Erin Siostrom

Erin Siostrom is an academic researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast in the School of Education and Tertiary Access, where she focuses on teacher education and career changers entering the teaching profession. She completed her PhD by Publication at Queensland University of Technology, establishing herself as a researcher in educational policy and teacher recruitment.

Dr. Siostrom's research primarily investigates the motivations and decision-making processes of career changers considering teaching careers, with particular emphasis on STEM fields. Her work employs diverse methodologies including scoping reviews, mixed methods studies, and Best-Worst Scaling approaches to understand the complex factors that influence career transition decisions. She examines personal, structural, and cultural conditions that enable or constrain potential career changers' pathways into teaching, drawing on theoretical frameworks like Margaret Archer's emergent properties.

Her research reveals key themes including prior experiences in teacher-like roles, changing circumstances such as work-life balance considerations, dispositions toward teaching including the desire to make a difference, perceptions of the teaching profession's status, and the availability of support mechanisms. This work has significant implications for teacher recruitment strategies and policy development in addressing global teacher shortages.

Dr. Siostrom actively collaborates with researchers Reece Mills and Terri Bourke, producing impactful research that informs educational policy discussions in Australia and internationally. Her findings have been published in high-impact journals including Australian Educational Researcher, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, and Teaching and Teacher Education, contributing to evidence-based approaches for attracting quality career changers into teaching.