STePS
Student Teacher Professional Development Study

Project description:

The Student Teacher Professional Development Study (STePS) is a panel study established in 2015 as part of the Lehramt mit Perspektive (LeaP@CAU) project at Kiel university which was funded through the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung. From 2016-2023, STePs focused on optimizing learning opportunities at Kiel university that promote the professional competences of pre-service teachers. Starting in 2023, the study will continue under the two state programs Allianz für Lehrkräftebildung und Zukunft Schule im digitalen Zeitalter. Both programs aim to adequately and comprehensively prepare teachers in Schleswig-Holstein for the classroom of the future. Therefore, the ongoing survey will also be expanded to the University of Flensburg and the Lübeck Academy of Music.

From the perspective of the state program Zukunft Schule im digitalen Zeitalter, the study aims to investigate how pre-service teachers assess the use of digital media in teaching and learning contexts and how they rate their own job-related digital competencies. The overarching goal is to use the empirical data to evaluate measures that adapt and further develop teacher education to the progressive digitalization of teaching and school life through innovative university learning opportunities and extra-curricular offerings. Additionally, the needs of pre-service teachers will be identified and used to develop cross-institutional learning opportunities in teacher education over the life span.

A central goal of the Allianz für Lehrkräftebildung is to reduce dropout rates by initiating changes in teacher education programs. To achieve this, the study evaluates not only the drop-out intentions of pre-service teachers but also their social and academic integration and satisfaction with study conditions and courses. Furthermore, as in previous years, the coordination between the respective subjects, subject didactics and educational courses is examined. Additionally, existing extra-curricular courses are evaluated to gain insights for optimizing these additional offerings. Moreover, by examining other constructs such as emotional exhaustion and key personality factors, insights into the professionalization and psychosocial development of pre-service teachers are to be gained.

The results of previous survey can be found using this link.

Study design:

STePS was designed as an accompanying longitudinal study to evaluate the two state programs and extends over the bachelor’s and master’s degree programs of all teacher education fields in a multi-cohort sequential design (see figure 1). This repeated surveying of pre-service teachers allows assessments of individual and institutional development over the course of teacher education programs.