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Sauve, Julie

University of British Columbia

The Enhanced Critical Incident Technique (ECIT) is a qualitative methodology that has been widely used within the fields of organizational and industrial psychology to help identify critical incidents, events, or factors that help or hinder the successful performance of an event, activity, or experience (Butterfield et al., 2005; 2009). Utilizing the ECIT, the current study aimed to (a) explore the factors present within teacher preparation programs that have helped or hindered early-career teachers' abilities to support the social and emotional development of their students, through the use of social and emotional learning (SEL) programs and practices, and (b) generate a wish-list of SEL promoting factors that early-career teachers wish they had received as part of their teacher preparation. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews guided by ECIT protocol. The sample included 11 early-career teachers (5 years, or less, of teaching experience) recruited in Oregon, a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. All participants were currently employed as K-12 teachers and had graduated from an accredited teacher preparation program in Oregon between 2017-2021. This study was completed towards the end of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; initial interviews were conducted between August – October 2022 and follow-up sessions concluded in January 2023. Analyses identified 181 factors related to participants’ teacher preparation programs that they felt had critically impacted their abilities to support the SEL and the social and emotional development of their students. Of these 181 factors, 74 were categorized as helpful, 43 as hindering or unhelpful, and 64 as wish-list items. Utilizing an iterative data analysis process, four primary categories were created to represent prominent themes: (a) Curriculum and Course Content, (b) Programmatic Elements, (c) Experience in Educational Settings, and (d) Modeling Social, Emotional, and Cultural Competence. Based on these findings, the results of this study were utilized to synthesize recommendations for educational leaders in Oregon who are currently working to integrate SEL-based teaching standards into teacher preparation programs across Oregon. Implications of findings, strengths and limitations of this study, and recommendations to inform future research are discussed.

Text

2023-12-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86988

Human Development, Learning, and Culture

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/