Closing the Attainment Gap - Recruitment, Achievement and Quality of Beginning Teachers.

Debates around ‘Closing the Attainment Gap’ (Sosu & Ellis, 2014), and recent PISA statistics (OECD, 2016) which have pointed to declining levels of student attainment, have raised questions about the quality of educational provision in Scotland, and the inequality of educational opportunity for young people across the country. Although a number of societal and environmental factors have an influence on this situation, research has consistently suggested that the most important factor in student attainment is teacher quality (OECD, 2005). The Scottish Government has strongly reiterated the need for highly trained professionally qualified new teachers to be entering the profession, and in large enough numbers to meet demand across the country.

In this connection, the proposed project is underpinned by the need for providers of Initial Teacher Education across the country (including the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen) to continually review and evaluate all aspects of its ITE programmes (from student recruitment processes onwards) to ensure the quality of new entrants to the profession.

It is envisaged that this project will develop deeper understandings of the important variables (including student characteristics which may include demographics, school achievement scores, selection interview data, course grades, destination teaching data, attitudes and perspectives), and the interconnections of these factors, that influence specific aspects of recruitment, achievement, and quality of teachers entering the profession.

The project is likely to adopt a longitudinal mixed methods approach (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011), using both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. Available existing datasets (current student cohorts) will be interrogated using Secondary data analysis. To facilitate a multiple perspective analysis, Primary data collection using survey and interview will be used.

The emerging evidence base will have the potential to inform future stakeholder decisions (potentially at local and national levels) connecting with the issues highlighted above, in turn making policy, theory, research and practice connections.

Applicants with broad interests in the field of teacher education are invited to submit a 2000 word research proposal. The aims of the proposed research should be contextualised within the relevant research context and the conceptual literature, and the research methodology should present a clear rationale for the proposed approach. Proposals must include appropriate reference to the academic literature and should explicitly consider any ethical issues that are likely to arise in the course of the research.