Increasing the Effectiveness of Novice Teachers

Abstract

With teacher attrition rates at an all-time high, there is a need for specialized mentoring programs and collaborative systems of support for early-career educators. Novice teachers have unique professional development needs, and their self-efficacy beliefs are highly malleable during the first few years in the classroom. Mentoring programs often focus on supports that help new teachers cope with job responsibilities but spend little time on instructional improvement and analyzing student outcomes. This conceptual research presents a collaborative professional development framework for novice teachers grounded in self-efficacy theory. The framework draws on existing empirical research on current mentoring programs and studies on the self-efficacy beliefs of novice teachers. The authors submit that vicarious and enactive mastery experience can increase novice teacher self-efficacy beliefs. The framework described subsequently has the potential to increase the instructional effectiveness of early-career educators and improve student achievement.