Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of people who had changed their careers to teaching and had taught for 10 or more years. This study also sought to identify the roles the alternative licensing program and the school administration played in the long-term retention of the career changers. Data were collected in two phases: an electronic survey to gather descriptive statistics of career changers and follow-up interviews. A thematic analysis of the data identified the benefits of a variety of designs for alternative licensure programs, the importance of long-term mentoring from program faculty, the need for administrators to demonstrate the value of observation and lesson plan feedback, the importance of professional colleagues, and the need to view student relationships as something that develops over time.

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