- Title
- Transforming casual relief teacher practice and identity through participation in high-quality professional development
- Creator
- Briskham, Jacqueline
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2025
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Casual relief teachers (CRTs) play an essential role in the effective functioning of schools. Nonetheless, they occupy a precarious position in the teaching workforce, frequently overlooked and meagrely supported. CRTs face persistent workplace barriers that include a lack of secure employment, constrained working opportunities, accreditation concerns, marginalisation, and exclusion. Repercussions of these barriers include negative effects on CRTs’ teaching and wellbeing. However, none of these matters has been positioned as a priority for governments in Australia or internationally. Moreover, paid access to professional development (PD) opportunities for CRTs are decidedly limited, particularly in the form of collaborative PD with colleagues. The challenges associated with accessing PD contribute to poorer pedagogical knowledge for CRTs than their permanent peers which can reduce their effectiveness and produce a fragmented sense of professional identity. Drawing on Mockler’s work on effective PD and its impact on the development of teacher identity, my study investigated whether participation in Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR), a high-impact, rigorously tested form of collaborative professional development, could improve CRTs’ pedagogical knowledge and practice and sense of professional identity, including belonging, morale, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction. The study, a multiphase, concurrent mixed methods approach, involved 32 CRTs from eight schools where the principals were willing to accommodate the research. Substantial benefits for CRTs were identified, including improvements in teaching practice and classroom management, a heightened sense of being a ‘real’ teacher, reduced isolation, improved collegiality among CRTs, increased acceptance by the wider school community and greater job satisfaction. Findings from this study have significant implications for the development of a motivated and effective casual teaching workforce. I argue that all CRTs should have access to powerful forms of PD, for their own benefit and for the positive impact on student outcomes.
- Subject
- casual relief teachers; professional development; teacher identity; quality teaching rounds; teacher morale; casual relief teacher policy; casual relief teacher training
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1518379
- Identifier
- uon:57279
- Rights
- Copyright 2025 Jacqueline Briskham
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 222 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |