Gathering views on probationer teachers' readiness to teach

Scope of the data collection

In the Evaluation of the Impact of the Implementation of Teacher Scotland's Future (2016), data was gathered on the perceptions of how prepared newly qualified teacher felt they were to deliver the curriculum. In it, probationer teachers were asked a number of questions about their ITE experience and readiness to teach. The overall response from newly qualified teachers was that they felt their ITE experience was both useful and effective in preparing them for their first teaching post. This report will build on that survey and consider the views and comments of probationer teachers, probationer supporters and probationer managers on those key areas that are responsibility of all teachers. The pertinent questions from the Evaluation of the Impact of Teacher Scotland's Future (2016) can be found in Appendix 1.

The report

This report has been created using data collected from probationer teachers via an on-line survey and probationer supporters and probationer managers via semi-structured focus groups. It presents a narrative of the perception of probationer teachers, probationer supporters and probation managers.

The themes from the semi-structured interviews with probationer supporters and probation managers are reported, together with findings from the questionnaires, to create a data set of perceptions from the three respondent groups. This collation of data from both qualitative and quantitative research methods lends itself to 'thick description' (Geertz, 1973) as it narrates the richness of the conversations and supplements this with evidence from the quantitative data.
A full set of data tables from the on-line questionnaire can be found in Appendix 2.