Teacher Preparation: A Multiple Case Study

The purpose of this case study was to explore the effects of teacher preparation programs for elementary teachers in the northeastern United States. At this stage in the research, the effects of teacher preparedness were generally defined as educators’ understanding of pedagogy in relation to their perceptions of student achievement. The theory that guided this study was self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977). The central research was: how prepared are teachers to enter the classroom after completing a teacher preparation program? This qualitative study used multiple case studies as the research design with a sample size of 10 – 15 participants. The data collection included individual interviews, focus groups, and physical artifacts. Yin’s five phases of analyzing data were used to analyze the data collected in this study. From the analyzed data, three themes arose with five sub-themes. The themes were (a) traditional teaching programs are beneficial in gaining knowledge, (b) challenging the first year of teaching, and (c) self-efficacy motivates educators. The interpretations from the data were (a) teacher preparation programs provide the necessary pedagogy for teaching, (b) teachers need mentoring in their first year of teaching to be successful, and (c) self-efficacy is necessary for teachers to improve their skills and persevere in the classroom. The recommendations for future research include having a better balance of participants who attended traditional university teacher preparation programs and those who went through alternative route programs.