Match games: exploring the match between novice teachers and induction coaches

ABSTRACT

This mixed methods study investigates novice teacher and coach survey responses from a two-year induction programme to learn more about what makes a good match. We qualitatively analyse comments from all novice teachers and coaches who were paired across years and find shared themes of structural, professional, and personality similarities as well as the importance of coaching support prominent throughout novice teacher responses. We also use logistic regression to indicate that novice teachers’ ratings of coaching skills and coaches’ beliefs about the induction programme fitting within vertical professional development were positive and significant predictors of perceptions of being well matched. Findings have implications for induction programmes on how to match their coaches with novice teachers to enhance teacher development.

KEYWORDS:

• Coaching
• induction
• novice teachers

Acknowledgments

We want to acknowledge the Candidates and Coaches for their tireless work in the classrooms. We appreciate the assistance of Linda Sanada, Joe Boffa, Tonya Almeida, and Barbara Howard in the construction of this manuscript.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We conducted a literature search in EBSCO host using the following search terms: mentor* OR coach* AND teacher* OR educator*. This search returned 205 non-duplicate, English-language documents from the years 1989–2020 from ERIC (Ebsco), Education Source, Academic Search Ultimate, and 26 other scholarly databases. These documents were imported into Rayyan, where their abstracts were examined, and 43 relevant articles were read in full. Only 11 of these articles were empirical in nature. Because of the limited number of articles, a second complementary search using the same terms was performed in Google Scholar. The first 200 results were examined to find relevant research articles and 60 relevant articles were read in full. Only two empirical studies were added.

2. Pseudonym.

3. Districts and universities can offer induction services as well. Generally, districts allow individuals to choose where they want to receive their induction support from.

4. xxxx.

5. CTI coaches are termed capital ‘Coach’ from here forward.

6. Per state requirements, coaches must have: knowledge of the contexts and the content area of the new teacher’s teaching assignment; demonstrated commitment to professional learning and collaboration; possession of a clear teaching credential; ability, willingness and flexibility to meet the new teacher’s needs for support; competence in mentoring practices and familiarity with the teacher induction programme, including willingness to participate in online training activities; minimum of 3 years of effective teaching experience; and approval by the new teacher’s site administrator to serve in the role of mentor.

7. CTI surveyed respondents throughout the year to determine whether they felt appropriately matched, and if they did not, the programme worked to resolve the issue. During the study context’s 2 years, 19 individuals submitted concerns prior to receiving the annual survey, though only eight pairs resulted in a change of coach. Additional data were not collected on these disbanded pairs. Majority of these changes were due to the Coach being unavailable to the Candidate. Other coaching pairs concerns were resolved through programmatic intervention. This large proportion of well-matched individuals is similar to the sample studied in Polikoff et al. (2015).

8. CTI novice teachers are termed capital ‘Candidate’ from here forward.

9. The 2017–2018 Candidate survey is shown in Appendix A as an example. The other surveys are available upon request.

10. The preceding item referring to their ‘answer’ queried, ‘How was matched are you with your Candidate/Coach?’ and was on a 4-point scale with 1 ‘Not matched well’; 2 ‘Somewhat well matched’; 3 ‘Moderately well matched’; 4 ‘Well matched.’

11. Despite having been aware of previous characteristics of effective matching between Candidates and Coaches from our own review of the literature, we decided to engage in inductive, emergent coding rather than a deductive approach, so as not to adopt ‘the analytic reflection’—assume conclusions from past research—previously done by others (Saldaña, 2009, p. 13), and to be open to any other possible patterns in the raw data.

12. To account for the paired, nested nature of our sample (Candidate–Coach), we created and ran a multilevel logistic regression model estimating perceptions of being well matched as a function of Candidate responses in Year 1 and Year 2 (Hox, 2010). While this analytic strategy more closely aligns with our qualitative analyses, it can only be modelled from the Candidate perspective. Candidates can only have one Coach but a Coach can, and often did, have multiple Candidates that they worked with. Additionally, the multilevel modelling results, shown in Appendix D, were not substantively different than the results from the logistic regression models.

13. Four separate versions of each factor were created, one representing each respondent group and each year (e.g., Candidate Year 1). Candidate factors had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.95 or greater, which is excellent in internal consistency; the Coach factors had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85 or greater, which is good in nature.

14. Demographic characteristics of Coaches are separated by year because of the change in response rates over time. The means of each characteristic were statistically similar according to a series of independent samples t-tests.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Kwok

Dr. Ambyr Rios currently serves as the Director of Online Education and concurrently pursues a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction within the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include culturally relevant literacy instruction, disciplinary literacy, and preservice teacher preparation.

Mario Suárez

Dr. Mario I. Suárez (he/him/él) is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies in the School of Teacher Education and Learning at Utah State University.  His research interests include queer and trans issues in education and STEM persistence through a critical quantitative lens.

Cristina Worley

Dr. Cristina Worley is a doctoral student in the Multicultural Program in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture at Texas A&M University. Her research interests include gifted education, urban education, and teacher preparation for Black and Brown students.

Megan Patterson

Dr. Megan S. Patterson, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on how social and structural networks impact the overall wellbeing of individuals and communities, as well as how networks influence individual and community-level outcomes.