杂组合的结果。一个促成因素--也是这项提议的重点--是招聘信息的有效性、创新性和覆盖面，旨在吸引潜在的应聘者。该项目的基础是开发和测试可用于STEM招聘的新数字工具。在这份提案中，我们概述了我们将如何开发和测试创新和积极的技术，以吸引和招募潜在的STEM教师加入IT。教师招聘的新技术招聘研究的进展指明了新的教师招聘干预措施的道路，通过利用组织心理学、组织行为学和游戏化研究的方法，这些干预措施可以是积极的和可扩展的。我们将测试两种可能有效、吸引人、经济和可扩展的积极主动的教师招聘技术：(A)在线现实工作预览(RJP)，以及(B)一种具有说服力的教学游戏。据我们所知，这个项目将是第一个利用这两种技术来应对教师招聘挑战的项目。现实工作预览(RJP)为潜在申请者提供了一系列他们在工作中可能遇到的工作场所情况的视频或文本样本，然后是问题(你应该做什么？)以及来自专家的反馈(您的反馈与经验丰富的教师的反馈非常吻合)。对RJP的研究表明，与广告活动等更一般的干预措施相比，RJP能促进更高水平的契合度，并促进早期融入一个新领域。最近关于教师招聘的研究表明，RJP干预的原型提高了STEM学生的教学兴趣(Klassen等人，2021年)。说服性在线游戏“说服性游戏”可以被设计成通过让参与者沉浸在具有代理(即，自我导向)的数字互动的参与性活动(例如，教学模拟)中来塑造他们的态度。说服性游戏可以被设计成在招聘过程中吸引、激励和说服应聘者，并可以增加潜在职业/雇主的吸引力。精心设计的游戏提供了丰富而生动的感官体验，创造了一种沉浸感和临场感，进而建立了情景和紧急的个人兴趣。研究目的在这个项目中，我们专注于增加STEM学生进入ITE的流量，STEM本身代表了招生图景的一个缩影：在一些STEM学科，如物理，可以发现短缺，但在其他领域，如生物，则不太普遍。在工作包1中，我们将探讨多种信息(基于社会效用、个人效用和PV匹配)对与教学相关的态度和信念的综合影响。在工作包2中，我们开发并测试了一个教师招聘游戏，暂定名称为TeachQuest。在工作包3中，我们测试了在线RJP干预和TeachQuest如何影响参与者与教学生涯相关的态度(教学兴趣、教学意图和教学自我效能感)和行为(ITE应用状况、在ITE中的保留和进入专业实践的决定)。

The purpose of this project is to build a better understanding of the attraction and recruitment of STEM undergraduates into initial teacher education (ITE) using innovative technologies.Recruiting enough high-quality applicants in certain subject areas (e.g., STEM) for ITE is a chronic problem in England and several countries in the world. A shortage of high-quality STEM applicants for ITE weakens the teacher workforce, reduces educational opportunities for many children, and leads to a drain on economic resources (e.g., through the ongoing provision of recruitment incentives) that could be used elsewhere.Teacher shortages are the result of a complex mix of political, economic, and social factors. One contributing factor-and the focus of this proposal-is the effectiveness, innovativeness, and reach of recruitment messaging designed to attract potential applicants. The project is based on developing and testing new digital tools that can be used for STEM recruitment. In this proposal, we outline how we will develop and test innovative and proactive technologies to attract and recruit prospective STEM teachers into ITE.New Technologies for Teacher Recruitment Advances in recruitment research point the way to new teacher recruitment interventions that can be both active and scalable by harnessing methods from organisational psychology, organisational behaviour, and gamification research. We will test two proactive teacher recruitment technologies that have the potential to be effective, engaging, economical, and scalable: (a) online realistic job previews (RJPs), and (b) a 'persuasive' teaching game. To our knowledge, this project will be the first of its kind to harness these two technologies to address the challenge of teacher recruitment.Realistic Job Previews (RJPs)RJPs offer potential applicants a series of video or text samples of workplace situations that they can expect to encounter on a job, followed by questions (What should you do?) and feedback from experts (Your responses show an excellent fit with the responses from experienced teachers). Research on RJPs shows that they promote higher levels of fit than more general interventions such as advertising campaigns and promote early integration into a new field. Recent research focused on teacher recruitment showed that a prototype RJP intervention boosted interest in teaching in a sample of STEM students (Klassen et al., 2021). Persuasive Games Online 'persuasive games' can be designed to shape attitudes in participants by immersing them in engaging activities (e.g., a teaching simulation) with agentic (i.e., self-directed) digital interactions. Persuasive games can be designed to engage, motivate, and persuade applicants in the recruitment process, and can increase the attractiveness of a prospective vocation/employer. Well-designed games deliver experiences that are rich and vivid in sensory experiences, creating a sense of immersion and presence that in turn build situational and emergent individual interest.Research AimsIn this project, we are focusing on increasing the flow of STEM students into ITE, with STEM itself representing a microcosm of the recruitment landscape: shortages can be found in some STEM subjects such as physics, but are less prevalent in other areas, such as biology. In Work Package 1, we explore the integrative effects of multiple messages (based on social utility, personal utility, and PV fit) on teaching-related attitudes and beliefs. In Work Package 2, we develop and test a teacher recruitment game, tentatively titled TeachQuest. In Work Package 3, we test how an online RJP intervention and TeachQuest influence participants' teaching career-related attitudes (teaching interest, teaching intentions, and teaching self-efficacy), and behaviours (ITE application status, retention in ITE, and decisions to enter professional practice).