Alternative certification program analysis.

Abstract

A thorough review of the literature on alternative certification from 1997 to 2002 was conducted. After coding 77 articles a qualitative interpretive perspective was used. The findings indicate that improved reporting of program characteristics is essential and clear distinctions between alternative and traditional pathways should be described. Of the 77 articles, 34% were qualitative, quantitative, or hybrid with the balance being program reports. Programs reporting the highest retention rates, commonly 80% or more over three years were also more likely to report student outcome data.

Alternative Certification Programs Analysis

The post secondary educational system is faced with increasing the numbers of highly qualified K-12 teachers. The enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) coupled by the projected shortage of teachers has resulted in policy reformations and investigations of various venues for meeting the demand (Cox, Matthews, & Assoc., 2001). In a recent announcement education secretary, Rod Paige, advocates the hiring of second career professionals to meet part of the need for new teachers. Schouten (2002) reported that Secretary Paige said, "states should eliminate obstacles--such as requiring formal teaching credentials--and open the teaching ranks to nontraditional applicants" (p. 1).

Qualified Teachers

Consensus is yet to be reached on what factors determine a highly qualified teacher from a teacher preparation standpoint. However, NCLBA classifies a teacher as being highly qualified if they hold "... at least a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution; hold full state certification; and demonstrate competency in their subject area" (U. S. DOE, 2003, p. 4). Passing a state certification exam, where the state develops the exam and establishes the passing score, meets the bar for demonstrating competency in a given subject area. While there is evidence that individual teachers influence student performance, there is no solid evidence on what teacher attributes are and how they are best acquired (Andrew, 1999). "About a third of all secondary school teachers who teach mathematics do not have a major or minor in mathematics, mathematics education, or related disciplines like engineering or physics" (Ingersoll, p. 27). This is even more prevalent for teachers in high-poverty and small schools, fewer than 300 students, where one is more likely to be teaching a core subject area out-of-field (Ingersoll, 1999). The National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (NCTAF) found that 27 percent of high school students are taught mathematics by out-of-field teachers and like Ingersoll, found that the percentage is much higher in high-poverty schools. In fact, 12 percent of all newly hired teachers enter the classroom without any preparation to teach (NCTAF, 2002).

It is important to determine what alternative certification (AC) programs produce effective teachers and what teacher characteristics are most important to student academic achievement. To complicate matters, variation exists on the design, implementation, and reporting of existing programs. The 2002 Secretary's Annual Report on Teacher Quality was flawed because most of the references were to newspaper articles and documents published by advocacy organizations. The report cites almost no research that would meet scientific standards and includes many unsupported statements about teacher education and teacher certification (Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002; U. S. DOE, 2003). Generally, professionals seeking certification through alternative certification programs (ACP) meet content standards in their expected field of study. Evidence suggests that a professional development based teacher preparation program produces better results than ones lacking professional development components because the former promotes teaching confidence and self-efficacy (e.g., Feistritzer, Hill, & Willett, 1998). Consequently, teachers prepared this way are less susceptible to the reality shock of teaching than their counterparts and reportedly have lower teacher attrition rates during their first year of teaching (Hallinan & Khmelkov, 2001).

Research Focus

What are the characteristics of ACPs in the published literature and how many meet the NCLBA requirement of producing highly qualified teachers?

Methodology

Articles dealing with ACPs published since 1997 were located and coded. The coding procedure was similar to Anfara, Brown, and Mangione, (2002) and Lincoln and Guba (1985). Coding in this case is the systematic recording of specific instances of a priori meta-categories, and indicators. Among the meta-categories were type of ACP, duration, admission standards, field experience, areas of certification, retention rate, success rate, mentoring, and induction year support. These indicators were selected because they are indicative of effective teacher preparation programs (Darling- Hammond, 2002). The coding sheet was developed for analysis similar to Capraro, Capraro, and Henson (2001). Data collection allowed for both descriptive and qualitative analyses. We chose to follow the suggestions of Glass, McGraw and Smith (1981) to be as inclusive of all studies as possible such as published and unpublished articles and dissertations, however, limiting factor for this study was the timeframe for analysis. We were most interested in describing the current trend in ACPs so the time frame from 1997 through 2002 was selected.

A search for articles dealing with certification of teachers via alternative routes was conducted in ERIC and PsycLit databases using the keywords "Alternative" and "Certification" from 1997. A total of 273 articles were identified from the ERIC database and 23 from PsycLit. Four were duplicates, 204 were false hits, and 11 dissertations could not be obtained, leaving 77 articles dealing with AC available for review (74 from the ERIC database and 3 from PsycLit).

Data Analysis

Qualitative techniques were used to analyze the data. Initial coding of the data was conducted (similar to Miles & Huberman, 1994) in order to identify salient characteristics among the articles and as a method for pointing out regularities in the phenomena (Anfara et al., 2002). Data were coded by the specific criteria (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982) as indicators of the U.S. DOE (2003) document. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) constant comparison analysis was used to sort the data into categories. A code-mapping system was implemented to identity key aspects of the research questions. A data reduction strategy similar to Anfara et al. (2002) was used to provide insights based on the meta-categories evident from the data categorization. The first research question focused on the characteristics of ACPs as reported in the literature. The following criteria were used to characterize ACPs: (a) type of institution sponsoring the program, (b) admittance requirements, (c) program duration, (d) mentoring, (e) field experience (experiences prior to sole teaching responsibility), (f) first year retention rate, (g) teaching in high-need schools, (h) third year retention rate, and (i) previous profession focused on the general characteristics. The second research question focused on student indicators of success as differentiating between AC and traditionally certified (TC) teachers. The following criteria were used: (a) student academic performance, (b) school climate measures, (c) student attendance, and (d) parent involvement. First the data were coded for the entire time period from 1997-2002. Next, the data were recoded to allow comparison between 1997-1999 and 2000-2002. From the 77 articles coded for multiple criteria, program descriptions for 84 programs were reported.

Results

Of the 84 programs (represented in the 77 articles), only 4 % reported retention rates, 47 % reported degree requirements, and 17 % reported testing requirements. Thirty-one percent reported mentoring requirements and of those, 87 % required an induction year mentoring component. Twenty-three percent reported both degree and mentoring requirements. Thirteen percent reported completion rates. The majority of authors failed to mention the selection process for entering the program and made only generic statements regarding highly qualified applicants. Twenty-three percent of the 84 programs reported requiring both a degree and mentoring component. One reason that this may occur is because many researchers are pressed to report results immediately; therefore, they may forgo examining their programs longitudinally. Articles published before 2000 reported on 59 programs. Of those programs, only two programs reported retention rates, 34 % reported degree requirements, seven % reported testing requirements, and 12 % reported completion rates. Of the 34 % reporting degree requirements, 75 % required a degree. Thirty-one percent reported requiring mentoring with 5 % stating explicitly mentoring was not a required component of their program. Twenty-tour percent reported both degree and mentoring requirements with 12 % of the programs reported requiring both a degree and mentoring component. None of the authors mentioned a selection process for entering the program. None of the articles were the result of longitudinal study.

Articles published after 1999 reported on 25 programs. Of those programs, only 1 program reported retention rates, 80 % reported degree requirements, 40 % reported testing requirements, and 17 % reported completion rates. Of the 80 % reporting degree requirements, 90 % of the programs required a degree. Twenty percent reported a mentoring component. Twenty percent reported both degree and mentoring components with 80 % of these requiring both a degree and mentoring component. The majority of authors failed to mention the selection process for entering the program and made a generic statement regarding highly qualified applicants. This probably occurs because many researchers spontaneously report results of immediacy without examining their programs longitudinally. Forty-seven percent of the 84 programs reported degree requirements and 23 % reported both degree and mentoring requirements. Of these, only 13 % of the studies reported sufficient information to know whether or not they met the definition of highly qualified as defined by the Department of Education.

Coding of Study Characteristics and Analysis

When comparing pre and post 1999, it was evident that after 1999 reports of ACPs were more likely to contain descriptions of mentoring or induction year support. After 1999 reports of ACPs included more detailed descriptions of candidate expectations. During this time period, the pool of institutions involved in ACPs grew from colleges and universities and from long standing groups like Troops to Teachers (Feistritzer et al., 1998) to community colleges and for-profit agencies. Along with this increase in entities involved in preparing AC teachers, a decrease was evident in the reporting of school-based or student-based achievement data.

Few studies compared ACPs to TC programs. Pituch and Miller (1999) found that if ACPs provided regular mentoring, there was basically no difference in their students' achievement from students of traditionally certified teachers. They also found no statistically significant difference between behaviors thought to underlie effective teaching, their perceptions of initial preparation, or teaching competence after teaching three years. However, where reports of ACPs indicated efficacy measures based on student achievement, programs that provided some form of field experiences before candidates took classroom responsibility were more likely to show improvement on that measure. Those ACPs that were part of a university were more likely to report student outcome measures as a means of indicating program or candidate efficacy. Few reports detailed candidate retention; however, those programs reporting the highest retention rates, commonly 80% or more over three years were also more likely to report student outcome data. Conversely, those reporting retention rates at or above 80% were not any more likely to demonstrate an improvement on student or school site quality indicators.

Discussion

Results indicated four general conclusions. First, reasonable consensus exists in the published literature that certain activities/experiences are believed to positively impact preservice teacher preparedness to teach: (a) school-based or school-site experiences, (b) mentoring, (c) practical experiences with teaching the material they will be teaching, and (d) service provider based supervision. The literature is reasonably mixed on retention rates. Specifically, inconsistent reporting within this category prevented generalizations of ACPs. The studies reported are mostly non-longitudinal with many authors not reporting admission or completion rates. If studies reporting one-year results had reported retention rates consistently, it would be possible to conduct a multiple linear regression using study characteristics to evaluate those characteristics most commonly associated with first year retention. However, it is not evident that improving retention will yield improved student or school-based measures. Therefore, investigators who reported the highest percentages of teachers retained were not more likely to report improved academic performance. This should not be interpreted, as indicating that number of years teaching is unrelated to teacher efficacy or student performance. However, we may understand this result as being one that says short-term retention, five years or less has little impact on student performance indicators.

The impact of AC teachers on student achievement was inconclusive. The idea that students in the classrooms of either alternative or traditionally certified teachers differ is not supported from the literature base. The studies are few, sample sizes so small, and outcome measures so varied that it is not possible to draw conclusions that one certification route is 'better' than the other. Student outcome measures need to be selected so that socio-economic, ethnic, and school effects are controlled. If one is to consider the literature that states most alternatively certified teachers work in high-minority, under-performing schools, then a valuable study must consider similar teachers at matched schools. No articles identified in this study used a matched school design. A misconception may arise if the researcher believes that the students are the unit of study and not the teacher. Therefore, the appropriate level of study for these investigations should be the teacher and not the students. The articles reporting statistically significant differences between the two groups typically used small numbers of teachers. By contrast, the number of students in these studies was between 171 and 1262. This large sample allowed the researcher to make generalizations about students but not about the teachers or the programs to which they wanted to know. These types of studies do not tell us what we want to know, and we so much want to know what we want to know that, out of desperation, we nevertheless believe they do.

The data supported Darling-Hammond's position that "The concept of 'alternatives' to traditional state certification leaves a great deal of room for varied meaning" (p. 136). Alternative certification programs can range from non degree to master's degree programs and from programs that involve no mentoring to long-term induction year commitment. Programs vary from degree to non-degree programs and from post-baccalaureate programs to state licensing agencies and community colleges. Due to inadequate reporting and program descriptions we were unable to determine a consensus on characteristics of ACPs. Very few studies reported sufficient information to know whether or not individual programs met the definition of highly qualified as defined by the Department of Education.

The number of AC routes continues to grow. Today, there are state and national organizations devoted to AC groups and national conferences devoted to this topic. If certification programs are going to adhere to the recommendations for "highly qualified", the educational community needs to know what characteristics these programs contain and which are fulfilling the obligations of producing highly qualified teachers.

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Linda Reichwein Zientek, Texas A&M University

TauGamba Kadhi, Texas A&M University

Robert M. Capraro, Texas A&M University

Zientek interests are in nontraditional preparation of mathematics teachers and teaching mathematics in the community college. Kadhi is a mathematics instructor with interests in online instructional tools. Capraro, Ph.D assistant professor of mathematics education.