For prospective teachers, the school-based learning component of their teacher education programme is a crucial, and often demanding, part of becoming a teacher. During this time, mentor-teachers ...work in close collaboration with student teachers, who are often teaching in an actual school setting for the first time. As the relationship between mentor-teacher and student teacher is pivotal to the quality of work-based learning and to supporting the professional development of prospective teachers, more needs to be understood about this complex dynamic.
Our study aimed to contribute to this area by investigating, from the viewpoint of mentor-teachers, how student teachers respond to the demands of work-based learning. It had a particular focus on mentor-teachers' perceptions of student teachers' emotional challenges associated with teaching and engagement.
Data consisted of interviews with 22 experienced mentor -teachers from five different municipalities. Data were analysed qualitatively, using tools aligned with a constructivist grounded theory approach.
Describing teaching as a complex practice, the mentor-teachers regarded proactive engagement in developing professionalism, and ability to make appropriately differentiated adjustments to their teaching as important criteria in their evaluation of student teacher progression. The mentor-teachers described student teachers' emotional challenges in relation to these and discussed support strategies.
The findings of the study highlight the complex dynamic of work-based learning and the key role that mentor-teachers can play in supporting the development of prospective teachers entering the profession, including the navigation of emotionally challenging situations.
Beginning to teach after teacher education is commonly depicted as an emotionally challenging period. Beginning teachers deploy strategies to cope with the emotionally challenging transition from ...teacher education and starting a position as a teacher. One way of coping is trying change the origin of the challenges. The aim of the study was to investigate how teachers in their last year as student teachers and their first year as teachers make meaning of a change advocacy strategy to cope with challenging situations as teachers. A qualitative interview study was performed. Twenty-five participants were interviewed while studying in their last year of teacher education, and 20 were interviewed again after having worked as a teacher for a year. In between, 68 self-reports were collected. The material was analysed using constructivist grounded theory tools. The findings show that as student teachers the participants identified two prerequisites to be able to use the change advocacy strategy as beginning teachers: (1) establishing teacher ambiguity and (2) challenging the perceived negative mindset. When utilising a change advocacy strategy as beginning teachers, the participants tried to reform teaching practices and attain a position of competence.
Student teachers have to cope with distressing emotions during teacher education. Coping is important in relation to both attrition and bridging the gap between being a student teacher and starting ...work. The data consist of semi-structured interviews with 25 student teachers, which were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory framework. The aim of the current study was to examine student teachers' perspectives on distressing situations during teacher education, as well as how boundaries were established as a way of coping with emotions related to these situations. The findings show that the student teachers' main concern was to make sense of the imbalance between resources and the demands placed by distressing situations. As a coping strategy, student teachers established professional boundaries linked to emotional labour and relationship maintenance.
Talk of Teacher Burnout among Student Teachers Lindqvist, Henrik; Weurlander, Maria; Wernerson, Annika ...
Scandinavian journal of educational research,
2021, Letnik:
65, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Student teachers recurrently and spontaneously talk about burnout when considering challenges of teaching. The following paper aims to address burnout from the perspectives of student teachers, as ...well as how they prepare to deal with the threat of burnout. There is a lack of research from a student teacher's perspective concerning burnout. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were analysed using constructivist grounded theory. The findings reveal that student teachers engaged in a learning process related to (a) making sense of the perceived causes of burnout, and (b) constructing proactive strategies. The perceived causes of burnout were understood as individual work ethics, systemic reasons, collegial negativity and personal deficits. These perceived causes were related to strategies to protect against burnout.
The current study examined whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher ...efficacy among student teachers. A sample of 517 Swedish student teachers completed a questionnaire. According to the findings from multivariate regression analysis, student teachers who scored higher in intrinsic and altruistic motives and cognitive restructuring, and lower in self-criticism, tended to show greater teacher efficacy.
This study aims to provide a greater insight into how formative assessments are experienced and understood by students. Two different formative assessment methods, an individual, written assessment ...and an oral group assessment, were components of a pathology course within a medical curriculum. In a cohort of 70 students, written accounts were collected from 17 students and group interviews were carried out to explore the students' experiences of these two forms of assessment. All students were engaged in both assessment methods, which were conducted a few weeks apart, and data were collected soon after each assessment. Our findings suggest that formative assessments motivate students to study, make them aware of what they have learned and where they need to study more. Thus, formative assessment can act as a tool for learning, contributing to the process and outcomes of learning. A closer look at students' experiences of each form of assessment reveals interesting differences.
To investigate which kinds of situations medical and nursing students found emotionally challenging during their undergraduate education, and how they managed their experiences.
This study used an ...exploratory research design. We gathered qualitative data using an open-ended questionnaire distributed to students in the middle and at the end of their education. In total, 49 nursing and 65 medical students participated. Also, five students were interviewed individually to acquire richer data. Data were analysed using narrative thematic analysis.
Medical and nursing students experienced a range of situations during their undergraduate education that they found emotionally challenging, mainly during clinical placements. The students' narratives concerned confronting patients' illness and death, unprofessional behaviour among healthcare professionals, dilemmas regarding patient treatment, students relating to patients as individuals and not diagnoses, and using patients for their own learning. The narratives concerned both the formal and the hidden curriculum, i.e., what is included in the profession (confronting illness and death), and what is not (unprofessional behaviour among healthcare professionals). Students managed their experiences by talking to trusted peers or supervisors, and by getting used to these situations.
Despite the different knowledge, experiences, and conditions for medical and nursing students, our findings suggest that their experiences of emotional challenges are similar. Support and opportunities to talk about these experiences are important. Teachers, supervisors, and students need to be aware that students might experience emotionally difficult situations, and that the students need time for reflection and support.
Student teachers face various difficult situations during their teacher education. The aim of this studywas to examine how student teachers perceive coping with distressful situations during their ...teachertraining. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted. The results show that student teachersfeel professionally inadequate, characterized by powerlessness, limited means of action and uncertainty.In resolving professional inadequacy, they use concepts connected to the social process of becomingteachers: modifying professional ideals, dependence on future colleagues and continuing to buildexperience. These concepts lead to acceptance and postponing strategies for learning from distressfulsituations.
The aim of this study was to investigate changes in empathy during medical education, as well as to identify promoters and inhibitors of empathy and analyse their roles.
We used qualitative content ...analysis to examine 69 critically reflective essays written by medical students as a part of their final examination at the end of the medical program. The essays were based on previous self-evaluations performed each term and represented retrospective reflections on their professional development.
A majority of the students felt that their empathy did not decrease during medical education. On the contrary, many felt that their empathy had increased, especially the cognitive part of empathy, without loss of affective empathy. Many of them described a professionalisation process resulting in an ability to meet patients with preserved empathy but without being overwhelmed by emotions. They identified several factors that promoted the development of empathy: a multiplicity of patients, positive role models, and educational activities focusing on reflection and self-awareness. They also identified inhibitors of empathy: lack of professional competence and a stressful and empathy-hostile medical culture.
Our analysis of these retrospective reflections by students suggests that empathy can be preserved during medical education, despite the presence of important inhibitors of empathy. This finding might be due to the presence of more potent promoters and/or to the fact that educational activities might result in a decreased susceptibility to empathy-decreasing circumstances.
This paper addresses how emotionally challenging experiences during work-based education may influence the professional becoming of student teachers and medical students. We conducted a qualitative ...analysis of eight focus group interviews with undergraduates from two universities in Sweden who studied to become either physicians or teachers, and interpreted their experiences through Wenger’s theory of communities of practice. The findings show that students’ ideal view of how to be caring in their aspiring professional role as physician or teacher collided with existing practices, which affected them emotionally. In particular, the students found it challenging when norms and practices differed from their values of professionalism and when the professional culture within practices reflected hardness (physicians) or resignation (teachers). Both medical students and student teachers experienced that professional decision making and legitimacy challenged them emotionally, however in different ways and for different reasons. This study makes visible both general and specific aspects of how students view their future role in the welfare sector and challenging dimensions of professional practice. The findings bring into focus the question of how professional education can support students’ professional becoming in relation to their emotional challenges.