Enhancing Adult Educators' Relational Competences to Reduce Dropout Rates in Denmark

1. New roles for the teacher in adult education ECER Budapest11 September 2015 Bjarne Wahlgren, Aarhus University, Denmark Sia Hovmand Sørensen, The Danish Evaluation Institute

2. Aim of the study In the context of five Adult Education Centres in Denmark, the aim of the study is examine the development of teachers’ relational competences and actions as a result of participating in various teacher training activities and to examine whether such development reduce dropout rates among students.

3. Background • Drop-out rates are close to 30% in the adult educational system in Denmark • New target group which is difficult to retain • Previous intervention activities (Cooperative Learning) show no effect • Factors related to the teachers’ relational competences and the learning environment seem to have some positive effect

4. Assumptions It is the basic assumption for the study that drop-out is a process caused by a combination of external and internal factors, i.e. • The students’ social and personal background • The educational culture at the school • The teachers competences

5. Research questions • Which competences do teachers develop through participating in the training program? • Is the competence converted into (new) relational activities? • Does the teachers’ competence development contribute to reducing the dropout rates?

6. The teachers’ training program The program includes: • Knowledge of different types of students’ preconditions • Classroom management • Communicativecompetences • Knowledge sharingactivitiesamong the teachers • Supported by a training programme for the head teachers

7. Research design • A precisedescription of the training program (cause variable) • Assessing the development of the teachers (firsteffect variable) • Measuring the drop-out rates over years (secondeffect variable)

8. Data collection • Electronic questionnaires for teachers to access the development of the teachers’ social competences and activities (baseline + follow-up. app. 200 teachers participated at both times) • Interviews with and written logs byteachers to access what they actually do (x 3) • Systematic registrations to measure the dropout rates over five years. 2009-2011 constitute the baseline, 2012-14 constitute the intervention period.

9. Findings from survey The teacher training programmes have a differentiated effect on core participants and other teachers • For the core teachers we find an overall impact of the interventions on both relational competences and relational activities • For the other teachers we find that the knowledge sharing activities and a change in school-culture have an overall impact on relational activities

10. Relational competences Significantdevelopments for coreparticipants: • Perceive themselves to bebetter at coping with conflictsbetween students (meandif.= 0.479 with t(47)=2.99, p<0.05). • Perceive themselves to bebetter at giving students subject-relatedappreciative feedback (meandif.= 0.320 with t(49) =1.96, p<0.10). • Perceive themselves to bebetter at speaking to a student about his/her personal situation outside the classroom (meandif.= 0.300 t(49)=2.132, p<0.05).

11. Relational actions (1) Significantdevelopments for core participants: • More oftenacted upon discovering a student who is not thriving (Mean dif. = 0.745 with t(50) = - 3.117, p< 0.05) • More oftenspoke to a student about his/her well-being in college (Mean dif. = 0.627 with t (50) = -2.759, p< 0.05) • More oftenspoke to a student about his/her personal situation outside the classroom (Mean dif.= 0.490 with t(50) = -2,680, p<0.05)

12. Relational actions (2) Significantdevelopments for otherteachers: • More oftenpraised students for active participation (meandif. = -0,328 with t(136)=-2,498 p<0.05) • More oftenspoke to a student about his/her well-being in college ( Mean dif. = -0.307 with t (136) = -2.034 p<0.05) • More oftencoped with conflictsbetween students (Mean dif. -0.271, with t (136) = -1.721, p< 0.05)

13. Findings from interviews The three rounds of interview shows a clear development in the teachers perception of the content of the ‘new role’ • The change is speeding up at the end of the project • Relation between subject-oriented actions and not subject-oriented actions changes, in favor for the latter • Individual change imbedded in change in school-culture • The enlargement of the teachers’ new roles seems to be internalized

14. The expanded teacher role “I think we have many functions. We don’t just teach. You can hardly be a teacher without working with relations. We’ve just never worked with it systematically. I used to think ‘ah, this takes time from my teaching’. But if we are able to establish this relation to the student, we can almost pour knowledge into them; if we don’t have it, there’s hardly any connection at all. Now I know that working with relationships is part of my job.” (Interview at the end of the intervention period).

15. Findings on dropout rates • While absence rates are fairly constant over the years, the drop-out rates have clearly been reduced. • This goes for all three levels at the adult edcuation centres • HF2: 32 % to 26 % • Hfe:37 % to 32 % • AVU: 19 % to 16 % • Clear difference in comparision between five participating centers and four other centers

16. In conclusion • A training program for teachers have a documented effect on the teachers’ actions and developed ‘a new role’ • The development was imbedded in the cultural change at the school-culture • The ‘new role’ has a positive effect on the dropout rates whithout lovering the quality of the teaching

17. Questions for discussion • Why do we not find any change in the relational competences in the group of ‘other teachers’? • Why do the two groups develop different relational actions? • Why do we not find any systematic and significant change in the absence rates?

18. Contact • National Centre of Competence Development: www.nck.au.dk. • Bjarne Wahlgren: wahlgren@dpu.dk • Sia Hovmand Sørensen: shs@eva.dk