The Front End of the STEM Teacher Pipeline - Early-Career STEM Teachers’ Field Experiences and Perceptions of Preparation

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

The study examines how early-career STEM teachers’ perceptions of their preparation relate to their student teaching placements and current classroom environments. Using Washington State survey data, the research finds that the student composition in student teaching classrooms predicts teachers’ later perceptions. Teachers who student taught in classrooms with more English language learners and economically disadvantaged students reported greater preparedness for those groups. High-poverty placement also predicted improved preparedness for current classroom management, especially when teachers continued in high-poverty settings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages13

Reading Time33 min

AccessFree to download

Background and Research Questions

Relationship Between Preparation and Later Outcomes

Preservice Coursework

Student Teaching Experiences

AERA Open January-December 2023, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 1–13 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584231190372 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2023. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) The Front End of the STEM Teacher Pipeline: Early-Career STEM Teachers’ Field Experiences and Perceptions of Preparation Dan Goldhaber American Institutes for Research (CALDER), University of Washington Roddy Theobald American Institutes for Research (CALDER) Kathryn Choate Committee for Children Nate Brown University of Washington A growing quantitative literature finds evidence that student teaching placements predict later outcomes of teacher candidates and their students, but there is little large-scale quantitative evidence about the mechanisms for these estimated relationships. We used data from a survey of STEM teachers in Washington State to better understand how their perceptions of preparation were related to student teaching placements and current classroom environment. We found evidence that the composition of students in student teaching classrooms was predictive of STEM teachers’perceptions of their preparation. For example, STEM teachers who student taught in classrooms with more English language learners and economically disadvantaged students reported feeling prepared to teach these specific student populations. Likewise, STEM teachers who student taught in high-poverty classrooms tended to report feeling better prepared to manage their current classroom, particularly if they were currently teaching in a high-poverty classroom. Keywords: mathematics education, regression analyses, science education, teacher education/development, teacher research Teacher quality plays an integral role in student educational outcomes and has been found to be the most important school-based factor for improving student achievement.1 Therefore, it is not surprising that the quality of the teacher workforce has been the focus of numerous reports and initiatives. The quality of teachers instructing students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) areas has been called out as a particular concern. For example, according to the Obama administration’s Innovate to Educate Report, STEM education will determine whether the United States will remain a leader among nations (Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Policy, 2016) .2 Research across several states has estimated average differences in teacher effectiveness across teacher education programs (TEPs; Boyd et al., 2009; Gansle et al., 2012; Goldhaber et al., 2013; Henry et al., 2013; Koedel et al., 2015; Mihaly et al., 2013) . Although the differences in teacher effectiveness across programs vary somewhat from state to state, a common conclusion is that there is far more variation in teacher outcomes within programs than across them. Several studies over the last decade have therefore investigated the extent to which specific teacher preparation experiences were related to the effectiveness and retention of in-service teachers. This literature has identified some aspects of candidate coursework, field experiences, and alignment between preparation and practice that are predictive of these later outcomes. Preservice Coursework A small literature has considered the relationship between preservice coursework and later candidate outcomes. Monk and King (1994) found that pedagogical coursework specific to math education was predictive of student achievement in Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provide

FAQs

How does student teaching classroom composition relate to STEM teachers’ perceptions of preparation?

The study finds that the composition of students in student teaching classrooms is predictive of later perceptions. Teachers who student taught with more English language learners and economically disadvantaged students reported feeling more prepared.

What does the research suggest about high-poverty student teaching experiences?

STEM teachers who student taught in high-poverty classrooms tended to report feeling better prepared to manage their current classroom. This was especially strong when they were currently teaching in high-poverty classrooms.

Why focus on preservice coursework and student teaching experiences?

The article explains that prior quantitative and qualitative work links specific preparation experiences—such as coursework and clinical field experiences—to later teacher effectiveness and retention, but large-scale evidence on the mechanisms is limited.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam