The Panel of Teacher Education Students is an add-on study to the Starting Cohort 5: First-Year Students of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). It is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is carried out jointly by the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) and the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi).
NEPS Starting Cohort 5 accompanies first-year students of the winter semester 2010/2011 throughout their studies and into their professional lives. When the sample was drawn, teacher education students were overrepresented — of the approximately 17,900 participants in the first survey wave, about 5,500 were teacher education students. The entire sample covers all types of higher education institutions and fields of study across Germany. The sample of teacher education students is also representative of the country as a whole.
Since 2014, the LAP add-on study has supplemented the survey programme for Starting Cohort 5 with a number of constructs that are considered to be central to the professional development of teachers, such as characteristics of the preparatory service (Referendariat), professional practices, selected aspects of the professional competence of (prospective) teachers, collegial collaboration, and leadership behaviour of principals.
The data collected within the LAP project makes it possible to address several research questions, such as:
- Why did teacher education students choose their study programme? How does the motivation for choosing teacher education influence the study progress and success?
- How is occupational self-regulation related to the health situation and professional practises of teachers?
- How does pedagogical professionalism develop from higher education through the preparatory service to professional life?
- How does the perceived quality of the preparatory service affect the professional career and professional competence?
- To what extent do collegial cooperation and school leadership influence competence development and satisfaction with the teaching profession?
- Does the self-efficacy expectation of teachers change after entering the profession?
Due to its longitudinal approach following teacher education students right from the beginning of their studies until well into their professional careers, the project significantly improves existing data on teacher education. The database thus created is made available as an infrastructure service to the national and international scientific community through the LIfBi Research Data Center.
