The Influence of Undergraduate Preparation on Professional Beginnings in School Practice of Novice Teachers

Abstract

The aim of the chapter is to present how the monitored beginning teachers perceive the influence of undergraduate training on their first years of teaching and what possibilities can be traced based on this to improve the quality of the undergraduate training of future teachers. Thirteen beginning biology teachers with experience ranging from 1 to 5 years were followed. For data triangulation, an elementary school teacher with a completed sixth year in practice without approval with biology and student teachers as part of the focus group were interviewed additionally. Data were obtained through in-depth semi-structured interviews and were analysed using grounded theory. The results show that teaching practices are considered the most valuable component of undergraduate training preparing for a future profession; however, pedagogical practices are included late in undergraduate training and therefore cannot effectively help reduce the “theory-practice” gap in teacher education. Linked to this is the proposal to experience university teaching, for example, through micro-teaching or discussions of real school situations. Thus, they can help to meet the needs of beginning teachers with different experiences, and by mitigating the shock of practice, accelerate the professional teacher development, as was graphically represented by means of intersecting triangles.

1. Introduction

Beginnings in a new job are challenging for all professions, and the teaching profession is no different. A beginning teacher enters his new job with certain ideas and expectations. He has plans, goals and dream goals that he would like to achieve. However, it is not always possible to fulfil them, which novice teachers perceive as a difficulty. The nature of difficulties can be different, just as their causes are different. Although the causes of difficulties cannot always be clearly identified, it is possible to divide them into two main categories. According to Johnson et al. [1], the first of them can be classified as inappropriate or insufficient support from the management and staff of the school. The second category includes undergraduate training that does not provide novice teachers with all the necessary skills, see, for example, Jensen et al. [2], which gives rise to distorted ideas about the functioning of the school; this can lead to reality shock and dropping out of school [1, 3]. This text discusses the second category of causes.

The topic of novice teachers is widely discussed in the literature (e.g. [4, 5, 6, 7]; however, in the context of a certain rate of departure of (not only) novice teachers to other professional spheres, we consider research in this area still relevant. This study therefore addresses the question of how well novice teachers are prepared to manage teaching in the context of undergraduate training. Our goal is to reveal and explore those places of undergraduate training that show problematic aspects, and at the same time to present proposals of novice teachers to support such undergraduate training that allows novice teachers to more smoothly influence and integrate with the school reality.

2. Theoretical background

2.1 The novice teacher in the context of professional development and the difficulties associated with it

The period when a teacher is considered a novice is not precisely defined and may vary among individuals due to different factors influencing their professional development [8, 9, 10, 11]. The period from 1 to 5 years is commonly mentioned in the literature, when, according to Feiman-Nemser [12], novice teachers try to achieve the required professional competence during the first 3 to 4 years. In addition, beginning teachers are most vulnerable to practice shock in their first 3 years [13], which typically manifests as emotional strain. For these reasons, novice teachers are more at risk of leaving the school area throughout this 5-year period than in subsequent years [14]. It is for this reason that it is necessary to understand the problems that novice teachers face in order to make the transition to school practice more effective through undergraduate training [15, 16].

Many studies [16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26] indicate that the majority of novice teachers do not feel fully prepared for their profession, and their statements show that the causes of unpreparedness can be found in all components of undergraduate training: didactic, pedagogical-psychological and pedagogical practices, but least of all in terms of professional expertise.

The last statement is based on the work of Rajsiglová and Přibylová [10], which resulted in the creation of a theory, graphically represented through a dynamic scheme of the tetrahedron model (see Figure 1). Based on the results, the authors defined three groups of novice teachers. The respondents in the groups were united by a common view of the evaluation of undergraduate training. The groups then differed in how they coped with teaching after entering practice. Novice teachers who encountered a lack of discipline in their pupils, which they were unable to resolve optimally, developed a feeling of failure and subsequently assessed undergraduate preparation, in relation to the pedagogic-psychological component (Figure 1-I), negatively. For this reason, the corners of the tetrahedron representing the pedagogical-psychological component of training were accented upwards within the terms of the tetrahedron’s graphic appearance. This indicated the novice teachers’ increased attention and criticism of this component of undergraduate preparation. Gradually, as the novice teacher improved in managing the pupils’ lack of discipline, the teacher’s opinion of his ability to cope with the reality of school shifted to more positive values. As a result, the opposite side of the tetrahedron representing the didactic component of preparation rose, and the attention was focused on this point at this time (Figure 1-III). There was an oscillating interim state between these two points (Figure 1-II), where novice teachers sought and focused on aspects of both the pedagogic-psychological component and the didactic component (lack of time needed for preparation, inability to fulfil the lesson plan, time-consuming administration, non-functional technology, etc.).

Figure 1.

Evaluation of undergraduate education components by novice teachers –tetrahedral visualisation. Did. – Didactic training of biology, Ped. Practice – Pedagogical practice, Ped-psych – Pedagogic-psychological training.

From the above, the main research question emerged: “How prepared are beginning teachers to manage teaching in real school practice in the context of undergraduate training?”. This broad question, which is characteristic of qualitative research, is divided into two specific research questions, see below.

2.2 Anchoring the issue and research questions

It follows from the literature that novice teachers encountered only a fraction of unexpected situations during their undergraduate training, which they then had to deal with in actual practice, and they were usually not provided with relevant advice or tips for solving them, even within the theoretical teaching [25].

As stated by Fantilli and McDougall [14], novice teachers are the group mostly at risk of leaving the job early. According to Darling-Hammond [4], among other things, the quality of undergraduate training has an effect on the turnover rate of novice teachers.

It follows from the work of Šimoník [7] that there is a positive correlation between perceived difficulties and a worse perceived level of preparation for them. Searching for ways to overcome the isolation of undergraduate preparation from school reality is a trend that we note in the publications of a number of authors (cf. [27, 28, 29], etc.). With this text, we are trying to support this trend and suggest a possible direction, as we consider the issue of the difficulties of beginning teachers in relation to undergraduate training and school practice to be still current and to discuss it as necessary.

With regard to the above considerations and for the needs of this work, two specific research questions were established:

1. What opinions and attitudes are formulated by beginning teachers in relation to the completed undergraduate training with regard to facilitating the beginnings in school practice.

2. What form of undergraduate training could bridge the barriers between academically led undergraduate training and real school practice?

Qualitative research described in the following chapter was chosen to answer the research questions.

3. Influence of undergraduate preparation: Research part

3.1 Research methodology

An in-depth semi-structured interview was chosen as the method of data collection, which was created by developing research questions. This is how the scheme of the first set of questions was created, which consisted of 14 open questions that related to a broadly defined research question with a content focus on: motivation to study teaching, the benefit of undergraduate training in relation to real school practice, perceived support from university teachers, perceived support from the workplace, primary or secondary schools, additional educational needs, etc. The questions were tested as part of a pre-research investigation on two respondents. The aim of the pre-research investigation was to check the clarity of the questions and to find out whether some topics needed to answer the research questions had not been omitted. New information that naturally emerged from the interviews after their initial analysis served to modify the questions of the first version of the interview and led to the final set of questions. Interviews with teachers were conducted at the schools where they worked, and were recorded on a dictaphone and transcribed into text. The teachers’ anonymousness was guaranteed by assigning randomly chosen pseudonyms. The average duration of the interviews was 76 min, the transcript of one interview had an average of 40 pages of text: the total data file had 438 pages of text.

During the summer semesters of 2021 and 2022, within the framework of triangulation, student teachers, i.e. those with a biology approval, were also questioned on the subject of didactic biology exercises. However, these students are not included in the sample of respondents, because they did not have a university education, they were part of the so-called focus group and their statements were feedback and verified the analysed data.

In August 2020, a primary school teacher with approval subjects of Czech language and music was also used for triangulation, i.e. a respondent with already completed university education, but with a different approval subject than the monitored subject, whose statements strongly confirmed the emerging theory. No other teachers were invited to the research.

The grounded theory method [30] was used to analyse the data that resulted from the conducted interviews. We chose the principle of grounded theory because it is a method focused on the study of interactions and processes. We strove to complexly map the respondents’ viewpoint of the difficulties they experienced in everyday school situations and their attempts to resolve the specific difficulties in connection with the influence of undergraduate training.

In the first step, the authors independently analysed the first three interviews using the inductive open coding method. The codes were subsequently compared and discussed and a unified categorial system was created, which we used to subsequently analyse data. With regard to gradual supplementation of the data file, we subjected the entire resulting file of 13 interviews to independent coding by the authors. In conclusion, we repeatedly subjected the data files to re-analysis on the basis of reformulation of the analysed problem into the topic of reducing reality shock and focusing on teaching experience, whereby we reached the final set of categories. Our coding is based on the deductive-inductive nature of coding.

We followed open coding with axial coding, during which time we created a paradigmatic model (see Figure 2), which served as a tool for creating a link between individual (sub)categories and as a means to classify data. Subsequent selective coding led to a key category, which is “assessment of teaching experience and observation of lessons” in our case (see Figure 3). The results of selective coding followed onto the results of axial coding, which allowed us to abandon the paradigmatic model and create a subsequent causal model of the impact of perception of one’s own success in coping with school reality in relation to assessment of the monitored component of undergraduate preparation (see Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 2.

Paradigmatic model – Perception of undergraduate training.

Figure 3.

Causal model.

The step-by-step process of coding described above resulted in an analytical narrative, which will be described below.

3.2 Retrospective grounding of the theory and other techniques for research quality control

For the requirements of this research, we list the techniques that we used to guarantee the quality of the executed research.

Credibility, which replaces reliability in qualitative research, was fed in the form of triangulation using focus groups with teacher students and a teacher with a different approval than the monitored respondents, who was no longer a beginning teacher. Next, we coded the entire data corpus independently and, following a consensus approach, created individual categories. Conducting interviews, in which both authors participated from the beginning, included internal triangulation mechanisms, which were represented in the form of returnable questions and their variations, in order to treat possible inconsistencies in the respondents’ statements.

In accordance with the requirements of Strauss and Corbin [30], in the final phase of the research, we proceeded to reverse anchoring of the theory, which contributed to the additional adjustments of the resulting diagram describing the investigated reality and at the same time assured us of the appropriateness of classifying the respondents’ typology with regard to their optimal classification into one of the methods of viewing the monitored component of undergraduate preparation. For key characteristics and dimensions observed in the respondents for the needs of the emerging grounded theory and its back-grounding, see Table A1.

3.3 Research sample

The research sample for our work was 13 novice teachers who had 1 to 5 years of teaching. This time period was established based on an effort to achieve consistency among authors who specify the beginning teacher period by length of practice (e.g., [31]).

During the first wave of acquisition of respondents, criteria for their selection were chosen, which should guarantee that the respondents would be novice teachers of biology with the corresponding qualifications. These criteria were at least 1 year and a maximum of 5 years of experience at a primary or a secondary school teaching biology and also completion of a master’s degree in the field of pedagogy specialising in biology and any other qualification subject. The condition of the diversity of the sample was also kept in mind, as this results in data saturation [32], which is why the intention was that the teachers came from various universities and therefore also from various regions in the Czech Republic.

In order for the diversity of the data to be determined not only by the number of universities where the respondents came from, but also by differently experienced teachers, we tried to ensure that their representation was evenly distributed across the sample in these respects. The resulting research sample contained 16 novice teachers, with whom research interviews were gradually realised. With regard to the fact that the data began to be repeated with the ninth to tenth respondent, data collection was terminated with the thirteenth teacher.

The complete list of all respondents and their brief characteristics is given in Table 1.

Years of teaching experience	Name (pseudonym)	Graduated from university /collecting wave	The type of school where novice teacher worked
1	Radek	PřF UPOL / 1.	Elementary school
	Pavla	PF JU / 1.	Elementary school
	Jakub	PF JU / 1.	Elementary school
	Marie	PřF UK / 1.	Grammar school
2–3	Julie	PF JU / 1.	Grammar school
	Karolína	PřF MU / 1.	Grammar school
	Martina	FPE ZČU / 1.	Elementary school
	Kristýna	PřF UK / 1.	Elementary school
	Jitka	PřF UK / 1.	Elementary school
4–5	Monika	PedF UK / 2.	Secondary Vocational School of Health
			Elementary school
	Renata	PedF UK / 2.	Elementary school
	Klára	FPE ZČU / 2.	Elementary school
	Marek	PřF UK / 1.	Elementary school
			Grammar school
			Private grammar school
triangulation
6	Anna	PedF UHK; Secondary Pedagogical School	Elementary school

Table 1.

Characteristics of interviewed novice teachers.

PřF/PF = Faculty of Science, PedF/FPE = Faculty of Education, UPOL = Palacký University Olomouc, JU = University of South Bohemia, UK = Charles University, MU = Masaryk University, ZČU = University of West Bohemia, UHK = University of Hradec Králové.

4. Results of the research investigation

A paradigmatic model (Figure 2) was drawn up on the basis of the analysis described above, which indicates that the way novice teachers viewed teaching experience and observation of lessons established the degree of shock arising from encountering the reality of school. Reality shock therefore became the integrating element of the entire research project in the form of intervening conditions, on the basis of which it was possible to identify additional variables in addition to teaching experience, which could increase or, vice versa, suppress this reality shock. The paradigmatic model (Figure 2) arising from the above data subsequently became a basis for creating the framework of the analytical narrative.

Subsequently, the paradigmatic model was reconstructed, in accordance with the qualitative methodology according to [32], into a causal model. It reflects the categories of the paradigmatic model, in particular, the influence of shock from reality and professional level on more or less successful coping with school reality and the views of the observed beginning teachers on undergraduate training shaping their identity.

The respondents were distinguished by different amounts of experience. The majority of them had taught before finishing their degree, which means that not all of them had the same conditions when they began work, as indicated by Marek for example. “The way my other classmates had no idea what they were doing when encountering practical work for the first time, that was me about three years earlier…. But they had no idea, just like I didn’t at the time! This means that they did not progress at all in the three years they studied at university…..Because, what do we learn for the first three years? Specialised subjects. There may be some didactics included, I don’t want to wound anyone, but not enough to help with practical work.” All the teachers who had experience in education before completing their degrees identified with the opinion that actual teaching experience outside undergraduate preparation or practical work that the student of pedagogy organises himself in addition to undergraduate preparation and teaching experience, at his own initiative, gave the teachers more than the pedagogic practice organised within the terms of undergraduate preparation.

Differing amounts of experience predetermined individual teachers to be in different initial phases of professional development and possibly predetermined the various speeds of professional growth. At the same time, experience indirectly affected the expectations of novice teachers compared to reality and resulted in reality shock in the event of divergence between expectation and reality. The most frequent and most serious cause of reality shock was the lack of discipline in pupils, particularly at primary schools. “I basically thought that I would start working at school, and everyone would be happy that there was someone there….to pass on knowledge, skills….But they don’t want that, they test you, to see what you can stand, what you will permit, how strict you are…” (Klára); “…you somehow manage to teach and I am not prepared for situations when someone suddenly starts shouting and fuming….…” (Kristýna); “And just keeping the children’s attention, it is more about bringing them up than educating sometimes.” (Jitka).

Assessment of the importance of teaching experience and observation of lessons is therefore the result of the ability of novice teachers to come to terms with potential reality shock, with regard to skills (not) learned during teaching experience (see Figure 3).

Reality shock and phases of professional development are therefore the main factors forming the framework of our analysis.

It emerged from the analysis of the above that the common cause of this failure/success was the more or less (un)realistic expectations of novice teachers in relation to school practice, and thereby the degree of reality shock, or big/middle/low “theory – practice” gap. This was based on the form of undergraduate preparation and also any other teaching experience novice teachers obtained outside undergraduate preparation. It was this experience that was the reason why teachers of the same professional age found themselves in different phases of professional development, which subsequently resulted in different opinions of assessment of undergraduate preparation, including teaching experience.

The more professionally experienced novice teachers were, the more confident they were in teaching and the more critical towards the method of teaching, the less they were interested in the pedagogic-psychological importance of teaching experience and the more important they considered improvement of didactic skills.

From the above, it is evident that the views of beginning teachers on undergraduate training are influenced by the experiences they have or do not have in addition to teaching practices provided by the university. This knowledge should be taken into account, especially when evaluating the quality of the training of future teachers at individual universities.

4.1 Analytical narrative and the validity of the presented results

As stated previously, the expectations of novice teachers are formed on the basis of their own experience with the reality of school and presentation of school reality during their university education during undergraduate preparation. Some novice teachers also contribute to their “portfolio of situations in school practice,” which they use to synchronise their expectations to reality, they also contribute with their experience outside undergraduate preparation, by teaching at primary or secondary schools while still studying at university. Depending on the form of education and the range of additional experience obtained outside it, a larger or smaller gap is created between expectation and the actual reality of school after completing undergraduate preparation, which is also reflected in a larger or smaller “theory-practice” gap.

This fact is graphically depicted by the diagram in Figure 4, where these two areas represent two opposite and mutually overlapping triangles. The range of mutual overlap corresponds to the amount of experience that the novice teacher has before completing undergraduate preparation, which reflects the actual reality of school. The greater this overlap, the small the reality shock from reality that the teacher can experience when he begins actual school practice.

Figure 4.

Scheme modelling the clash of school reality with undergraduate training. The difference in the size of area I. is based either on the different degrees of reflection upon of school situations during university studies or on the different amounts of experience of students of pedagogy from parallel teaching experience, obtained at their own initiative while studying.

In Figure 4, we can compare two marginal situations – A and B. Situation A can depict tuition reflecting school reality to a lesser degree and also the absence of experience outside this preparation. On the contrary, the amount of experience increases in situation B, either as a result of tuition offering more realistic school situations, more own experience outside education or a combination of both. In situation B, area III, depicting the degree of reality shock after starting work is less than in situation A. In addition to this, we can also observe the different starting positions of teachers in situations A and B in school practice (II) after starting work, when novice teacher A has farther to reach the teacher standard than teacher B.

The validity of this general diagram can be proven by means of specific examples on the basis of four mutually interconnected indicators—the degree of previous experience corresponding to school practice, which indicates the degree of different expectations determining the degree of reality shock and the estimated professional maturity. Unrealistic expectations and the highest degree of practice shock were described by students of pedagogy from the first group, whose only experience in teaching was teaching experience organised within the terms of undergraduate preparation. Problems, such as lack of discipline in pupils and lack of time for preparation, which they described after starting work, are typical problems experienced by teachers at the beginning of their career. A clear similarity with diagram A can be seen on the basis of the above.

If we summarise the above, then novice teachers who were employed part-time as teachers while studying or who described their undergraduate preparation as practical and striving to describe the actual reality of school as complexly as possible, either by simulation, micro-teaching or in-depth reflection of school situations seen at schools within the terms of teaching experience, stated that they entered employment with fairly realistic expectations and without being seriously shocked by anything. These teachers appeared professionally more mature and although they doubted their skills, their problems consisting of correct realisation and selection of teaching methods and forms corresponded to later phases of development, as diagram B also shows.

5. Discussion

The research described above indicates that the portfolio of situations from school practice, which intersect with real school situations, may prevent development of reality shock. This may indirectly support earlier and also better-quality development of teacher skills in actual school practice according to [33].

With regard to the fact that normal school situations cannot be resolved on just the basis of skills from the pedagogic-psychological component or only the didactic component of undergraduate preparation, it seems best to interconnect these two areas with pedagogical practice.

Novice teachers realise that it is not possible to experience all pedagogical situations only in the later stages of their professional development, as can also be seen from the study by [10]. Novice teachers therefore propose an increase in subsidies for pedagogic practices, or such university teaching, for example, through experiential methods (see experiential education), micro-teaching and discussions on real school situations, or linking theory and practice through stories and instructions, especially on how to deal with unruly pupils, is a description of the proposals for the updated undergraduate training can also be derived from the literature, see the introductory part of the text.

However, from the statements and analysis of the research, we deduce a deeper confrontation of the undergraduate teaching of beginning teachers in relation to the smooth beginning of novice teachers in real practice. It is necessary to emphasise that the effort to make the transition as smooth as possible between undergraduate training and school practice is all the more difficult because, although there are standards describing the binding structure of teacher study programmes [34], there is no binding standard of competences of teacher graduates, with the help of which it would be possible to direct the teaching of future teachers and at the end of the preparation to assess the extent to which the given competencies have been acquired by the teacher student [35].

This will be verified only in the first years in the school practice of novice teachers. Competencies should correspond to the skills and knowledge that will help the beginning teacher to successfully overcome the shock of reality after his entry into practice, which will allow for a faster establishment of effective teaching in his classes.

6. Conclusion

In this chapter, we dealt with the question of how novice teachers perceive the influence of undergraduate training on the course of their first years in real school practice. The results of this work show that pedagogical practices are considered by beginning teachers to be one of the most beneficial areas of their training.

Novice teachers therefore suggested increasing pedagogical practices, possibly lesson observations [17], and at the same time called for their inclusion in undergraduate training as soon as possible, ideally from the first years of study. They also suggested more frequent inclusions of effective tips and ideas for action in certain situations, which they could be inspired by [10, 25] and which they could follow up in their own school practice.

Although there are many systemic obstacles that can complicate the reform of the education of future teachers, based on the results of the presented study, we find it relevant to bring the preparation closer to the needs of teacher students, even with minor changes within individual educational areas. The aim should be to present school reality to teacher students as faithfully as possible, to support reflective teaching wherever possible and to strengthen autonomy in viewing, evaluating and choosing the optimal solution to school situations, which should reduce the shock of reality, speed up the process of professional growth, thus supporting the effectiveness of teaching or eliminating the “theory-practice” gap.

Although we are aware that a teacher’s professional growth does not end with graduating from university, due to the already extensive coverage of the topic, we deliberately omitted the issue of support for beginning teachers within the schools that the observed beginning teachers joined after completing their training. However, we are aware that this can be considered a limitation of the research. The data thus remain a stimulus for further studies, in which it would be possible to unravel the influence of support on the smooth start of teachers in school practice.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the novice teachers who gave us their time and confidently answered our questions. The authors are grateful for the support by the Charles University project UNCE/HUM/024 “Centre of didactic research in natural sciences, mathematics and their interdisciplinary connections” and by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports: Institutional Support for Long-term Development of Research Organisations – Cooperation HUM/“ General Education and Pedagogyand integrate with the school reality “ – Charles University, Faculty of Education (2022).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

A. Appendix

G	ZU	Career choice	Expectation	Reality shock	Way of solving	evaluation previews of UP	Characteristics of the group of NT
						Suggestions for change
BIG „THEORY-PRACTISE“GAP	Radek	teaching subject	as we were taught	indiscipline of P	- advice of colleagues, trial and error	- T of Ped-Psych do not know real school practice; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices	These teachers, who were particularly shocked by the indiscipline of pupils in the classroom, would most appreciate the mediation of the school reality, especially through regular observations, or to acquire some skills of maintaining discipline as part of longer teaching practices. In addition, according to them, the fault lies in the overly theoretical way of teaching pedagogic-psychological subjects, which does not provide them with opportunities to practice some situations practically.
	Klára	teaching subject, children	+ enthusiastic P	the only T, indiscipline of P	leisure activities,; - advice of colleagues	- Ped psych without exercises; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; observations; longer pedagog. Practice to fasten skills
	Pavla	teaching subject, change children	- ♀ collective	timing, indiscipline of P	- theorems from UP,; - advice of colleagues,; trial and error	+ materials; - Ped Psych without practice impact; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices, observations
	Martina	dream job, maternity	+ level of P	the only T, timing, thematic plan, parents and P	+ advice of colleagues, maternal experience, trial and error	- Ped psych without exercises; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices,; observations
MIDDLE „THEORY-PRACTISE“GAP	Julie	teaching subject, children	+ initiative support at school	establishing a relationship with P, thematic plan	teaching reflection	- Ped psych without exercise,; - T of Ped-Psych do not know real practice; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; Pd-Ps teorie z náslechů, materials	These novice teachers did not face more serious educational difficulties, but they nevertheless realised that they were not prepared to establish an initial relationship with pupils and create an atmosphere in the classroom and had to figure
	Marie	teaching subject, T role model, development of P	+ good background at school	establishing a relationship with P, technika	+ advice of colleagues, trial and error	+ materials, +microteaching,; - Ped psych without exercise	everything out on their own. For these reasons, this group also returned with their memories of the pedagogical-psychological training, which, according to them, was too theoretical without practical overlap, and they requested an increase in the practical component, either as part of academic training or observations. However, the main thing that surprised this group of novice teachers were mostly activities that were not directly related to the teaching process, but preparations for it, whether it was preparation of materials, fulfilment of the thematic plan, administration or knowledge of the level of pupils. It was for these reasons that the novice teachers valued the prepared materials from the university and some of them demanded that the shock that was present for the reasons mentioned above be limited by increasing the time allocation for teaching practices and closer cooperation between the university and other schools.
	Kristýna	children	+ enthusiastic P	administration, the only T, timing, P with special needs	+ advice of colleagues	+ materials; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices
	Jitka	children, develop-ment of P	+ enthusiastic P	administration, P with special needs	+ advice of colleagues	+ microteaching; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; administrative activities,; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices
	Karolína	scouting	+ úroveň Ž	timing, level of thinking of P, how to exam	observation of colleagues, self-focus	- Ped Psych lessons distant reality,; - T of didactics do not know real practice; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; materials,; longer Ped Practice connected with school reality
	Jakub	scouting,; development of P	- přijmutí Ž a kolegy	level of thinking of P, parents and P, P with special needs	observation of colleagues	- Ped Psych without practice impact,; - T of Ped-Psych do not know real school practice,; - microteaching; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices,; cooperation between primary/secondary schools and universities
LOW/ZERO „THEORY-PRACTISE“GAP	Monika	teaching subject, children	- problem P	indiscipline of P, scope of teaching	- advice of colleagues, trial and error	- Ped psych without exercises,; + V did. Znalí praxe; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; cooperation between primary/secondary schools and universities	These teachers faced the shock of the initial unruliness of the pupils a few years ago, and since then they have learned to set up a classroom atmosphere suitable for teaching. Nevertheless, they have not forgotten this phase of their beginnings, which is why they refer to insufficient pedagogical and psychological training, which they would like to supplement with at least practical exercises. They strive for teaching that would make the learning process easier for pupils, and in connection with this they talk about teachers from didactic training who were not able to convey the essence of quality and adequate teaching to them, due to the lack of personal experience from a real school environment. Therefore, they suggest more frequent inclusion of micro-teaching led by teachers with experience in teaching at primary or secondary schools, more intensive cooperation between higher education institutions and primary and secondary schools, or longer ped. Practice or observations, thanks to which they would gain a better awareness of effective methods and forms of teaching.
	Renata	teaching subject, children	+ level of P	indiscipline of P,; scope of teaching	teaching reflection	- Ped Psych without practice impact,; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; analysis of the situation from pedagog. Practices,; microteaching,; T of Didactics KNOW real school practice,
	Marek	teaching subject	- level of P	the only T, scope of teaching, missing feedback, setting tasks	observation of colleagues	+ materials,; - T of Didactics do not know real school practice; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; microteaching,; longer Ped Practice to fasten school reality
TRIANGULACE	Anna	children	I will enjoy it	scope of teaching,; non-connectedness with the regular life of P	portfolio of solutions already from the Pedagogical High School	University UP: - Ped-Psych very theoretic,; + T of Didactics KNOW real school practice,; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -; lack of cooperation between primary/secondary schools and universities	She does not remember the shock of the practice, everything went smoothly thanks to the many visits to schools as part of the secondary school, when they were accompanied by a secondary school teacher. A lot of reflection and analysis of situations she saw in schools. The shock as such was rather caused by the university teaching. A critical view is then focused on the preparation of future teachers at the university, which was mostly theoretical, without extending into practice. She often drew on what she had acquired in secondary school, which gave her more in her future professional life. She recommends getting used to the practice as soon as possible, talking about it with someone who is passionate and has a sincere interest in children’s education; this deepens the strong motivation to endure even unpleasant moments in future real practice.
						Pedagogic Secondary school: Ped-Psych lot of practice, visiting schools + reflection of observed school situations; Creating a portfolio of methods, practical examples can be used in future practice

Table A1.

Retrospective grounding of three groups of novice teachers with regard to how they deal with reality shock.

NT – novice teachers, G – group of NT, UP – undergraduate preparation, P – pupil/pupils, T – teacher.