Abstract
Career change student teachers enter teacher education programmes with different needs, capabilities and aspirations from those of their school-leaver counterparts. These differences come into stark contrast during professional experience, when student teachers spend extensive periods in schools as part of their teacher education programme. This article reports on the findings of an Australia-wide survey of 508 career change student teachers from 29 Australian universities. The respondents commented in particular on the struggles of juggling financial, family-related and study demands during their professional experience and raised some particular concerns for women. The article proposes recommendations for schools, supervising teachers and teacher education institutions that might improve this cohort’s school experiences.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). National. Retrieved from https://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/2016+Census+National
Anthony, G., & Ord, K. (2008). Change-of-career secondary teachers: Motivations, expectations and intentions. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 36(4), 359–376.
Beutel, D., Crosswell, L., & Broadley, T. (2019). Teaching as a ‘take-home job’: Understanding resilience strategies and resources for career change pre-service teachers. The Australian Educational Researcher, 46(4), 607–620.
Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Buchanan, J. (2016). School micro-politics and the beginning teacher: An Australian study. The Social Educator, 34(2), 21–29.
Choy, D., Wong, A. F., Goh, K. C., & Ling Low, E. (2014). Practicum experience: Pre-service teachers’ self-perception of their professional growth. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(5), 472–482.
Cohen, E., Hoz, R., & Kaplan, H. (2013). The practicum in preservice teacher education: A review of empirical studies. Teaching Education, 24(4), 345–380.
Crosswell, L., & Beutel, D. (2017). 21st century teachers: How non-traditional pre-service teachers navigate their initial experiences of contemporary classrooms. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 45(4), 416–431.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. London: Collier MacMillan Publishers.
Etherington, M. (2011). The Pygmalion principle: The practicum expectations and expectations of mature aged student teachers. Issues in Educational Research, 21(3), 259–279.
Grant-Smith, D., Gillett-Swan, J. & R Chapman, R. (2017). WiL wellbeing: Exploring the impacts of unpaid practicum on student wellbeing. Curtin University, Australia: National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.
Haggard, C., Slostad, F., & Winterton, S. (2006). Transition to the school as workplace: Challenges of second career teachers. Teaching Education, 17(4), 317–327.
Hunter-Johnston, Y. (2015). Demystifying the mystery of second career teachers’ motivations to teach. The Qualitative Report, 20(8), 1359–1370.
Kertesz, J. L., & Downing, J. (2016). Piloting teacher education practicum partnerships: Teaching Alliances for Professional Practice (TAPP). Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(12), 2.
Le Cornu, R. (2016). Professional experience: Learning from the past to build the future. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 44(1), 80–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2015.1102200.
Lincoln, Y. (1995). Emerging criteria for quality in qualitative and interpretive research. Qualitative Inquiry, 1(3), 275–289.
McGarr, O., O’Grady, E., & Guilfoyle, L. (2017). Exploring the theory-practice gap in initial teacher education: Moving beyond questions of relevance to issues of power and authority. Journal of Education for Teaching, 43(1), 48–60.
Morrison, C. M. (2016). Purpose, practice and theory: Teacher educators’ Beliefs about professional experience. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(3), 105–125.
Priyadharshini, E., & Robinson-Pant, A. (2003). The attractions of teaching: An investigation into why people change careers to teach. Journal of Education for Teaching, 29(2), 95–112.
Richardson, P. W., & Watt, H. M. G. (2006). Who chooses teaching and why? Profiling characteristics and motivations across three Australian universities. Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34(1), 27–56.
Smith, K., & Lev-Ari, L. (2005). The place of the practicum in pre-service teacher education: The voice of the students. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 33(3), 289–302.
Tigchelaar, A., Vermunt, J. D., & Brouwer, N. (2014). Patterns of development in second-career conceptions of teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 41, 111–120.
Varadharajan, M. (2014). Understanding the lived experiences of second career beginning teachers. Doctoral dissertation, University of Technology Sydney. http://hdl.handle.net/10453/29255.
Varadharajan, M., Carter, D., Buchanan, J. & Schuck, S. (2016). Understanding career change student teachers in teacher education programs. A report written for Australian Teacher Education Association. https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/49551.
Varadharajan, M., & Schuck, S. (2017). Can career changers be game changers? Policy, research and practice concerning career changers. In J. Nuttall, A. Kostogriz, M. Jones, & J. Martin (Eds.), Teacher education policy and practice: Evidence of impact, impact of evidence (pp. 83–96). Singapore: Springer.
Varadharajan, M., Buchanan, J. & Schuck, S. R. (2018). Changing course: The paradox of the career change student-teacher, professional development in education. https://www-tandfonlinecom.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080%2F19415257.2017.1423369.
Wilkins, C. (2017). ‘Elite’ career changers and their experience of initial teacher education. Journal of Education for Teaching, 43(2), 170–190.
Workplace Gender Equality Agency. (2018). Graduate gender pay gaps persist. Retrieved from https://www.wgea.gov.au/wgea-newsroom/graduate-gender-pay-gaps-persist
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) who funded the project on career change student teachers. We would also like to thank the pre-service teachers for their valuable participation in the survey.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Varadharajan, M., Carter, D., Buchanan, J. et al. Career change student teachers: lessons learnt from their in-school experiences. Aust. Educ. Res. 48, 107–124 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-020-00381-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-020-00381-0