Positive Teacher Development Model - An interplay of the Individual (Motivational, Emotional, and Cognitive) and Contextual (School and System level) Assets during the School Year

In addressing the societal need for recruitment and retention of highly-motivated teachers, understanding the mechanisms of positive teacher development is crucial. Based on the Relational System Model theoretical perspective (Overton, 2015) and socio-ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), we will develop the Positive Teacher Development (PTD) model as an interplay between the individual factors (internal assets: emotions, cognition, and motivation) and the contextual factors (external assets: system level → policies and programmes, values and beliefs system; school level → leadership style, school culture, factors on classroom level) that lead to more positive (job satisfaction) and less negative (burnout) outcomes and is mediated by the positive relationships with students, colleagues, and school leaders. We will test its validity for teachers in different career-development stages (student teachers, in-service teachers: early-career teachers, mid-career teachers, and late-career teachers) during the school year. We will use a multi-method approach: a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional research design with a selection of quantitative and qualitative assessments. The use of quantitative and qualitative approaches will enable us to build the model as a combination of the top-down (theoretically driven) and bottom-up (teachers’ experiences) approaches. Additionally, an in-depth understanding of the processes fostering positive teacher development will be provided with a set of sub-studies: 1) Internal Assets Model: Emotions in Focus - motivational, cognitive, and emotional resources with a focus on teachers’ emotions, emotion regulation, and empathy; 2) External Assets Model: System Support Analyses - classroom, school, system, and society-level resources with a focus on teachers’ perceptions of support systems on different levels. 3) Transition to Teaching Career: Focus on Early Career Teachers - comparisons of internal assets and external assets of teachers at different career stages. The PTD model will be tested in practice with the development of Positive Teacher Development Intervention using the methodology of randomized control trials to support a positive transition to teaching careers for early-career teachers. Specific aims of the project are: a) to test the fit of the PTD model on the data of Slovene in-service teachers (identification of predictive power of internal and external assets for negative and positive teacher outcomes as mediated by positive relationships with students, colleagues, and leadership), b) to test the fit of the Internal Assets model on the data of Slovene in-service teachers: the predictive power of the teachers’ emotions for relationships with students, colleagues, and leadership as mediated by emotional regulation, and empathy; c) to test the validity of the External Assets model: the interplay of teachers’ perceptions of support on policy and school level and their relation to teachers’ outcomes; d) to compare internal assets and external assets of teachers at different career stages with a special focus on student-teachers and early-career teachers; e) to develop, implement and test the effectiveness of PTD intervention, f) to develop policy recommendations for supporting PTD in Slovenia. The project addresses a research gap in the identification of mechanisms related to teachers' burnout, job satisfaction, and job retention. The added value of the project lies in (a) studying the interplay between internal and external assets and the role of this interplay in the teachers’ outcomes; (b) studying the mechanisms that may mediate the path from internal and external assets to these outcomes; (c) following the changes longitudinally in one school year, and (d) observing the impact of the intervention aiming at support for positive early-career teacher development.