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support provided by the P3T and local school personnel (i.e., help with enrollment, providing
information and resources, support in the classroom, etc.) (47.62% of all comments within this
category), the financial support provided by the P3T (28.57% ), the additional support given to
participants to prepare for the mandated Praxis exams (14.29%), and the ability to network and
share resources and experiences with peers involved in the program (9.52%).
Participant concerns about pedagogical issues focused primarily on the mismatch
between their coursework in their program of study and their experiences teaching in the
Partnership Schools generating 34.21% of all comments within this category. The content of
these comments included the need of the nontraditional program to provide more support in the
areas of classroom management (38.46% of all comments
within
this category), in teaching
diverse student populations (15.39%), and specifically in teaching in urban settings (46.15%).
In addition to counts, the researchers used NVivo to generate query correlations of
assigned codes. Comments coded for the term
mismatch
was highly correlated with the code for
the host program of study as well as for the terms
classroom management
,
diversity
, and
urban
schools
(Figure 1). This indicates a convergence in participant comments around these codes.
Figure 1
. Pedagogical comments in data coding displaying the convergence of comments
between
mismatch
and
classroom management, diversity class, MAT program,
and
urban
schools.
Nature of Teacher Concerns
All participant statements were also cross-coded for attitudinal perspective yielding
additional insight into candidates’ perceptions. In all, 10 sources were coded for attitude position
yielding 40 total references. Of these references, 20 were deemed negative in nature (50%) with
another 16 coded as positive (40%) and 4 coded as mixed or neutral (10%). A correlation cross-
referencing the codes in the study provided data on what topics participants were discussing in
positive or negative context.
Positive participant comments were correlated with the topics of P3T program support,
support from the host program, Praxis support, financial support, and networking support (Figure