More Than a Feeling: Effects of High-Quality Field Placement on Long-Term Outcomes

• In Event: Extending and Interrogating the Quantitative Evidence That Clinical Mentors Matter

Abstract

Since the inception of teacher education, clinical experiences have been a
cornerstone of teacher preparation. However, only recently have researchers started to empirically test which characteristics of clinical experiences are associated with improved outcomes for preservice student teachers (PSTs) (see, Ronfeldt, 2021, for a review of this literature). These studies have found that higher quality clinical experiences—specifically, placements with instructionally effective clinical mentors (CMs) and in schools with strong professional learning environments—are consistently associated with stronger feelings of preparedness, observed teaching effectiveness, and retention for PSTs. Two experimental studies have even demonstrated that being assigned to more promising placements (ISTI; Goldhaber et al., 2022) and to more instructionally effective and experienced CMs (MMR; Ronfeldt et al., in progress) causes PSTs to be more instructionally effective during student teaching. However, research has yet to establish whether these causal effects persist after PSTs graduate and become inservice teachers of record.
This study is the first to track field placement effects into inservice years, drawing on an experimental design that randomly assigned PSTs to field placements predicted to be either more or less promising. To accomplish this, we used administrative data to rank potential field placements based on characteristics of the school (school value added and a measure of teacher turnover) and CM (teacher value added, performance evaluations, and experience). We divided potential field placements at the median of these rankings and randomly assigned each PST to a higher (more promising) or lower (less promising) site. Though all sites met partner programs’ criteria for PST placement, the two groups still displayed significant differences in CM (and, to a lesser extent field placement school) quality.
We then compare the PSTs in these two groups on a variety of outcomes from survey and administrative data. Overall, we find that PSTs in both groups report similar perceptions; specifically, for PSTs randomly assigned to more and less promising placements, we observe statistically indistinguishable reports of frequency and quality of coaching and feedback received from mentors, comparable assessments of CMs’ instructional effectiveness and school working conditions, and equal feelings of preparedness and inclinations to teach. However, in some specifications, we find evidence of differences in their performance after entering the workforce. Namely, PSTs assigned to more promising placements both received marginally higher average observation ratings during—and were significantly less likely to move schools or leave the workforce after—their first year of teaching.
These results provide critical insight into the actual impacts that field placements have on PSTs in teacher education, particularly in terms of their workforce outcomes. This study offers the first evidence that the documented effects of higher quality CMs and field placements persist after PSTs graduate and become inservice teachers of record. This work has significant implications for policymakers and teacher education programs as it suggests that the administrative data generally available to school leaders can be used to identify and select promising field placements for PSTs and that doing so can have significant and persistent effects on early career outcomes.

Authors

• Matthew Ronfeldt, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Dan Goldhaber, American Institutes for Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• James Cowan, American Institutes for Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthew Truwit, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Emanuele Bardelli, Santa Rosa City Schools
  Non-Presenting Author