Structural support and efficacy

The literature elucidates that central to reform, are teachers’ voice, self- efficacy, teacher agency, leadership, and collaboration (Frost, 2011). These are facilitated by the structural supports of the organisations in which teachers are employed. Structural efficacy is the suitability and availability of resources and instruction available to assist teachers in carrying out their work (Darling- Hammond, La Pointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen, 2007). This is problematic where superordinate stakeholders do not provide sufficient supports for teachers and teachers’ trust in educational reform processes are diminished, as found by

MacLean, Mulholland, Gray, and Horrell (2015). Their study suggests that the direction of curriculum mandate is lost when teachers are not supported and teachers are left “stumbling around in the dark” (p. 10) to adapt without

informative guidance or resources from superordinate stakeholders, particularly by those asking for the changes.

The context and culture of the professional environment greatly influence levels of self-efficacy and teacher agency (Leithwood, 2006). Roseler and Dentzau (2013) suggest that there is little evidence to support the use of localised or differentiated professional learning. However, Darling-Hammond and

colleagues assert otherwise in their findings, where “policies that provide schools

and teachers with the power to make decisions around local curriculum and assessment practices, and to select the content of professional development based on local priorities, are also associated with higher levels of teacher engagement in collaborative work and learning activities” (Darling-Hammond, Chung Wei,

Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009, p. 28). From this position, a professional environment is most supportive of teachers where teachers themselves are

involved in the decision-making process. Therefore, inclusion of teachers in decision-making processes gives professional power to the teachers in their ability to voice opinion and construct suitable adaptations of mandated reform

individually and amongst colleagues (Garsed, 2013). The literature argues that a lack of teacher input is seen as demoralising (Bangs & Frost, 2016), which could be due to an imposing or restrictive administrative culture of a school. The administrative culture of a school is therefore set by the leadership, entrenched through routine and the flexibility of it.

The literature suggests that through distribution of leadership roles, teachers are enabled to organise and manage the implementation of reform locally and appropriately, to “make locally appropriate, strategic decisions” (Adamson &

Darling-Hammond, 2012, p. 36), through a variety of approaches dependent on the individuals and their needs in those roles. This remains however, a

problematic, hierarchical approach, and one in which teachers remain

disadvantaged in the possible case of collegial discord. Selmer, Jonasson, and Lauring (2013) suggest in their study, that collegial discord is highly influential upon teacher satisfaction and functional relationships where “the quality of social

relationships within educational organisations strongly influences how well they function” (p. 96). Thus, allowance for collaborative approaches with greater

teacher independence may be more likely to produce meaningful outcomes and more effective, sustained reform. The collective perspectives, aims, and practices for successful reform are dependent on the cohesion between colleagues in regard to professional relationships, innovation or transformation, and teachers’ collegial

pedagogical congruence, or, curriculum alignment (Bridwell-Mitchell, 2015). AITSL (2014c) endorses collaborative practice and suggests that it includes evidence of: professional conversation for pedagogy and practice and

modification of programs, collegial research for effective teaching strategies and programs, observation and feedback, goal setting, undertaking leadership roles, and that collaboration is prioritised as a professional investment. These aspects of collaborative practice are dependent on the school culture, and resource

For reform to succeed with the support of professional learning, it has been recommended by Dillon et al. (2015) that stakeholders receive ongoing support, differentiated professional learning, collaboration of subject knowledge and resources, and have access to subject experts. These aspects suggest that teachers require relevant and maintained professional learning to support them through education reform. They also position teachers as the causal, valued instrument in education reform for students where student academic outcomes appear to matter most (Rothman, 2016). In the Australian context, continued, differentiated and supported professional learning is valued and listed as vital by superordinate stakeholders such as AITSL, for teacher professional growth, understanding, and practical functionality of education change, such as curriculum reform (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2015). Fullan (2006) explains that to facilitate sustainable reform, a progressive, transformative, and supportive culture within schools needs to be built. Education culture therefore needs to be receptive to change by way of constant

contextualised review in a professionally reciprocal and empowering

environment. This is said to be done through receptiveness to change governed by small contextual changes through “lateral capacity building; vertical

relationships; deep learning; dual commitment [trust] to short-term and long-term results; cyclical energizing [through] the long lever of leadership” (Fullan, 2006, p. 115).

Receptiveness to change is facilitated by tapping into teacher knowledge and through the supporting of reciprocal collegial relationships across stakeholder capacities to enrich teacher knowledge and practice. The literature suggests that scaffolding professional teacher education helps to “foster an appropriate combination of contextual conversation, pedagogy, population, and setting.”

(Battersby & Verdi, 2015, p. 25). A supportive and scaffolded approach to teacher education, or, professional learning, provides teacher understanding of

changes and requirements to strengthen and develop teacher practice through constant problem-solving and renewal of education approaches with the support of school, sector and government stakeholders to reassure teachers for and during reform (Crosswell, 2006) as part of a professional learning community. A receptive and supportive education culture for teachers, is a positive, intelligent and holistic view of structural local sovereignty or control of change, where adaption is tailored to specific need to ensure teaching transformation, and empowerment. Therefore, if stakeholders acknowledge these professional aspects and work towards facilitating them, sustainable and internal growth through suitable and “self- [re-] organizing patterns” (Fullan, 2006, p. 117) such as

awareness of individual teacher needs, will emerge.

If mandate is imposed, then it follows that the preparedness of structural efficacy to meet mandate demands via superordinate stakeholders, requires resources to support relevant implementation processes such as those listed above, include professional learning, time release, and collaborative efforts or meeting time, for teachers (Larsen & Hunter, 2014). Previous international and

Tasmanian research investigating education reform such as Garsed (2013); Park and Sung (2013); (Rodwell, 2009); Rothman (2016); and Watt (2005), note that teachers are often professionally disregarded or pressured due to lack of support, to implement mandate. An important Tasmanian study (Garsed, 2013) of a previous Tasmanian curriculum reform, the Essential Learnings (Tasmanian Department of Education, 2009), showed that there is a lack of willingness by teachers to conform with mandate when there is insufficient time, as a resource, to consolidate new requirements. This is an issue where teachers are frustrated in trying to balance and re-interpret new aspects to fit with their prior knowledge and school context. Conforming to reform demand is described in the literature as requiring selflessness and capitulation of teacher identity, whereby regulation or system demands for teachers forced to comply, impacts teacher autonomy and

identity (Mockler, 2013; Parkes, 2013; Sachs & Mockler, 2012). Park and Sung (2013) also evidence the difficulties of conforming to reform demands in their research findings about teacher perspectives of curriculum reform, which showed teachers feeling unsupported and excluded from reform change and pressured into meeting demands despite the sudden increase in their workload, with pressure to conform to internal superordinate demands under an “intimate knowledge from the local context” (p. 30), causing teacher attrition. These broader findings

suggest that communication channels during education reform, that could otherwise assist in facilitating or initiating support for teachers, are not currently transparent or inclusive of subordinate stakeholders.

Lack of support is noted in the literature to include issues of time

allowance, professional rapport through collegiality, resources, and collaboration (Barth, 2006; Day, Stobart, Sammons, & Kington, 2006; Selmer et al., 2013). The literature suggests that without these supports, teachers are left feeling fatigued and frustrated with their roles and reform, causing teacher attrition. Remediation or reducing the impact of teacher attrition, is noted by Ebersöhn (2013) as requiring “Relationship-resourced Resilience” (p. 97) – a collective resilience or collegial collaboration, to facilitate professional adaptation in demanding circumstances such as education reform.

Teacher attrition stems from a variety of factors including “lack of

personal [professional] support, insufficient financial support, pressures from the reform movement, lack of community support, poor image of the profession, [and] role ambiguity” (Gold & Roth, 2013, p. 5). These factors form part of a myriad of aspects that impact teacher perspectives of reform, contextualised and influenced by teacher workload, superordinate supports, and mandate expectation. Williamson and Myhill (2008) discuss these aspects as teachers try to meet

mandate or external pressures in conjunction with pre-existing demands on their time, which impact teacher stress, teaching quality and education outcomes for

students, and which also add to teacher resistance to change. This means that during the added pressure of reform, teachers need to be professionally

accommodated and not weighed down by unnecessary workload in order to cope with change for holistic, adaptive and sustainable approaches to mitigate attrition and to improve teacher attitudes toward reform.