The out-of-field phenomenon is gaining the attention of researchers and policy makers worldwide because of  evidence showing that the teacher is a major determinant of student success.

The OOF-TAS Collective comprises a group of researchers and pratitioners from across the globe who are interested in the out-of-field teaching phenomenon.

We inform researchers, schools, teacher educators, parents, and policy makers of the issues relating to out-of-field teaching.

We collate research and activities responding to teaching out-of-field, and draw on the work of different research programs, professional learning activities, re-accreditation programs, and policy-related issues.

Other researchers, practitioners, and student researchers (Honours, Masters, PhD) with an interest in issues relating to teaching out-of-field and non-specialist teaching are invited to join the group.

The OOF-TAS Collective meets every year, usually before, during or after the European Conference for Educational Research (ECER). We sometimes meet as a symposium run separately to ECER, and sometimes as a symposium as part of the ECER program.

A call for abstracts for the OOF-TAS symposium will be released when ECER releases their call for submissions. Research students and other early career researchers are encouraged to be part of our symposium – we acknowledge that many of the groundbreaking work into OOF-TAS has come from PhD and Masters projects! If there are adequate numbers of research students, we will have a separate section for early career researchers.

Purpose and Scope of the OOF-TAS Collective Website

The strands of inquiry and activity included in this website are:

  • Incidence of out-of-field teaching, supply and demand, and attrition in different countries

  • Professional development and re-accreditation programs

  • Research exploring:

    • Impacts and related issues from the perspectives of various key stakeholders, such as teachers, school leaders and principals, parents, school children

    • School leadership

    • Governmental responses and policy directions

    • The practice of out-of-field teachers

    • Teacher learning, including pre-service and in-service teacher learning

    • Discipline-related issues, especially relating to school mathematics and science