Prioritizing Competencies for Beginning Teachers in High-Poverty Schools: A Delphi Study

Teacher quality is a significant factor predicting student achievement, especially for low-income students. However, information about which teaching competencies warrant emphasis during pre-service training is lacking. The purpose of this study was to investigate experts' ratings on the importance and difficulty of teaching competencies for beginning teachers and whether those ratings differed for low-income school settings. Thirty-one academic and practitioner experts in beginning teacher development participated in this Delphi study. Participants rated 8 of 25 teaching competencies as very important and very difficult for beginning teachers with broad consensus among experts. However, there were differences in ratings between academics and practitioners. Finally, experts rated many of the competencies as more important and more difficult for beginning teachers in low-income schools. Implications for teacher training are discussed.