Early career teachers’ beliefs about their preparedness to teach: Implications for the professional development of teachers working with gifted and twice-exceptional students

Abstract

Teachers have a major impact upon the educational achievements and psychological well-being of gifted students. Interestingly, however, relatively little is known about how well-prepared early career teachers believe themselves to be to take up this challenge. This makes the development of appropriately targeted and specifically focused professional learning opportunities challenging; responding to this significant gap in the literature—and its implications for the support of early career teachers—this article reports on results from a large-scale, mixed-methods Australian research project that investigated 971 newly graduated teachers’ beliefs about their preparedness to meet the needs of diverse students. Drawing upon this unique data-set, the paper identifies three key areas where beginning teachers felt less than prepared: teaching students with diverse abilities, supporting students with disability and communicating sensitively with parents. The paper then identifies implications of this research for the professional development of teachers.

Keywords

• gifted education
• teacher beliefs
• teacher education
• teacher professional development
• early career teachers
• student diversity