Abstract
Beginning teachers, especially first year beginning teachers, are familiar with the traumatic time when they first encounter the real classroom situations (Veenman, 1984). The author of this paper has initiated a study on the changes of the major concerns of the first year beginning secondary school teachers in Hong Kong at four time points in their first year of teaching: exploring their changes of focuses in classroom and school contextual problems and comparing them with findings illustrated by Veenman (1984) in his summary of previous studies in various countries. As part of a more comprehensive study (Chan, 1992), the present study forms part of the cross-validation for the development of an induction model applicable for induction purposes of the beginning secondary school teachers. Results from a supplementary survey on a group of more experienced secondary school teachers’ views towards the same set of concerns through their responses to the same set of questionnaire would be analysed, compares and contrasted with those of the beginning teachers. The major implication for the study are (1) on the care, concern and help for the beginning secondary teachers’ personal and professional needs at different times during their adaptation period of learning to teach, and (2) on the development of an induction model with varying emphases at different time points for the school administrators to assist beginning teachers to cater for their own specific needs at different times, even in the first year, not to offer them ‘help’ which is basically not well-received as shown in some previous studies (Bullough, 199 1). An expectation for extending the induction or professional guidance period for secondary teachers in general would also be explored in the last part of the paper.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 1998 |