Do Student Teachers’ Career Plans Change During Student Teaching?

• In Event: Student Teaching in Urban Districts: Implications for Teacher Quality, Career Paths, and Policy

Abstract

Hundreds of teacher candidates enter many urban districts each year to complete student teaching, and these candidates are attractive potential hires for districts. Despite the potential importance of student teachers to urban districts, however, there is little large-scale evidence on whether or why student teachers’ career plans change during student teaching. One study found that the desire to pursue a career in teaching diminished slightly during student teaching (Anderson, 1987); another found that differences in the work environments of student teaching schools were correlated with the number of years student teachers planned to teach (Huang & Waxman, 2008). Building on this work, this study asks: Do student teachers’ career plans change during student teaching? Do changes in career plans depend upon the characteristics of teachers or of their student teaching schools?

Data for this study comes from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third-largest school district in the nation and host to hundreds of student teachers each year. The data includes surveys (administered both before and after student teaching) of over 2,000 student teachers in the district, as well as publicly available data on school-level student demographics and school-level achievement data for student teaching schools. Analyses use ordered logistic regression to examine the direction of change (positive, no change, or negative) in student teachers’ career plans during student teaching, as well as the student teacher and school characteristics associated with these changes.

Results demonstrate that student teachers’ career plans change during student teaching, particularly their plans for teaching in the same district where they student taught. These changes are more often negative than positive, and a substantial percentage of student teachers decide during student teaching to never teach in the district where they student taught. Student teacher and school demographic characteristics, as well as student teaching in “difficult-to-staff” schools, generally do not predict the direction of changes in student teachers’ career plans. These findings suggest that student teaching experiences may dissuade many from seeking employment in the district, and thus hinder efforts at the recruitment of student teachers to teach there. The results also raise the important question: What features of student teaching placement classrooms and schools may discourage new teachers from remaining in the district? Because this study has ruled out a number of teacher and school demographic factors, future studies should examine other school-level factors, such as level of collegiality and support, or classroom-level factors to explain this shift.

Authors

• Matthew A. Shirrell, Northwestern University

• Michelle Reininger, Stanford University