Newly Qualified Teacher’s Needs: A Comprehensive Analysis among Teachers in Poland and Spain

Resumen

This article sets out to understand the training needs of New Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in two countries: Spain and Poland, to establish, first, similarities and differences between them in a comparative way, and then, as a cornerstone and starting point in the European project “Digital Academy in teaching practice for a seamless transition from pre-service to in-service-Digital TA- (Project ID: 101055620; Erasmus+ Teacher Academies), with negative impacts for the education system on a large scale. The methodology used is qualitative, whereby a non-probabilistic purposive sample of NQTs was administered a questionnaire structured in 6 axes: respondents’ professional needs; personal relationships in a new context; ways to learn, teacher education at the university, personal development, and professional development; which was validated by statistical methods, and after collecting empirical data in both countries, it was integrated, compared, and analysed. The main results show that classroom management and individual work needs represent the main problems for NQTs and that a tutor who provides personal and specialized accompaniment represents one of
the best aids to overcome the adversities of NQTs, but also the exchange of experiences in common spaces helps to overcome the lack of confidence. It is also evident that even though educational work is one with workloads and stress above what is desirable, NQTs believe that it represents change and benefit to society.