The impact of change in the support networks of trainee secondary school teachers of mathematics and science

This study examines the development of the support networks of trainee teachers during the course of an intensive one year postgraduate programme for mathematics and science graduates wanting to teach their subject specialism in secondary schools. Longitudinal ego network data has been gathered from a cohort of consisting of more than 75 trainees. As well as the two subject areas the trainee teachers were also enrolled on two different programmes of study: a traditional university led programme, and a new school led programme introduced the previous year as part of a change to public policy on initial teacher education in England. Analysis of the first round of data collected one month into the programme demonstrates that both the size and make up (in terms of groups of alters such as peers, family, friends, colleagues) of the support ego networks varies appreciably between trainees. Changes to the size and composition of each trainee’s ego network for different aspects of support (with academics, classroom practice, subject knowledge development, practical and social or emotional support) will be combined with other covariates such as programme type, demographics, interpersonal trust, attitudes to support and whole network metrics from bounded peer-group support networks in a growth analysis, within a multivariate-multilevel regression modelling framework, to examine the impact of changes in trainees' support networks on their developing competence as teachers as assessed in lesson observations by course mentors and tutors, and via trainee self-assessments. The findings will help us understand the role that support networks play in enabling trainee teachers to develop professional competence and classroom practice and will also help tutors on initial teacher education programmes to appreciate whether explicit guidance on developing support networks might be of value to trainees