**3. Influence of undergraduate preparation: Research part**

#### **3.1 Research methodology**

An in-depth semi-structured interview was chosen as the method of data collection, which was created by developing research questions. This is how the scheme of the first set of questions was created, which consisted of 14 open questions that related to a broadly defined research question with a content focus on: motivation to study teaching, the benefit of undergraduate training in relation to real school practice, perceived support from university teachers, perceived support from the workplace, primary or secondary schools, additional educational needs, etc. The questions were tested as part of a pre-research investigation on two respondents. The aim of the pre-research investigation was to check the clarity of the questions and to find out whether some topics needed to answer the research questions had not been omitted. New information that naturally emerged from the interviews after their initial analysis served to modify the questions of the first version of the interview and led to the final set of questions. Interviews with teachers were conducted at the schools where they worked, and were recorded on a dictaphone and transcribed into text. The teachers' anonymousness was guaranteed by assigning randomly chosen pseudonyms. The average duration of the interviews was 76 min, the transcript of one interview had an average of 40 pages of text: the total data file had 438 pages of text.

During the summer semesters of 2021 and 2022, within the framework of triangulation, student teachers, i.e. those with a biology approval, were also questioned on the subject of didactic biology exercises. However, these students are not included in the sample of respondents, because they did not have a university education, they were part of the so-called focus group and their statements were feedback and verified the analysed data.

In August 2020, a primary school teacher with approval subjects of Czech language and music was also used for triangulation, i.e. a respondent with already completed university education, but with a different approval subject than the monitored subject, whose statements strongly confirmed the emerging theory. No other teachers were invited to the research.

The grounded theory method [30] was used to analyse the data that resulted from the conducted interviews. We chose the principle of grounded theory because it is a method focused on the study of interactions and processes. We strove to complexly

*The Influence of Undergraduate Preparation on Professional Beginnings in School Practice… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112309*

map the respondents' viewpoint of the difficulties they experienced in everyday school situations and their attempts to resolve the specific difficulties in connection with the influence of undergraduate training.

In the first step, the authors independently analysed the first three interviews using the inductive open coding method. The codes were subsequently compared and discussed and a unified categorial system was created, which we used to subsequently analyse data. With regard to gradual supplementation of the data file, we subjected the entire resulting file of 13 interviews to independent coding by the authors. In conclusion, we repeatedly subjected the data files to reanalysis on the basis of reformulation of the analysed problem into the topic of reducing reality shock and focusing on teaching experience, whereby we reached the final set of categories. Our coding is based on the deductive-inductive nature of coding.

We followed open coding with axial coding, during which time we created a paradigmatic model (see **Figure 2**), which served as a tool for creating a link between individual (sub)categories and as a means to classify data. Subsequent selective coding led to a key category, which is "assessment of teaching experience and observation of lessons" in our case (see **Figure 3**). The results of selective coding followed onto the results of axial coding, which allowed us to abandon the paradigmatic model and create a subsequent causal model of the impact of perception of one's own success in coping with school reality in relation to assessment of the monitored component of undergraduate preparation (see **Figures 2** and **3**).

The step-by-step process of coding described above resulted in an analytical narrative, which will be described below.

### **3.2 Retrospective grounding of the theory and other techniques for research quality control**

For the requirements of this research, we list the techniques that we used to guarantee the quality of the executed research.

**Figure 2.**

*Paradigmatic model – Perception of undergraduate training.*

**Figure 3.** *Causal model.*

Credibility, which replaces reliability in qualitative research, was fed in the form of triangulation using focus groups with teacher students and a teacher with a different approval than the monitored respondents, who was no longer a beginning teacher. Next, we coded the entire data corpus independently and, following a consensus approach, created individual categories. Conducting interviews, in which both authors participated from the beginning, included internal triangulation mechanisms, which were represented in the form of returnable questions and their variations, in order to treat possible inconsistencies in the respondents'statements.

In accordance with the requirements of Strauss and Corbin [30], in the final phase of the research, we proceeded to reverse anchoring of the theory, which contributed to the additional adjustments of the resulting diagram describing the investigated reality and at the same time assured us of the appropriateness of classifying the respondents' typology with regard to their optimal classification into one of the methods of viewing the monitored component of undergraduate preparation. For key characteristics and dimensions observed in the respondents for the needs of the emerging grounded theory and its back-grounding, see **Table A1**.

### **3.3 Research sample**

The research sample for our work was 13 novice teachers who had 1 to 5 years of teaching. This time period was established based on an effort to achieve consistency among authors who specify the beginning teacher period by length of practice (e.g., [31]).

During the first wave of acquisition of respondents, criteria for their selection were chosen, which should guarantee that the respondents would be novice teachers of biology with the corresponding qualifications. These criteria were at least 1 year and a maximum of 5 years of experience at a primary or a secondary school teaching biology and also completion of a master's degree in the field of pedagogy specialising in biology and any other qualification subject. The condition of the diversity of the sample was also kept in mind, as this results in data saturation [32], which is why the intention was that the teachers came from various universities and therefore also from various regions in the Czech Republic.

In order for the diversity of the data to be determined not only by the number of universities where the respondents came from, but also by differently experienced teachers, we tried to ensure that their representation was evenly distributed across the sample in these respects. The resulting research sample contained 16 novice teachers, with whom research interviews were gradually realised. With regard to the fact that the data began to be repeated with the ninth to tenth respondent, data collection was terminated with the thirteenth teacher.


The complete list of all respondents and their brief characteristics is given in **Table 1**.


*The Influence of Undergraduate Preparation on Professional Beginnings in School Practice… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112309*

*PřF/PF = Faculty of Science, PedF/FPE = Faculty of Education, UPOL = Palacký University Olomouc, JU = University of South Bohemia, UK = Charles University, MU = Masaryk University, ZČU = University of West Bohemia, UHK = University of Hradec Králové.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Characteristics of interviewed novice teachers.*
