FACULTY FOCUS
campusreview.com.au
Out of
their
depth?
Research shows thousands of
students are being taught STEM
subjects by out-of-field teachers.
By Wade Zaglas
For years now science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM)
disciplines have been hailed as the key
to making Australia an innovation nation.
But, as a recent report by the University
of Sydney and Monash University shows,
issues of educational expertise and
teaching out-of-field may be jeopardising
that ambitious yet achievable goal.
As a former teacher myself, I would guess
that most teachers have at one point taught
out-of-field (teaching biology, for instance,
when they are trained to teach English).
However, as the subject knowledge
required becomes more complex (as in
STEM), this is far from ideal and could
hold students back from reaching their full
potential in STEM subjects.
The university report, Teaching ‘out of
field’ in STEM subjects in Australia: Evidence
from PISA 2015, was prepared for the
Queensland Department of Education and
highlights a number of issues surrounding
teaching out-of-field. For instance, it reveals
that the probability of teachers teaching outof-field
in Year 10 mathematics is 19 per cent.
Slightly more than 17 per cent of
technology students are “likely” to be taught
by non-specialist teachers, while that figure
dips to five per cent of teachers teaching
out-of-field in science.
What is most confounding about the
current situation is that about one in five
Year 10 teachers who are qualified to teach
STEM subjects “are not teaching it to that
year level”. Instead, many are teaching
non‐STEM subjects including English
(38 per cent), physical education (29 per
cent) and social studies (25 per cent).
The report identifies mathematics as the
“highest out-of-field taught subject”.
Professor Paul Richardson and
Associate Professor Chandra Shah from
Monash University’s Faculty of Education
collaborated with Professor Helen Watt
from the University of Sydney’s School of
Education and Social Work to undertake the
study. Their findings were based on data
from the 2015 Programme for International
Student Assessment (PISA), a “nationally
representative survey of Year 10 students,
their teachers and school principals”.
The aim of the study was to examine
the effects of teacher characteristics and
the impacts that staff shortages and school
autonomy, for example, have on the
likelihood of teachers delivering out-of-field
STEM classes.
The study found a link between teacher
workloads, school funding and teaching
out-of-field subjects.
“Clearly, the more subjects a teacher
is assigned to teach, the more likely it is
that some of them will be out-of-field.
The probability of teaching out-of-field is
4.2 per cent for a teacher assigned one
subject, but it is 13.5 per cent for a teacher
assigned two subjects and 23 per cent for
a teacher assigned three or more subjects,”
Shah said.
“Requiring teachers to acquire more
subject qualifications is not a panacea for
solving the out-of-field teaching problem.
Not only is there a practical limit, but
there is also a risk of teachers not having
sufficient depth of knowledge.”
Co-author Richardson also articulated
how funding can affect out-of-field
teaching. “Schools with better funding …
can compete more effectively for qualified
teachers – especially teachers qualified for
subjects in demand,” he said.
SIZE DOES MATTER
Due to funding shortages and the difficulty
attracting a diverse range of teachers
to smaller or remote schools, the study
unsurprisingly found that “more than one in
eight teachers in schools with fewer than
500 students teach out-of-field, compared
with just one in 10 teachers in schools with
more than 1500 students”.
Teachers in remote schools in Australia
are also far more likely to be teaching STEM
subjects out-of-field.
“Overall, our study found that out-offield
STEM teaching is lower in New South
Wales (where the rate is 10.5 per cent) than
in other states and territories, including
Victoria (14.9 per cent) and Queensland
(12.5 per cent),” Watt said.
“Because of structural barriers, such as
location and size, out-of-field teaching
problems for some schools are more
challenging than for others.
“Simply providing schools with more
autonomy, which correlates with less
out‐of-field teaching, without the necessary
funding and budget flexibility, will not solve
the problem.
“Additional funding could finance
professional development, possibly online,
to incentivise teachers to qualify to teach
additional subjects in demand.” ■
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