Perceived Organizational Antecedents of Emerging Collaborative Learning Activities Among Icelandic Beginning Teachers

ABSTRACT

Encouraging teachers to participate in collaborative learning activities for professional development has become an important part of educational reform strategies in many countries. Recent research suggests these activities may play an important role in the professionalization of the teaching profession. In Iceland, teachers report the highest level of unmet demand for professional development among countries surveyed by the OECD. As a result, the new education policy in Iceland focuses on collaboration among teachers. This study explores the perceived organizational antecedents of emerging collaborative learning activities among Icelandic teachers as they begin their careers. Based on the survey data from 215 Icelandic beginning teachers, the results show that feedback by school leaders, role clarity and perceived organizational support are strongly associated with collaborative learning activities among beginning teachers, whereas affective commitment to the school organization does not contribute to collaborative learning activities. One implication for practice is that leadership that promotes organizational factors will also promote collaborative activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaborative learning activities
• Iceland
• beginning teachers
• structural equation modeling

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) aims to promote policies that will improve the economic and social wellbeing of people around the world.

2 This said, there are countries where teachers do work together also in classrooms, but these are special cases where one teacher and one assistant teacher work together in a classroom or one teacher and special education teacher work together.

3 Recently, an expert panel on the continuing education and professional development of teachers has been set up (The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2016, p. 39).However, this has not resulted in policy making.