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How to achieve ‘egalitarian’ interaction between student teachers and mentor teachers? A study of a one-school-year teacher practicum in Germany
... Egalitarian strategies-co-creating group charters, rotating leadership, and peer assessmentdiminished perceived teacher authority and fostered horizontal collaboration [32], [42]. In emergency remote learning, Brooke [35] found that egalitarian feedback loops preserved students' sense of belonging despite physical separation. ...
This study explores how power dynamics and agency manifest in the co-creation process in Norwegian physical education teacher education (PETE) and the research associated with it. Drawing on theories of power and education, I aimed to understand the complexities of student-teacher collaboration and the shifting power dynamics. To express my reflections, observations, and perceptions, I employed reflexive thematic analysis grounded in critical theory. One overarching theme was created: 'time is of the essence', including two sub-themes: 'spending the time of free will' and 'power dynamics change over time'. The study highlights the transforma-tive potential that emerges when teachers and students engage in critical reflection, dialogue, and challenge power structures-given they have sufficient time to do so together. Successful collaboration in creation of educational courses and research requires a willingness to relinquish control, advocate for student involvement , and allow students to take the lead in initiating activities.
A good mentor and mentoring partnership is absolutely crucial for a beginning teacher. It can help make the difference between success and failure in their career.
Participatory research (PR) encompasses research designs, methods, and frameworks that use systematic inquiry in direct collaboration with those affected by an issue being studied for the purpose of action or change. PR engages those who are not necessarily trained in research but belong to or represent the interests of the people who are the focus of the research. Researchers utilizing a PR approach often choose research methods and tools that can be conducted in a participatory, democratic manner that values genuine and meaningful participation in the research process. This article serves as an introduction to participatory research methods, including an overview of participatory research, terminology across disciplines, elements that make a research method participatory, and a model detailing the choice points that require decisions about which tools and methods will produce the desired level of participation at each stage of the research process. Intentional choices of participatory research methods, tools, and processes can help researchers to more meaningfully engage stakeholders and communities in research, which in turn has the potential to create relevant, meaningful research findings translated to action.
Despite much research on feedback in teaching placement, there is a limited number of interaction studies. Moreover, how student teachers respond to critical mentor feedback remains quite unmapped. This article aims to explore this interactional aspect through the analysis of 12 post-observation sessions.
Critical feedback sequences are analysed by face-work theory (Goffman, 1967). Findings suggest that student teachers are deeply concerned about saving face when receiving critical feedback. Their strategies include “contradicting”, “withdrawing”, and “repairing” face, in addition to “emphasising a self-reflective and progressive face”. This article offers insights that may be helpful for communicating critical mentor feedback.
A meta-analysis (435 studies, k = 994, N > 61,000) of empirical research on the effects of feedback on student learning was conducted with the purpose of replicating and expanding the Visible Learning research (Hattie and Timperley, 2007; Hattie, 2009; Hattie and Zierer, 2019) from meta-synthesis. Overall results based on a random-effects model indicate a medium effect (d = 0.48) of feedback on student learning, but the significant heterogeneity in the data shows that feedback cannot be understood as a single consistent form of treatment. A moderator analysis revealed that the impact is substantially influenced by the information content conveyed. Furthermore, feedback has higher impact on cognitive and motor skills outcomes than on motivational and behavioral outcomes. We discuss these findings in the light of the assumptions made in The power of feedback (Hattie and Timperley, 2007). In general, the results suggest that feedback has rightly become a focus of teaching research and practice. However, they also point toward the necessity of interpreting different forms of feedback as independent measures.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that mentoring has on Canadian early career teachers’ (ECTs’) well-being. The authors describe findings from a pan-Canadian Teacher Induction Survey ( n =1,343) that examined perceptions and experiences of ECTs within K–12 publicly funded schools, with particular interest in retention, career interests and the impact of mentoring on well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was used to examine perceptions and experiences of ECTs within publicly funded K–12 schools across Canada. For this paper, the authors selectively analyzed 35 survey questions that pertained to mentorship and well-being of ECTs, using quantitative and qualitative procedures.
Findings
The findings revealed a strong correlation between the mentoring experiences and well-being of the participating Canadian ECTs. The teachers who did not receive mentorship indicated significantly lower feelings of well-being, and conversely, teachers who participated in some kind of mentorship demonstrated much higher levels of well-being.
Research limitations/implications
This paper draws on the selective analysis of the data from a larger study to elicit the connections between the mentoring support and perceived well-being. Due to inconsistencies in terminology and multifaceted offerings of induction and mentoring supports for ECTs across Canada, there might have been some ambiguity regarding the formal and informal mentorship supports. A longitudinal study that is designed to specifically examine the connection between the mentorship and well-being of ECTs could yield deeper understandings. A comparative study in different international contexts is commended.
Practical implications
The findings showed that the ECTs who did not receive any mentorship scored significantly lower feelings of well-being from external, structural, and internal well-being sources, and conversely, the ECTs who participated in some kind of mentorship scored much higher levels of feelings of well-being. Policy-makers should therefore continue to confidently include mentorship as an intentional strategy to support and help ECTs to flourish. However, inconsistent scoring between individuals and their levels of external, structural and internal well-being suggest that more research on the connection between mentoring and well-being of the ECTs.
Social implications
Work-life imbalance seems to be more challenging for ECTs than policymakers who provide these expectations are aware. Therefore, excessive work demands and intensive workloads need to be given proper attention for their potential negative effects (such as stress, burnout and absence) on the beginning teachers’ health and well-being. Likewise, purposeful strength-based approaches should be undertaken to establish generative and pro-social efforts to enhance the connectedness, collaboration, collegiality and resilience-building opportunities for novice professionals within flourishing learning communities.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors have undertaken the first steps in exploring the impact that mentoring has on Canadian ECTs’ well-being. The study increases the understanding of how mentoring can be used as a purposeful strategy to support the well-being of ECTs and retain them in the teaching profession in Canada and potentially in different international contexts.
The critical incident technique (CIT) is a qualitative research tool that is frequently used in health services research to explore what helps or hinders in providing good quality care or achieving satisfaction with care provision. However, confusion currently exists on the nature of the CIT: Is it a method for data collection and analysis or a methodology? In this article, I explain why this distinction is important and I argue that the CIT is a methodology (and not a method) for the following reasons: Key methodological dimensions are described for the CIT; it has a clear focus; studies that apply this technique make use of various methods for data collection and analysis; it describes, explains, evaluates, and justifies the use of a specific format for those methods; it implies philosophical and practical assumptions; and studies that use the CIT cannot easily make use of additional methodologies simultaneously.
A methodologically sound systematic review is characterized by transparency, replicability, and a clear inclusion criterion. However, little attention has been paid to reporting the details of interrater reliability (IRR) when multiple coders are used to make decisions at various points in the screening and data extraction stages of a study. Prior research has mentioned the paucity of information on IRR including number of coders involved, at what stages and how IRR tests were conducted, and how disagreements were resolved. This article examines and reflects on the human factors that affect decision-making in systematic reviews via reporting on three IRR tests, conducted at three different points in the screening process, for two distinct reviews. Results of the two studies are discussed in the context of IRR and intrarater reliability in terms of the accuracy, precision, and reliability of coding behavior of multiple coders. Findings indicated that coding behavior changes both between and within individuals over time, emphasizing the importance of conducting regular and systematic IRR and intrarater reliability tests, especially when multiple coders are involved, to ensure consistency and clarity at the screening and coding stages. Implications for good practice while screening/coding for systematic reviews are discussed.
Mentoring of pre-service teachers in school contexts is acknowledged as an important part of initial teacher education. However, finding sufficient school-based professional experience placements for pre-service teachers, ensuring the quality of the learning experiences provided by such placements, and gaining a clear understanding of what teachers actually learn during placements continue to be of concern to all involved in this component of teacher education. In this paper, three interconnected perspectives are provided as a university-based teacher educator, a school-based teacher educator and a pre-service teacher learn together in a dialogic mentoring relationship. The work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Voloshinov is employed to theorise the nature of dialogic relationships and how such relationships differ from ‘having a conversation’.
Empirical studies in higher education are needed that systematically connect program characteristics to program outcomes. We therefore examine the effects of opportunities to learn in teacher preparation on future teachers’ general pedagogical knowledge. A sample of 1347 student teachers from 37 teacher preparation programs in 18 universities and pedagogical colleges in Germany and Austria with two time points is used. Results using hierarchical linear modeling show that measures of learning opportunities related to pedagogical content and teaching practice influence the gain in knowledge. Whereas measures for pedagogical content related to areas of didactics (adaptivity in teaching, structuring lessons) show effects on the knowledge gain both on the individual and on the program level, teaching practice measures related to in-school opportunities to learn have effects only on the individual level of future teachers. Implications for the effectiveness of teacher preparation and research suggestions are discussed.
The Critical Incident Technique (CIT), a research method that relies on a set of procedures to collect, content analyze, and classify observations of human behavior, was introduced to the social sciences by Flanagan (1954) 60 years ago. Bitner, Booms, and Tetreault (1990), who introduced CIT to the marketing discipline, define an incident as an observable human activity that is complete enough to allow inferences and predictions to be made about the person performing the act. A critical incident is described as one that makes a significant contribution, either positively or negatively, to an activity or phenomenon. Critical incidents can be gathered in various ways, but the approach generally asks respondents to tell a story about an experience they have had. In the past 25 years the CIT method has been used frequently in marketing and management, and more recently in service research, to study a wide range of topics.
Keywords:
critical incident technique;
qualitative research;
service research;
service encounter
Teachers’ efficacy beliefs are thought to influence not only their motivation and performance but also the achievement of their students. Scholars have therefore turned their attention toward the sources underlying these important teacher beliefs. This review seeks to evaluate the ways in which researchers have measured and conceptualized the sources of teaching self-efficacy across 82 empirical studies. Specifically, it aims to identify what can be inferred from these studies and what important questions still remain about the origins of teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Results indicate that a number of methodological shortcomings in the literature have prevented a clear understanding of how teachers develop a sense of efficacy. Nonetheless, insights gleaned from existing research help to refine, and to expand, theoretical understandings of the sources of self-efficacy and their influence in the unique context of teaching. Implications for future research and practice are addressed.
This chapter examines recent “reform” efforts in teacher education around the world. There are three main sections. First, we identify eight types of reform policies and initiatives. These include: establishing standards and minimum requirements for teacher education; making teacher education more “research-based”; making pre-service programmes more “accountable”; allowing alternative routes into teaching; placing greater emphasis on subject knowledge; and increasing school involvement in teacher education. Second, we provide case studies of four countries – England, the U.S., Singapore, and Canada – that have rather distinctive approaches to teacher education reform. Third, we discuss where we should be going in teacher education reform, showing the limitations and weaknesses of some of the recent initiatives and suggesting ways to enhance teacher education reform.
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to identify and examine root causes of the failure of school-based mentoring to realize its full potential. Design/methodology/approachThe article draws on the re-analysis of data from two major mixed-method empirical studies carried out in England. It focuses on data generated from interviews with beginner teachers and mentors in both primary and secondary schools. FindingsThe findings point to a failure to create appropriate conditions for effective mentoring in England at the level of the mentoring relationship, the school, and the national policy context. Practical implicationsImplications of the findings include the need to achieve a greater degree of informed consensus on the meaning and purposes of mentoring in teacher education, and to ensure that mentors of beginner teachers are appropriately trained for the role. Originality/valueThe article identifies the practice of judgemental mentoring or “judgementoring” as an obstacle to school-based mentoring realizing its potential and an impediment to the professional learning and wellbeing of beginner teachers. It also points to worrying indications that judgementoring may be becoming, through accrued experiences, the default understanding of mentoring in England.
The aim of the present study is to conduct a systematic review research which focuses on research studies into the school practicum. In order to identify the main issues and also to provide a contemporary picture of practicum, 114 studies published on the topic are reviewed and analysed in terms of: (i) aims, (ii) main participants, (iii) methodology used and (iv) the main outcomes emerging. Many of the reviewed studies take pre-service teachers as their main participants. The review also shows that many practicum studies are relatively small-scale studies since they are mainly qualitative focused and findings derived from a relatively small sample. This suggests that more large-scale studies are needed in the field in order to provide greater insight into teaching practicum. Finally, this systematic review provides some food for thought in the area of practicum research and promotes further studies in this complex field.
This article serves as an introduction to the FQS special issue "Participatory Qualitative Research." In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in participatory research strategies. The articles in this special issue come from different disciplines. Against the background of concrete empirical research projects, they address numerous conceptual considerations and methodological approaches. After reading the contributions, and engaging with the authors' arguments, we were prompted to focus in particular on those areas in which further work needs to be done. They include, on the one hand, fundamental principles of participatory research, such as democratic-theory considerations, the concept of "safe space," participation issues, and ethical questions. And, on the other hand, we focus on practical research considerations regarding the role and tasks of the various participants; specific methodological approaches; and quality criteria—understood here in the sense of arguments justifying a participatory approach. Our aim is to stimulate a broad discussion that does not focus only on participatory research in the narrower sense. Because participatory methodology poses certain knowledge- and research-related questions in a radical way, it has the potential to draw attention to hitherto neglected areas in qualitative methodology and to stimulate their further development.
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201302
Qualitative content analysis is commonly used for analyzing qualitative data. However, few articles have examined the trustworthiness of its use in nursing science studies. The trustworthiness of qualitative content analysis is often presented by using terms such as credibility, dependability, conformability, transferability, and authenticity. This article focuses on trustworthiness based on a review of previous studies, our own experiences, and methodological textbooks. Trustworthiness was described for the main qualitative content analysis phases from data collection to reporting of the results. We concluded that it is important to scrutinize the trustworthiness of every phase of the analysis process, including the preparation, organization, and reporting of results. Together, these phases should give a reader a clear indication of the overall trustworthiness of the study. Based on our findings, we compiled a checklist for researchers attempting to improve the trustworthiness of a content analysis study. The discussion in this article helps to clarify how content analysis should be reported in a valid and understandable manner, which would be of particular benefit to reviewers of scientific articles. Furthermore, we discuss that it is often difficult to evaluate the trustworthiness of qualitative content analysis studies because of defective data collection method description and/or analysis description.
This literature review presents a systematic analysis of 113 empirical studies conducted between 1996 and 2009, portraying a picture of the rationales, goals, activities, roles, and outcomes in the different practicum settings in teacher education programs. The review shows that the rationale, goals, and activities in the different practicum settings are focused on teaching competencies and acquaintance with the pupils’ diversity. The supervisors’ role is focused mainly on the preservice teachers’ inner world, and only few studies examined school students’ achievements as a result of preservice teachers’ instruction. The individual relationships between mentors, supervisors, and preservice teachers were attended by tension and conflicts ensuing from different interests, educational philosophies, and status differences that were not bridged. Preservice teachers’ acquaintance with staff and principals at the host school were a negligible part of the practicum descriptions. The discussion will portray two kinds of asymmetric relations between the host schools and the teacher education programs, and one kind of symmetric relations emerging from the descriptions of the practicum. The implications will suggest a broader view of the practicum, designing a new teacher education program embedded in school organizational culture.
This article represents a cross-sectional study of undergraduate students across two
north-west university business schools in the UK. A purposefully designed
questionnaire was collected from 350 students. The student experience was
described in the form of hand-written narratives by first and final year students
and had been identified by the respondents themselves as being satisfying or
dissatisfying with the areas of teaching and learning and the supporting service
environment. The study also assessed whether their experiences were likely to
influence their loyalty behaviours with respect to remaining on their chosen
course of study; recommending the university; and continuing at a higher level
of study. The data were captured and analysed using the qualitative critical
incident technique to capture the voice of the student and identified the critical
determinants of quality within higher education, i.e. those areas that would
influence loyalty behaviour, as being Access; Attentiveness; Availability; and
Communication. A number of new determinants of quality have been identified
out of the research by three independent judges, namely motivation, reward,
social inclusion, usefulness, value for money and fellow student behaviour.
Studies of expertise in teaching have been informative, despite problems. One problem is determining the relative roles of talent vs. deliberate practice in the acquisition of expertise. When studying teachers, however, a third factor must be considered, that of context. The working conditions of teachers exert a powerful influence on the development of expertise. A second problem is that of definition because expertise in teaching takes different forms in different cultures, and its characteristics change by decade. A distinction is drawn between the good teacher and the successful teacher, characteristics of expertise that are often confused. A prototypical model of expertise is described and found to identify teachers who were both good and successful. Discussed also is the importance of understanding adaptive or fluid expertise, automaticity and flexibility. Finally, the development of teacher expertise is seen as an increase in agency over time.
Purpose
The critical incident technique (CIT) is widely used in many disciplines; however, scholars have acknowledged challenges associated with analyzing qualitative data when using this technique. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to address the data analysis issues that have been raised by introducing some different contemporary ways of analyzing qualitative critical incident data drawn from recent dissertations conducted in the human resource development (HRD) field.
Design/methodology/approach
This article describes and illustrates different contemporary qualitative re-storying and cross-incident analysis approaches with examples drawn from previously and recently conducted qualitative HRD dissertations that have used the CIT.
Findings
Qualitative CIT analysis comprises two processes: re-storying and cross-incident analysis. The narrative inquiry–based re-storying approaches the authors illustrate include poetic narrative and dramatic emplotting. The analytical approaches we illustrate for cross-incident analysis include thematic assertion, grounded theory, and post-structural analysis/assemblages. The use of the aforementioned approaches offers researchers contemporary tools that can deepen meaning and understanding of qualitative CIT data, which address challenges that have been acknowledged regarding the difficulty of analyzing CIT data.
Research limitations/implications
The different contemporary qualitative approaches that we have introduced and illustrated in this study provide researchers using the CIT with additional tools to address the challenges of analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically with regard to data reduction of lengthy narrative transcripts through re-storying as well as cross-incident analyses that can substantially deepen meaning, as well as build new theory and problematize the data through existing theory.
Practical implications
A strength of the CIT is its focus on actual events that have occurred from which reasoning, behaviors, and decision-making can be examined to develop more informed practices.
Originality/value
The CIT is a very popular and flexible method for collecting data that is widely used in many disciplines. However, data analysis can be especially difficult given the volume of narrative qualitative data that can result from data collection. This paper describes and illustrates different contemporary approaches analyzing qualitative CIT data, specifically the processes of re-storying and cross-incident analysis, to address these concerns in the literature as well as to enhance and further evolve the use of the CIT method.
Objective
To review empirical studies that assess saturation in qualitative research in order to identify sample sizes for saturation, strategies used to assess saturation, and guidance we can draw from these studies.
Methods
We conducted a systematic review of four databases to identify studies empirically assessing sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research, supplemented by searching citing articles and reference lists.
Results
We identified 23 articles that used empirical data (n = 17) or statistical modeling (n = 6) to assess saturation. Studies using empirical data reached saturation within a narrow range of interviews (9–17) or focus group discussions (4–8), particularly those with relatively homogenous study populations and narrowly defined objectives. Most studies had a relatively homogenous study population and assessed code saturation; the few outliers (e.g., multi-country research, meta-themes, “code meaning” saturation) needed larger samples for saturation.
Conclusions
Despite varied research topics and approaches to assessing saturation, studies converged on a relatively consistent sample size for saturation for commonly used qualitative research methods. However, these findings apply to certain types of studies. These results provide strong empirical guidance on effective sample sizes for qualitative research, which can be used in conjunction with the characteristics of individual studies to estimate an appropriate sample size prior to data collection. This synthesis also provides an important resource for researchers, academic journals, journal reviewers, ethical review boards, and funding agencies to facilitate greater transparency in justifying and reporting sample sizes in qualitative research. Future empirical research is needed to explore how various parameters affect sample sizes for saturation.
This study reports on a review of contemporary literature which focuses on elements of a quality pre-service teacher mentor. For this purpose, seventy peer-reviewed publications were reviewed and analysed. A typology consisting of 53 indicators and seven dimensions was developed based on the findings. Our study contributes to the knowledge on the quality mentoring of pre-service teachers. It also provides the authors with the groundwork for developing a set of standards that describe the key elements of a quality mentor of pre-service teachers.
The mentor–preservice teacher hierarchy, that privileges mentor teacher talk and experience, often dominates mentor–preservice conversations. To realize the full potential of teacher education approaches designed to engage preservice and mentor teachers together in shared learning and teaching tasks, attention is needed to better understand the dynamics and implications of mentor–preservice teacher interactions. We analyzed how and when preservice and mentor teachers introduced ideas to group conversations and whose ideas were taken up by the group during a co-learning task. We found that mentor teachers tended to dominate group sense-making. However, preservice teacher use of imagination, the actions of teacher educators as brokers, and the use of boundary objects temporarily interrupted the dominant hierarchy. We conjecture that these moments raised preservice teacher status within the group so that mentor teachers took up preservice teachers’ ideas. Implications for promoting more equitable preservice teacher participation in sense-making with mentor teachers are discussed.
Much like preservice teachers, who cite cooperating teachers as influential to the learning-to-teach process, this study and its findings center the work of cooperating teachers as essential to teacher education for democratic education. The mentoring practices of cooperating teachers often reflect their teaching practices with students in their classroom; as such, this study examines the mentoring practices of five democratic teachers who worked with six preservice teachers in a one-semester clinical experience. Democratic mentoring affords preservice teachers opportunities to observe democratic teaching practices, to attempt enacting democratic practices within a classroom context ready for progressive practices and curricula, and importantly, to experience democratic education in their own learning-to-teach process. Further, recognition of the democratic mentoring practices of cooperating teachers, as teacher educators, democratizes teacher education by attending to multiple spaces of knowledge about teaching and students.
Within a sociocultural framework, we use situated learning theory to explore the use of a coteaching approach during student teaching. Coteaching is a model for learning to teach where clinical educators and teacher candidates teach alongside one another and share responsibility for pupil learning. Teacher education programs have adopted this model for student teaching because there is evidence that coteaching supports pupil learning and coteacher learning. This study of coteaching in three teacher education programs, within the same university, examined opportunities afforded for teacher candidates’ development of growth competence, adaptive teaching expertise, and collaborative expertise. Data analysis from the nested, cross-case qualitative study enabled us to examine opportunities for candidate learning afforded by coteaching during student teaching, posit recommendations on using coteaching, explain the necessary conditions, and discuss the model’s current limitations.
This case study examines a Chinese and Korean-Chinese pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their mentor teachers’ role in supporting inclusive practicum experiences in USA elementary school contexts. The findings demonstrate that a mentor teacher’s open conversations and willingness to host those students bring positive influence on their learning and growth. The findings also indicate that the facilitative roles of mentor teachers in the promotion of inclusive environments are intersected with the socio-cultural and political contexts of practicum schools and universities. The study concludes with implications for enhancing the inclusion of diverse pre-service teachers through collaborative roles of multiple practicum stakeholders, including pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, practicum schools, and universities.
This study was situated in a Primary Teacher Education program in the Netherlands. The participants (N=16) comprised four each of: Pre-Service Teachers (PST); Mentor Teachers; School-Based Teacher Educators; and University-Based Teacher Educators. Video-recordings of four mentoring conversations for each PST which transcribed and translated for analysis. A mixed methodology was applied with analysis based on examining mentoring conversations in relation to the MERID-model through turn-taking analysis and Propositional Discourse Analysis. The study illustrates that mentors tend to use a more directive mentoring approach and that they dominate dialogue suggesting that there is aneed for reconsideration of the mentor-PST learning relationship and how it is understood in teacher education.
Coteaching provides opportunities for teachers to collectively share responsibility for student learning. This paper reports on findings from a longitudinal study in which cooperating teachers cotaught science classes with student teachers. Through coteaching with student teachers, teachers expanded their teaching practice and developed new insights about their teaching. Coteaching served as professional development for the cooperating teachers. The experience provided them with renewed energy toward practice, opportunities to develop and implement curriculum, reflection as a catalyst for changing practice, and an expansion of professional roles into new arenas.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to present research about identifying critical management behaviour regarding quality orientation in organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
– In order to describe how quality orientation is manifested in management behaviour, the critical incident technique was chosen. First, quality orientation was defined based on an extensive literature review. Then, critical incidents that represent a behavioural manifestation of each dimension were derived through a deductive approach. Lastly, an expert group consisting of scientists and practitioners were asked to categorise the critical incidents and evaluate their practical relevance and completeness.
Findings
– The results show that the construct quality orientation is related to the five variables internal customer focus, external customer focus, continuous improvement orientation, systems-thinking perspective, and data-driven. For each variable four critical incidents were developed and evaluated by the expert group. Analyses of the data show fair agreement between the raters with an overall agreement index of 0.38.
Originality/value
– The results of the present study can be used to support managers in understanding and practising behaviour critical to organisation-wide quality and thereby improving working conditions as well as business results.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in eight preservice teachers’ professional identity and the factors contributing to such changes during a four-week block practicum.
Design/methodology/approach
– A qualitative case study design was used and the data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with preservice teachers and their mentors, reflective journals and observation checklists. Thematic analysis was used to interpret the data.
Findings
– The findings showed high levels of confidence and development of teacher voice by the end of their four-week block practicum. The findings also suggested that positive mentoring relationships contributed to changes in the preservice teachers’ teacher identity.
Research limitations/implications
– Despite focussing on a relatively small number of preservice secondary teachers during the first four-week practicum of a single teacher education program at a Western Australian University, this research highlights the need to maintain constructive mentoring relationships with preservice teachers to provide positive influences on their professional identity. In order to facilitate this, preservice teacher education programs should provide thorough training for mentor teachers.
Originality/value
– This work highlighted the crucial role of mentor teachers in creating positive impacts on preservice teachers’ professional identity, such as development of their confidence and teacher voice. This paper provides useful insights for researchers, mentor teachers, and preservice teacher education policy developers.
In a recent feature article published in Educational Researcher (2014) Philip Dawson argued that more than three decades of mentoring research has yet to converge on a unifying definition of mentoring. Quoting Jacobi (1991) in her review of undergraduate mentoring, he sustains that the lack of a common definition grows out of the diversity of relationships that are classified as mentoring. Dawson, as Wrightsman (1981), Jacobi (1991), Crisp and Cruz (2009), are all positioned within the literature of mentoring in higher education, with a distinctive focus on mentoring students in higher education. As I read the article and looked at its reference list, to my surprise I discovered almost no reliance on research studies on mentoring in the broader context of teacher education. Given the wealth of conceptual and empirical publications on mentoring in teacher education, one would expect to find some mention of leading studies in this area, especially since they offer insights on the generic character of mentoring and its growing recognition as a professional practice grounded in an empirical body of knowledge to guide standards and measures of professionalism across disciplinary contexts.
This study focuses on exploring teacher learning in terms of teachers’ professional agency embedded in the classroom. Teachers’ sense of professional agency is related to perceiving instruction as a bidirectional process, use of students as a resource for professional learning and continuous reflection on teaching practices. Accordingly, the capacity to cross the boundaries in teacher learning contributes active professional agency and, consequently to work-related well-being. Hence, the interrelations between teachers’ sense of professional agency and the burnout they experienced were also analysed. Altogether 2310 Finnish comprehensive school teachers, including primary, subject and special education teachers, completed the study survey. The results indicated that active professional agency, promoting both learning and well-being, requires not just reflecting and adapting but also efforts to learn at work. Moreover this requires not just self-directed and active professional practice but also learning at the boundaries and creating new professional knowledge together with students and colleagues.
This research review focuses on studies that have examined the coaching interactions of cooperating teachers and preservice teachers around practice in teacher education programs. The review is situated inside of the practice-based turn in teacher education where the focus is on teaching as learning through practice and the crucial role that cooperating teachers play in mediating this learning. Forty-six studies were identified as meeting the criteria for inclusion. The analysis of these studies yielded a total of fourteen findings with varying levels of support. These findings are clustered in four areas: current practices and conditions; innovations in practice; relationships and tensions; and local contexts and teaching practices. The findings point to the need for stronger theoretical framing of the work of cooperating teachers in supporting teacher development and to the need for teacher education as a whole to be more proactive and responsible in the preparation of cooperating teachers.
Teachers need professional development to keep current with teaching practices, although costs for extensive professional development can be prohibitive across an education system. Mentoring provides one way for embedding cost-effective professional development. This mixed-method study includes surveying mentor teachers (n = 101) on a five-part Likert scale and interviews with experienced mentors (n = 10) to investigate professional development for mentors as a result of the mentoring process. Quantitative data were analysed through a pedagogical knowledge framework and qualitative data were collated into themes. Survey data showed that although mentoring of pedagogical knowledge was variable, mentoring pedagogical knowledge practices occurs with the majority of mentors, which requires mentors to evaluate and articulate teaching practices. Qualitative data showed that mentoring acted as professional development and led towards enhancing communication skills, developing leadership roles (problem-solving and building capacity) and advancing pedagogical knowledge. Providing professional development to teachers on mentoring can help to build capacity in two ways: quality mentoring of preservice teachers through explicit mentoring practices, and reflecting and deconstructing teaching practices for mentors’ own pedagogical advancements.
Student teachers consider cooperating teachers to be one of the most important contributors to their teacher preparation program. Therefore, the ways in which cooperating teachers participate in teacher education are significant. This review seeks to move conceptions of that participation beyond commonly held beliefs to empirically supported claims. The analysis draws on Brodie, Cowling, and Nissen's notion of categories of participation to generate 11 different ways that cooperating teachers participate in teacher education: as Providers of Feedback, Gatekeepers of the Profession, Modelers of Practice, Supporters of Reflection, Gleaners of Knowledge, Purveyors of Context, Conveners of Relation, Agents of Socialization, Advocates of the Practical, Abiders of Change, and Teachers of Children. When set against Gaventa's typology of participation, the resultant grid highlights the importance of negotiated or invited spaces for cooperating teacher participation and provides a new way of thinking about, planning professional development for, and working with cooperating teachers.
The purpose of this longitudinal mixed methods study was to examine the development of self-efficacy and work stress of pre-service teachers during a teaching practicum. Participants were 150 pre-service teachers who completed eight weekly electronic surveys during their two-month final practicum in a Canadian teacher education program. The study investigates the patterns of self-efficacy and work stress during a critical period in the formation of new teachers. Latent growth curve analysis revealed a pattern of significantly increasing self-efficacy and significantly decreasing stress, although the trajectories were independent of each other. Qualitative analysis of multiple collective cases highlighted the variability of self-efficacy and stress patterns within the practicum experience, and underscored the critical influence of relationships with mentor teachers on self-efficacy and stress.
Teacher education programs are under pressure to raise standards for admission and increase the quality of field placements. Teachers' sense of efficacy, as measured by the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy short form, is related to teacher effectiveness. This study found no correlation between elementary pre-service teachers' sense of efficacy, grade point average, and Praxis content test scores implying that academic achievement may be necessary, but insufficient for building teacher efficacy. Significant correlations existed between efficacy scores and perceptions of support by mentors during student teaching. Efficacy scores were significantly higher for pre-service teachers in schools with higher student achievement.
Despite increasing emphasis on preparing more and better teachers and despite the near universal presence of student teaching across teacher education programs (TEPs), numerous questions about what and how student teaching experiences contribute to preservice teachers’ development remain unanswered. Indeed, much of the attention focused on student teaching in reform and policy discourses emphasizes student teaching’s structural and logistical dimensions—for example, its location, duration, and division of labor—but not its contributions to learning among preservice teachers, nor K–12 students. This article reviews empirical articles published over the past two decades to determine what and how student teaching experiences contribute to preservice teachers’ development as future teachers of students in urban and/or high-needs schools specifically. While keeping this central focus, the article also considers the implications of student teaching for the schools that play host to it and for the students who attend those schools. Anchored by sociocultural perspectives on learning and learning to teach, the review highlights a disproportionate emphasis on belief and attitude change, a relatively slim evidence base concerning the development of actual teaching practice, a tendency toward reductive views of culture and context, and a need for more longitudinal analyses that address the situated and mediated nature of preservice teachers’ learning in the field. Based on these findings, authors offer direction for future research that will extend and deepen the knowledge base.
Drawing from data on over 1000 prospective teachers in a large urban district including pre and post-student teaching survey data, this study investigates whether lengthening student teaching improves teachers’ perceptions of instructional preparedness, efficacy, and career plans. The findings suggest that the duration of student teaching has little effect on teacher outcomes; however, the quality of student teaching has significant and positive effects. Moreover, the magnitude of the effects of student teaching quality are greater when student teaching is shorter and in schools with more historically underserved racial groups. The authors discuss policy implications and directions for further research.
This study examines the extent to which the quality of mentoring and its frequency during the first years of teaching influence teachers' professional competence and well-being. Analyses are based on a sample of more than 700 German beginning mathematics teachers who participated in a pre-test/post-test study over the course of one year. Findings indicate that it is the quality of mentoring rather than its frequency that explains a successful career start. In particular, mentoring that follows constructivist rather than transmissive principles of learning fosters the growth of teacher efficacy, teaching enthusiasm, and job satisfaction and reduces emotional exhaustion.
Validation of qualitative research is here discussed in relation to postmodern conceptions of knowledge. A modernist notion of true knowledge as a mirror of reality is replaced by a postmodern understanding of knowledge as a social construction. Of the common psychometric concepts of validity, predictive validity is related to a modernist correspon dence theory of truth, whereas construct validity may be extended to encompass a social construction of reality. Three approaches to validity are outlined in some detail. First, validity is treated as an expression of craftsmanship, with an emphasis on quality of research by checking, questioning, and theorizing on the nature of the phenomena investigated. Second, by going beyond correspondence criteria of validity, the emphasis on observation is extended to include conversation about the observations, with a communicative concept of validity. Third, by discarding a modern legitimation mania, justification of knowledge is replaced by application, with a pragmatic concept of validity. In conclusion, the validity of the validity question is questioned.
This paper considers some appropriate and inappropriate uses of coefficient kappa and alternative kappa-like statistics. Discussion is restricted to the descriptive characteristics of these statistics for measuring agreement with categorical data in studies of reliability and validity. Special consideration is given to assumptions about whether marginals are fixed a priori, or free to vary. In reliability studies, when marginals are fixed, coefficient kappa is found to be appropriate. When either or both of the marginals are free to vary, however, it is suggested that the "chance" term in kappa be replaced by 1/n, where n is the number of categories. In validity studies, we suggest considering whether one wants an index of improvement beyond "chance" or beyond the best a priori strategy employing base rates. In the former case, considerations are similar to those in reliability studies with the marginals for the criterion measure considered as fixed. In the latter case, it is suggested that the largest marginal proportion for the criterion measure be used in place of the "chance" term in kappa. Similarities and differences among these statistics are discussed and illustrated with synthetic data.
The CIT is a practical and efficient methodology that encourages participants to tell their story; with happenings that are memorable events in participants' lives. It is a form of story-telling, as participants share their singular experience as a story to the researcher. It is a qualitative, systematic, open-ended technique for educing descriptive data from participants as well as being an effective naturalistic tool for focusing participants' on a specific event. The CIT is a user-friendly instrument that can foster reflection and promote personal expression. The development of the CIT to generate indicators of specific happenings relative to research questions demonstrates the technique's suppleness and emphasises the capability of this methodology in nursing research. As nurses learn more about this methodology and its application to the study of nurses and nursing care, they will begin to comprehend how simple and effortless this technique is to use. The CIT can be developed to conform to any area of nursing and provide a more comprehensive awareness of what nurses do and the needs of our clients.
The focus of this paper is the importance student teachers attribute to the practical experience of their teacher education program, the practicum. Four hundred and eighty student teachers from the largest teacher education institution in Israel responded to a questionnaire with 68 closed items asking for their evaluation of various components of the teacher education program in relation to preparing them for teaching, and about sources for support during the practicum. The main findings show that the practicum is evaluated highly by a large majority of students; however, students find importance in the more theoretical aspects of their education as well. Institutional‐based supervisors of the practicum were perceived by student teachers to provide the strongest support, alongside peers and school‐based mentors. School principals were perceived not to be supportive of student teachers during the practicum. The findings align with previous research in terms of importance of the practical aspects in preparation for teaching, however not as a replacement for theoretical courses. Moreover, findings suggest that school principals do not include school‐based teacher education as part of their professional responsibility.
Teacher educators have suggested that mentoring has the potential to help novices learn to teach in reform-minded ways. This suggestion implies a change in the nature of mentor–novice relationships as conceptualized in the existing literature and an understanding of the complexities of mentoring relationships. Based on critical constructivist and social cultural perspectives of learning as well as research on learning to teach, we conceptualize 16 types of mentor–novice relationships and identify challenges and complexities associated with moving novices toward reform-minded teaching. Drawing on exemplary mentoring cases, we illustrate some of our conceptualized mentor–novice relationships and their consequences on learning to teach in reform-minded ways. Finally, we suggest that helping mentors and novices develop a shared vision for teaching and relevant beliefs about learning to teach is a central challenge for using mentoring to support reform-minded teaching.
This paper presents a general statistical methodology for the analysis of multivariate categorical data arising from observer reliability studies. The procedure essentially involves the construction of functions of the observed proportions which are directed at the extent to which the observers agree among themselves and the construction of test statistics for hypotheses involving these functions. Tests for interobserver bias are presented in terms of first-order marginal homogeneity and measures of interobserver agreement are developed as generalized kappa-type statistics. These procedures are illustrated with a clinical diagnosis example from the epidemiological literature.