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Support, or lack thereof, is often cited as the main reason for teachers to leave the profession early on (Ingersoll, 2003). Feiman-Nemser (2001) identifies five Central Tasks associated with Learning to Teach (CTLT) that could focus the support novice teachers need during their induction years: learning the teaching context (TC), designing responsive instructional program (IP), creating a classroom learning community (CC), enacting a beginning repertoire (BR) and developing their professional identity (PI). The purpose of the study is to examine the CTLT that novice physical education teachers use in their first and second years of their teaching career. Twenty-one physical education teachers accepted the study parameters to be observed and interviewed during their first year of teaching, and 15 teachers continued the data collection into their second year. Interviews revealed that these teachers focused mainly on BR and TC. Little focus was given to IP, CC, and PI. Results indicate the need for effective mentoring and continuous support through their induction years on BR and TC, but also expand novice teachers’ focus to address the additional categories.

Recent attention has focused on examining the process of becoming a teacher. Researchers have begun studying the stages of socialization that influence the beliefs, behaviors, and perspectives of those who choose to teach. The purpose of this article is to explore the earlier stages of professional socialization, focusing on four periods (pretraining, preservice, field experiences, and induction) that have the potential to significantly impact teacher development. The authors maintain that prospective teachers participate in a dialectical process, determining to some degree which beliefs they will acquire and which they will ignore. Specifically, this article supports the notion that a dialectical process exists during all four selected periods of socialization—a contest between societal expectations and the individual inclinations of prospective teachers.

The purpose of this study was to provide induction assistance to beginning physical education teachers and to investigate the impact of the assistance on the teachers. Two beginning physical educators who were employed at an elementary and a middle school participated in this study. The data were collected by weekly observations, videotape analysis, interviews, and field notes. A case narrative was compiled for each participant according to the emergent themes in each teacher’s case. The results indicated that continued supervision had a positive impact on first-year teachers. The visitations offered the opportunity to receive regular feedback and support so that the teachers began to plan age-appropriate activities, became more efficient managers in the classroom, and increased their instructional feedback. The induction assistance encouraged accountability to the knowledge attained in the teacher preparation program, in addition to making the teachers more reflective and analytical about their teaching.

The capacity for random movement production is known to be limited in humans (e.g., Newell, Deutsch, & Morrison, 2000). We examined the effects of a brief mindfulness induction on random movement production because there are useful implications for variability in solving movement-related problems. The main task involved randomly clicking the 9 boxes in a 3 × 3 grid presented on a computer screen for five minutes. We characterized the sequence of clicking in terms of degrees of randomness, or periodicity, based on the fit, or probability, of the experimental data with its best fitting Bayesian network (4-click memory nodes) using the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach. Sixty-three participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control condition. Mixed design repeated-measures ANOVA results show that the short mindfulness induction had a positive effect on the randomness of the sequence subsequently produced. This finding suggests that mindfulness may be a suitable strategy for increasing random movement behavior.

Using occupational socialization theory, this investigation describes the socialization of Janet, an induction phase physical education (PE) teacher. Special attention was given to the forms of induction assistance Janet was exposed to during her first two years at Liberty Middle School. Data were collected through seven interviews with Janet and interviews with Janet’s mentor, principal, and assistant superintendent. Analyses were conducted using inductive analysis and the constant comparative method. Results indicate that Janet was exposed to several forms of assistance including a state wide induction assistance initiative called the State Mentoring and Assessment Program (S-MAP). She found the informal assistance provided by her teaching colleague and the community of practice they formed to be among the most important elements of her induction, and she was critical of the formal support she received through the S-MAP.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of induction assistance beyond the year of participation. Two second-year teachers mentored by the researcher in their first year of teaching participated. Changes in teacher process behaviors were analyzed, and emergent themes from the first year of teaching were examined to determine relevancy in the second year. The results indicated that both teachers spent more time in management during the second year observations than at the end of the first year of teaching to help achieve program outcomes for responsible movement. A shift in the amount of time in instructional behaviors indicated students were receiving more feedback while engaged in practice opportunities. The teachers indicated less difficulty in planning developmentally appropriate lessons and more confidence in their teaching. The beginning teachers felt more secure in their teaching abilities and engaged in new teaching strategies that enhanced their professional development.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how the collective memory of a baseball player’s contributions to his sport changes posthumously. We seek to examine if levels of veneration accorded to an athlete depend on whether he is alive or deceased, the timing of his death, and type of death he experienced. Building upon theories of cultural valorization, we propose that collective efforts to remember retired athletes are greater if those athletes have passed on. More explicitly, we argue that a player’s death supplements his lifetime achievements in posthumous efforts to construct and maintain his memory. We analyze the history of voting conducted by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) on players eligible for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The results suggest that a variety of performance and recognition measures affect the amount of votes a player receives. As predicted, dying and age of death exert a powerful influence on votes received toward entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. However, when hitters and pitchers are analyzed separately, we find partial support for our propositions.