Abstract

During the past several decades, instructional supervision and professional development have been identified as means to enhance the performance of teachers in professional roles. One of the most critical problems facing the teaching profession is how to improve the development of beginning teachers. This paper presents the results of the international comparative study that examined beginning teachers’ perceptions of actual and ideal approaches to supervision and their perceived connection to professional development in selected Canadian and Ukrainian high schools. It was the intent of this study to investigate professionals’ perceptions of ideal supervision and how it has been actually implemented in the schools during their first years of teaching. The conceptual framework dwelt upon supervisory choices for beginning teachers, namely collaboration with supervisors or peers and self-reflection, and their connection to the purposeful professional development activities for novice teachers. Research methodology involved the use of quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry. Analysis of the data included statistical measures to summarize items in the survey, as well as categorization of themes that emerged from open-ended responses and individual interviews. Research findings revealed a number of significant differences in novice teachers’ perceptions in Ukraine and Canada. Interestingly, there were more commonalities than discrepancies. In both countries, beginning teachers wanted more supervision of their teaching in order to receive greater feedback about their classroom performance. Results of this study confirmed that guidance of novice teachers with instructional supervision and professional development needs to be a priority in Canadian and Ukrainian schools.