Newly qualified teachers’ work engagement and teacher efficacy influences on job satisfaction,burnout, and the intention to quit

Teacher policy is high on national agendas and countries are seeking to improve schools. Demands on schools and teachers are more complex and it is expected that a larger number of teachers will enter the profession. Studies indicate that the period when teachers are newly qualified is a peak time for leaving the profession. The purpose of this study was to investigate work engagement and teacher efficacy and their relationship to job satisfaction, burnout and the intention to quit among newly qualified teachers. 750 questionnaires were distributed to teachers who had less than six years experience as a teacher after they had completed their teacher education from one university in southern Norway. 192 completed surveys were returned, a response rate of 25.6%. In line with the hypothesis, proposed work engagement and teacher efficacy are positively related to job satisfaction but negatively related to job burnout and the intention to quit. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Teachers' source evaluation self‐efficacy predicts their use of relevant source features when evaluating the trustworthiness of web sources on special education

Building on prior research and theory concerning source evaluation and the role of self‐efficacy in the context of online learning, this study investigated the relationship between teachers' beliefs about their capability to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources and their reliance on relevant source features when judging the trustworthiness of websites concerning special education. We constructed the Source Evaluation Self‐Efficacy Scale (SESES) and used the scores of 263 teachers on this measure to predict their reliance on source features related to the product and the producer of websites when evaluating their trustworthiness. Results showed that even after variance related to gender, age, domain knowledge and frequency of searching the Internet for special education information had been accounted for, teachers' source evaluation self‐efficacy beliefs uniquely predicted their self‐reported use of information about websites' products and producers when judging their trustworthiness. Thus, this research applies self‐efficacy theory and research to a new area and contributes to the burgeoning literature on source evaluation within both reading and information literacy.     

Interpretation of image content

During the last few years we have undertaken a series of experiments and studies concerning interpretation of image content. Subjects were asked to name image contents, to describe image contents, to index image contents, to write legends, to asses image contents, to create images, to complete a story, to illustrate a story, and to produce informative materials. Results from these experiments, based on more than 62,800 verbal and visual statements from 3,100 subjects, confirm the theory of a dual stage perception process. It is suggested that different assignments cause perception and image interpretation on different cognitive levels.     

The digital challenges of school and teacher education in Norway: Some urgent questions and the search for answers

This paper highlights the digital challenges within education in Norway and explains how the digital revolution creates new possibilities, dilemmas and challenges for school and teacher education in our contemporary society. Today we find a consensus among policy-makers, researchers, teacher educators and school management that digital literacy and ICT implementation must be given high priority and needs to be explored more deeply in our contemporary educational institutions. Despite this consensus, previous ICT efforts have revealed that implementation of ICT in the Norwegian context has been more strongly anchored rhetorically, than in practice. Consequently, the paper focuses on whether we now have learned from the past and are entering a time of upheaval within technology implementation and asks what kind of possibilities, challenges and dilemmas teacher educators and teachers face in this new pedagogical terrain. The paper focuses on some urgent questions and the search for answers within this pedagogical area, based on research findings from PILOT (Krumsvik, IKT i det nye læringsrommet, 2 (ICT in the new learning-space, 2), Unipub, Universitetet i Oslo, 2004a; Krumsvik, Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift (Norwegian Journal of Pedagogy), 88:467–480, 2004b; Krumsvik, Scand. J. Educ. Res., 49:27–50, 2005a; Krumsvik, J. Nord. Pedagog. Res., 25:190–207, 2005b; Krumsvik, ICT in the school. ICT-initiated school development in lower secondary school, University of Bergen, Bergen, 2006), other relevant research studies, policy documents and theoretical foundations.     

Sourcing in professional education: Do text factors make any difference?

The present study investigated the extent to which the text factors of source salience and emphasis on risk might influence readers’ attention to and use of source information when reading single documents to make behavioral decisions on controversial health-related issues. Participants (n = 259), who were attending different bachelor-level professional programs at a university college, generally disregarded source information irrespective of textual manipulations, especially sources cited or embedded within other documents, and mainly relied on their own personal experiences and opinions when making behavioral decisions on the issues. Theoretical as well as educational implications of the findings are discussed.     

Childhood football play and practice in relation to self-regulation and national team selection; a study of Norwegian elite youth players

Childhood sport participation is argued to be important to understand differences in self-regulation and performance level in adolescence. This study sought to investigate if football-specific activities in childhood (6–12 years of age) is related to self-regulatory skills and national under 14- and 15-team selection in Norwegian elite youth football. Data of practice histories and self-regulatory skills of 515 youth football players selected at Norwegian regional level were collected and further analysed using multilevel analyses. The results revealed that high self-regulated players were more likely to be selected for national initiatives, and increased their involvement in peer-led football practice and adult-led football practice during childhood, compared to players with lower levels of self-regulation. While national level players reported higher levels of peer-led football play in childhood, the interaction effect suggest that the regional level players increased their involvement in peer-led play during childhood compared to national level players. In conclusion, the findings indicate that childhood sport participation may contribute to later differences in self-regulation, and highlights the importance of childhood engagement in football-specific play and practice in the development of Norwegian youth football players.     

Problem‐based distance learning of energy issues via computer network

Problem‐based learning (PBL) modified for distance education (PBDiL = Problem‐Based Distance Learning) has been used for teaching energy issues at Uppsala University, Sweden. Collaborative learning in groups of seven to eight students was enabled by computer communication and enhanced the use of Internet. Two different teaching methods have been tried and are compared, both being influenced by methods used in conventional face‐to‐face PBL. The problem presentation was entirely built on pictures, and examination through student reports was successful. A student remark, ‘I study on my own but yet not alone’ shows the importance of social contact.     

Crystal growth of calcite at conditions of gas processing in solvent mixtures of monoethylene glycol and water

Growth kinetics of the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate,calcite,has been studied in seeded stirred batch experiments in MEG-water solutions at 40 ℃ and 70 ℃,conditions relevant for the processing of natural gas.It was found that MEG changes the growth order from two in pure water to one in solvent mixtures of MEG and water.Assuming parabolic growth (growth order is equal to two),it could be shown that MEG decreases the growth rate constant for calcite from 0.52 nm/s to 0.11 nm/s (70 ℃) when the MEG-content is increased from 0 wt% MEG to 65 wt% MEG.Decreasing the temperature from 70 ℃ to 40 ℃ has a similar effect on the growth rate constant as raising the level of MEG to 65 wt%.     

A longitudinal study of social relationships and networks in the transition to and within adulthood for vulnerable young adults at ages 24, 29 and 34 years: compensation,reinforcement or cumulative disadvantages?

This longitudinal study, spanning from 1995 through 2012, followed vulnerable youth from upper secondary school (T1) as they made the transition to their early twenties (T2), late twenties (T3) and mid-thirties (T4). We investigated their social network relationships in different phases of adult life, focusing mainly on factors that explain patterns of social adaptation. Internet-mediated relationships were also studied at T4. We found that attending special classes in upper secondary school explained the respondents’ risk of being in a small isolated and bonding network in their early twenties. In the transition from early to late twenties, the relative impact of a changed life situation, which increases the potential of network formation, is a resilience factor. Logistic regression analyses, however, showed that in the transition from T3 to mid-thirties, having intellectual disabilities was a risk factor for social isolation. In particular, males with intellectual disabilities or psychosocial difficulties at this age were isolated in small networks and less likely to be on Facebook/Twitter. A shift of factors in the explanatory model of the transition from school to adult life reflects the relative impact of contextual factors distant and closer in time, shedding light on the principle of social ties to others, linked lives and cumulative disadvantages across the life course.