Browsing by Author "Juurikko, Pauli"

Goals. The poor self-efficacy experienced by classroom teachers in the teaching profession - teacher self-efficacy - is a key reason why many classroom teachers are considering a career change. Teacher persistence in previous studies decreases as teacher students enter working life and increases after several years of teaching experience. The self-efficacy experienced by a teacher is affected not only by the amount of teaching experience but also by the teacher's competence. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the teacher efficacy of classroom teacher students, novice teachers, and experienced teachers in different areas of teacher competence. The research focused in particular on low teacher efficacy, which includes the concerns experienced by students and teachers. The research task is to clarify which kind of concerns teacher students, novice teachers and experienced teacher experience. In addition, differences and similarities are sought in the concerns. Methods. The research material was obtained by interviewing two classroom teacher students, two novice teachers, and two experienced teachers. A semi-structured thematic interview was used as the type of research interview. The material was analyzed using theory-driven content analysis. The study was a qualitative study using phenomenography as its research direction. Results and conclusions. Respondent groups had a wide range of concerns in different areas of teacher competence. Most of the concerns were about the teacher efficacy experienced by the student or teacher. Concerns about teacher efficacy were most experienced in information processing, problem solving, the use of creativity, and metacognitive skills. Among the respondent groups, novice teachers had the most concerns about teacher ability, followed by classroom teacher students and least experienced teachers. The research results support previous studies that show that teacher ability is at its weakest as a novice teacher. It is possible to utilize the research results, for example, in teacher education, so that newly graduated classroom teachers are “more prepared” when entering working life.