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This study aims at exploring several individual, organizational, and contextual factors that may affect beginning teachers' turnover intentions during their first years of practice. The sample consists of 227 beginning teachers (69% female and 31% male) from 133 schools in Norway. The results show four important antecedents of beginning teachers' turnover intentions: collective teacher efficacy, teacher-principal trust, role conflict, and affective commitment. Our findings suggest that organizational and contextual factors, and not necessarily individual competence perceptions, have a significant impact on beginning teachers' turnover intentions. Also the findings suggest that beginning teachers should be studied separately from more experienced teachers. Implications for school leadership are discussed. Introduction and purposeAlthough there has been much research on beginning teachers, the links between beginning teachers' turnover intentions and various individual, organizational, and contextual factors have not been thoroughly understood. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between Norwegian beginning teachers' turnover intentions and their self-efficacy, role clarity, affective commitment, relational trust among school professionals, and organizational and innovation support. In what follows, we first explain why this issue is important. Then, we deduce nine hypotheses regarding the antecedents of beginning teachers' turnover intentions. Finally, we explore and discuss the individual and contextual factors that predict beginning teachers' turnover intentions and the possible implications of our findings.

The purpose of this study was to validate a new inventory designed to measure epistemic beliefs concerning the justification of knowledge claims encountered on the Internet. Confirmatory factor analysis of the scores of 394 pre-service teachers showed that a threefactor model including justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and personal justification fit the data well. Moreover, latent variable structural equation modeling showed that these three types of justification beliefs differentially predicted aspects of Internet-specific reading motivation and engagement. Taken together, these results provide evidence for the construct validity of the inventory and lay the foundation for further validation work. The theoretical and educational significance of the study is discussed and directions for future research are suggested.

The act of newly qualified teachers leaving the profession is a growing challenge, both in Norway and internationally. To address recruitment difficulties, there is a need for further knowledge of prospective teachers' career motivations. The current study validated a Norwegian translation of the Factors Influencing Teaching Choice (FIT-Choice) Scale. Using a sample of 635 preservice teachers, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. The results indicated that the translated scale offers a valid measure of Norwegian students' motivation to become teachers. Self-perception of teaching-related abilities was one of the main motivational sources, together with the desire to shape the future of children and adolescents and an interest in teaching. Findings are discussed in relation to previous studies based on the FIT-Choice scale in other countries.Keywords: preservice teacher motivation, FIT-Choice scale, teacher education, validation becoming a teacher and their relations to academic engagement and dropout among student teachers. . Predicting mathematics-related choice and success behaviors: Test of an expanded social cognitive model.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the taxonomy of two conceptual models of leadership roles for principals – instructional and transformational leadership (IL and TL) – can be traced empirically in a sample of Norwegian school leaders. Design/methodology/approach – The participants consisted of 149 school leaders attending a national training program for newly appointed principals at the University of Oslo. Leadership preference was measured according to a theoretically grounded self-report scheme representing the most important aspects of both leadership models. Estimations were conducted by means of principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses. Findings – The principal component analyses revealed seven meaningful factors: demand-supportive leading, outcome control and loyalty to school owner, management by objective, trust in standard programs for development, trust in professional community, emphasis on collective responsibility, and distributed leadership. Furthermore, by using these seven factors as inputs, the authors attempted to model second-order factors representing IL and TL. The results showed that the structure of IL and TL could not be replicated. Instead, a more complex cross-model structure was revealed. Practical implications – The results suggest that even though the concepts of IL and TL are valuable analytic tools, they may be too simplistic to represent the reality of school leaders’ thoughts and actions. Originality/value – The study contributes to the field by challenging the established models of school leadership and by generating insights into Norwegian school leaders’ leadership beliefs and preferences.