The BEd graduate reflections study emerged from a desire to enhance and enrich the quality of the Faculty's Teacher Preparation Program. The importance of eliciting views of Education graduates was identified as an important step in the program revisioning process. The Faculty felt that this investigation would make an important contribution in response to recent calls by the Canadian Association for Teacher Education for more rigorous assessment of teacher education practices across the country and more research into best practices across a diverse teacher pre-service education landscape. The aims of this study were to (1) track as many UPEI BEd graduates from 1999--2007 as possible in order to identify work places and responsibilities, (2) develop a profile of BEd graduates' professional development and continuing education pursuits since graduation, and (3) engage graduates in a guided review and reflection on the effectiveness of their pre-service teacher preparation program for their teaching and/or related careers. Using online surveys and focus-groups, over 200 UPEI BEd graduates contributed to this study.

Research Team: Dr. Ray Doiron (Faculty of Education, UPEI) and Dr. Basil Favaro (Faculty of Education, UPEI)

Funded through the Faculty of Education, University of Prince Edward Island