Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

An exploration of preferred teacher characteristics and hiring tools in Belize

An exploration of preferred teacher characteristics and hiring tools in Belize The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research questions: what characteristics do key Belizean educational leaders value in teacher applicants and why? What hiring tools do they use to ascertain whether teacher applicants have the characteristics they prefer?Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized a mixed-methods approach drawing upon three data sources – face-to-face interviews with Belizean educational leaders, field notes, and government documents. A card sorting activity of applicant characteristics and tools was embedded into the interview.FindingsInformants preferred motivation, caring, subject matter knowledge, and teaching skills. Intelligence was perceived as a potentially negative characteristic unless coupled with other characteristics, such as strong teaching skills, motivation, and caring or the umbrella of other characteristics, such as content knowledge or university training/credentialing. Professional characteristics, such as where one went for teacher training and academic performance, were perceived as having less relative importance than personal characteristics. Least important were applicant demographics. Consistent with the extant literature, Belizean informants perceived the interview, evidence of prior experience, and certification as the most important tools in vetting and hiring applicants.Research limitations/implicationsThe exploratory study is limited by the small sample of informants, but provides insights into preferences for applicant characteristics and hiring tools in an understudied international context. This study informs future research that may seek to survey representative samples of various stakeholder groups (i.e. general managers and principals) for their preferences in applicant characteristics and hiring tools from across Belizean schools and educational providers.Originality/valueThe study adds to limited research on preferred teacher characteristics among educational leaders responsible for hiring and/or working with teachers and to the limited international educational leadership research. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Educational Administration Emerald Publishing

An exploration of preferred teacher characteristics and hiring tools in Belize

Download PDF
15 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/an-exploration-of-preferred-teacher-characteristics-and-hiring-tools-9yMPhmOdrj
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
0957-8234
DOI
10.1108/jea-05-2017-0051
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research questions: what characteristics do key Belizean educational leaders value in teacher applicants and why? What hiring tools do they use to ascertain whether teacher applicants have the characteristics they prefer?Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilized a mixed-methods approach drawing upon three data sources – face-to-face interviews with Belizean educational leaders, field notes, and government documents. A card sorting activity of applicant characteristics and tools was embedded into the interview.FindingsInformants preferred motivation, caring, subject matter knowledge, and teaching skills. Intelligence was perceived as a potentially negative characteristic unless coupled with other characteristics, such as strong teaching skills, motivation, and caring or the umbrella of other characteristics, such as content knowledge or university training/credentialing. Professional characteristics, such as where one went for teacher training and academic performance, were perceived as having less relative importance than personal characteristics. Least important were applicant demographics. Consistent with the extant literature, Belizean informants perceived the interview, evidence of prior experience, and certification as the most important tools in vetting and hiring applicants.Research limitations/implicationsThe exploratory study is limited by the small sample of informants, but provides insights into preferences for applicant characteristics and hiring tools in an understudied international context. This study informs future research that may seek to survey representative samples of various stakeholder groups (i.e. general managers and principals) for their preferences in applicant characteristics and hiring tools from across Belizean schools and educational providers.Originality/valueThe study adds to limited research on preferred teacher characteristics among educational leaders responsible for hiring and/or working with teachers and to the limited international educational leadership research.

Journal

Journal of Educational Administration – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 19, 2018

Keywords: Teacher hiring; Comparative leadership; Teacher characteristics

References

  • The bridge from student to teacher: what principals, teacher education faculty, and students value in a teaching applicant
    Abernathy, T.; Forsyth, A.; Mitchell, J.
  • Do principals with stronger academic backgrounds hire better teachers? Policy implications for improving high poverty schools
    Baker, B.D.; Cooper, B.S.
  • Do public schools hire the best applicant?
    Ballou, D.
  • A survey of hiring practices in selected school districts
    Braun, J.; Willems, A.; Brown, M.; Green, K.
  • The challenges to and the need for international research in educational leadership
    Brooks, M.C.; Jean-Marie, G.
  • A survey of opinions of North Carolina school administrators regarding factors considered most important in hiring teachers for their first teaching positions
    Cain-Caston, M.
  • Understanding the teacher job search process: espoused preferences and preferences in use
    Cannata, M.
  • Does charter status determine preferences? Comparing the hiring preferences of charter and traditional public school principals
    Cannata, M.; Engel, M.
  • Cross-cultural issues, small states and research: capacity building in Belize
    Crossley, M.W.
  • Problematic preferences? A mixed method examination of principals’ preferences for teacher characteristics in Chicago
    Engel, M.
  • Staffing the classroom: how urban principals find teachers and make hiring decisions
    Engel, M.; Finch, M.A.
  • New evidence on teacher labor supply
    Engel, M.; Jacob, B.A.; Curran, F.C.
  • Knocking on the door to the teaching profession? Modeling the entry of prospective teachers into the workforce
    Goldhaber, D.; Krieg, J.; Theobald, R.
  • Review of research on educational leadership and management in Asia: a comparative analysis of research topics and methods, 1995-2012
    Hallinger, P.; Chen, J.
  • Why public schools lose teachers
    Hanushek, E.A.; Kain, J.F.; Rivkin, S.G.
  • Mix and match: what principals look for when hiring teachers and what this means for teacher quality policies
    Harris, D.N.; Rutledge, S.A.; Ingle, W.K.; Thompson, C.T.
  • Context matters: principals’ sensemaking of teacher hiring and on-the-job performance
    Ingle, W.K.; Rutledge, S.A.; Bishop, J.L.
  • A foot in the door: exploring the role of student teaching assignments in teachers’ initial job placements
    Krieg, J.M.; Theobald, R.; Goldhaber, D.
  • Teacher sorting and the plight of urban schools: a descriptive analysis
    Lankford, M.; Loeb, S.; Wyckoff, J.
  • Teacher characteristics for success in the classroom: Chinese principals’ perceptions for hiring decisions
    Liu, S.; Liu, C.; Stronge, J.; Xu, X.
  • Commercial teacher selection instruments: the validity of selecting teachers through beliefs, attitudes, and values
    Metzger, S.A.; Wu, M.
  • Hiring teachers in New York’s public schools: can the principal make a difference?
    Papa, F.; Baxter, I.
  • Hiring new teachers: what do school districts look for?
    Ralph, E.G.; Kesten, C.; Lang, H.; Smith, D.
  • The impact of individual teachers on student achievement: evidence from panel data
    Rockoff, J.E.
  • Can you recognize an effective teacher when you recruit one?
    Rockoff, J.E.; Jacob, B.A.; Kane, T.J.; Staiger, D.O.
  • Certify, blink, hire: an examination of the process and tools of teacher screening and selection
    Rutledge, S.A.; Harris, D.N.; Thompson, C.T.; Ingle, W.K.
  • Attracting and selecting: what psychological research tells us
    Ryan, A.; Tippins, N.
  • Using portfolios for teacher hiring: insights from principals
    Theel, R.K.; Tallerico, M.
  • Teacher characteristics and student achievement gains: a review
    Wayne, A.J.; Youngs, P.