Initiation into Academic Teaching. The Early Careers of Academic Teachers and their Beliefs about the Development of Academic Teaching Competence.

The article attempts to draw a comprehensive picture of novice academic teachers’ experiences in teaching, as well as their beliefs about how academic teaching competence develops throughout a career of teaching at university. From a psychological point of view teaching can be seen as a field of expertise and insightful results can be obtained from comparing teachers with little experience to experts in the field. In this chapter early academic teachers’ beliefs about academic teaching and associated concepts are empirically researched. Subject knowledge, pedagogical skills, interpersonal relationships, research-teaching nexus and personality are seen as key elements of successful teaching at tertiary level. This chapter investigates novice university teachers’ beliefs about those elements, as well as their experiences in early stages of teaching at university. It also examines how far key aspects of competent academic teaching are believed to be malleable and can be learned or improved upon. The insights obtained in the article are discussed with regard to their implications for academic teacher training, which has received growing attention not only in Austria, but in countries all over the world in the past decade.