TEACH California Website
Summary Report, 2004 through 2007

The TEACH California website, www.teachcalifornia.org, was established in March of 2004 to help in addressing the continuing teacher shortage in California. The Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Leadership Project, funded by the California Department of Education (CDE), is focused on delivering information resources to potential teachers via the convenient interface of teachcalifornia.org.

After five years of operation, the website has seen more than 1.5 million visits, from nearly 700,000 visitors, viewing over 5 million pages, and continues to be a resource attracting an average of over 1,000 visits per day.

Web-tracking software has recorded that nearly 20% of visitors made two or more visits in the same year, including 28,000 who accessed the site six times or more. Additional web statistics are summarized starting on page 2.

To learn more about visitors to the website, a user survey was developed and added to the website. Over 33,000 responses have been collected since January 2005. Among other questions, the survey asked respondents whether they are considering a career in teaching and if they are taking steps to become a teacher.

• Of the visitors to the TEACH California website, over three-quarters of respondents reported thinking about becoming a teacher.
• Of the over 26,000 respondents thinking of becoming a teacher, roughly two-thirds reported already taking steps to become a teacher.

Additional survey responses are summarized starting on page 4.

Website Traffic

A visit is a series of actions that begins when a visitor views the first page of the website, and ends when the visitors leaves the site. A single visit can be brief and cursory or extended and meaningful. Visits lulled through 2006 but rebounded in 2007, growing to nearly the level of the all-time high in July of 2007.

A visitor is someone who may visit the website one or many times. Visitors followed a similar trend as visits, reaching an all-time low in December 2006. However, unlike visits, visitors have not rebounded to the highs of 2004 and 2005, which means these fewer visitors are making more visits; teachcalifornia.org may be now attracting an audience for whom website content is more relevant.

About visitor totals: Visitor totals accurately reflect the trend of visitors to the website, but are imprecise. Because visitors are tracked by the computers they use, one visitor using multiple computers will be counted several times, while several visitors on a school or library computer will be counted as a single visitor. Additionally, a visitor is counted once per monthly report and once per yearly report, but because some visitors visit in multiple months, monthly totals do not add up to the yearly total.

The following graph reflects the number of visits and visitors to the TEACH California website each month.

• The TEACH California website appears to consistently attract greatest interest in the spring, though 2006 was an unusual exception. This pattern could be consistent with college students planning their next move into graduate school or a career at the end of each school year.

Pages Visited

The TEACH California website includes a number of pages offering different content. The following chart summarizes the most-accessed pages at teachcalifornia.org. This list excludes two high-traffic pages which are not destinations unto themselves, the “Welcome” page and the visitor survey. Many of these pages are directly accessible from the Welcome page and suggest which portions of the website attract the most attention.

• The website’s “Find a Teaching Job” feature is the most-accessed page.
• Of seven featured links in the website’s header, only “Find Financial Aid” was not among the ten most-visited pages.
• The “Get into Special Education!” movie linked from the “Welcome” page was visited 13,513 times (ranked 36th in 2006 and 40th in 2007).

While the trend of pages visited has remained relatively constant over the past four years, some pages have recently received added interest.

Visitor Survey

A survey greets visitors to the TEACH California website in a “pop-up” window on the “Welcome” page. The survey asks visitors eight short questions to collect demographic information and about their interest in teaching. Because many web browsers are configured to disable pop-up windows, many visitors will not have an opportunity to respond to the survey; however, collected responses are likely to be representative.

Potential teachers (indicated in blue) were the largest share of survey respondents visiting the site.

• Career changers with a college degree were the largest group of respondents, with 32%
• More visitors were career changers (with or without a college degree) than students, though college students were the second-largest group (with 16%).

Currently credentialled teachers may have visited the website seeking information about teaching requirements and employment.

• Out-of-state teachers (11%) and out-of-country teachers (5%) may be interested in moving to California to continue their teaching careers.

Visitors to teachcalifornia.org were mostly female, but showed great diversity in age and ethnicity.

• Over 70% of survey respondents were female.

• Respondents were fairly balanced among all four age categories.

• Nearly half of respondents were ethnic minorities (45%).

The survey also asked respondents what kind of teaching they were interested in. Most respondents indicated one of the generic options: either elementary, middle, or high school teaching. Three specific options were offered due to a shortage of teachers in these areas: math, science, and special education.

• Single-subject credentials appear to be a goal for most visitors to the website, with 48% indicating interest in either high school, middle school, math or science.
• Special education was a specific interest for 11% of survey respondents.
• Many visitors may be looking for help deciding in what kind of teacher to become. 8% were undecided, and another 9% left this question blank.

Referrers

In order to better serve potential teachers, referral data has been collected to determine how people are finding out about teachcalifornia.org. The visitor survey asked, “where did you hear about the TEACH California website.” Because of a change in response options late in 2006, only responses from 2007 are available. Additionally, web-tracking software on the website catalogued over 500,000 visits that started from links on other websites, summarized on page 7.

• The three largest referrers to the TEACH California website together account for 82% of responses. These are Internet Search Engines, the CalTeach website, and referrals from schools.
• Internet search engines, such as Google, were cited by 43% of survey respondents.

“School referrals” are comprised of four separate responses available in the survey. These include both personal referrals from teachers and counselors, and institutional ones from a school website or the school in general.

• CSU Websites appear to be a major referrer to the TEACH California website (10%), equal to referrals from teachers (7%) and counselors (3%) combined.

While based on a larger body of data, the internet referrers data collected by web-tracking software may be less reliable than the survey. For instance, an individual may use Google to find the website for every visit, no matter how he or she learned about the website, instead of remembering the address or bookmarking the page. However, these findings are based on real visits and suggest a number of findings.

• The domain ca.gov (11%), a leading referrer, includes the CDE website.
• Edjoin.org was a major internet referrer (8%) despite being cited by only 1% of survey respondents. The source of this discrepancy is unclear.
• Commercial referrers (together 46%), were predominantly search engines.
• Private and non-Californian education sites included a number of out-of-state schools, led by the Austin Community College district (2,797 visits) and George Washington University (1,056 visitors).

Additional TEACH California Resources

TEACH California provides a number of materials to schools and organizations helping to bring new teachers into California classrooms. These pamphlets, videos, and other materials can be ordered for free through teachcalifornia.org. Materials can also be downloaded from the website for free. A “toolkit” of nine items can be ordered as well, while the constituent pieces can be ordered or downloaded separately.

• The documents most frequently shipped were the Becoming a Special Education Teacher in California and Pathways to Teaching pamphlets, both introduced in 2004. Several pamphlets introduced in 2006 have been at least as popular, including Teach Science, Teach Math, Service Learning, and Paraeducator.
• The general education-focused Teach Math and Teach Science pamphlets were shipped most in 2007. The special education-focused pamphlets Becoming a Special Education Teacher in California and Paraeducator were more frequently downloaded.

This report was developed for CalSTAT by the SIG Evaluation Team of Cheryl “Li” Walter, PhD, and Alan Wood.

CalSTAT (California Services for Technical Assistance and Training), at Napa County Office of Education, is a special project of the California Department of Education, Special Education Division. Visit CalSTAT at www.calstat.org.

The TEACH California web site is partially funded from federal funds awarded in 1) Part D of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); 2) the State Program Improvement Grant to California (CFDA 84.323A) allowed in Part D of IDEA; and 3) Title II, Part A, of Improving Teacher Quality allowed in No Child Left Behind.