Teaching practice and the personal and socio-professional development of prospective teachers

Abstract

This study investigates the interplay between individual and contextual variables during teaching practice and its impact on the personal and socio-professional development of prospective teachers. The purpose of the study was to survey how prospective teachers experienced the process of becoming aware of their emerging identities as teachers, and to demonstrate how the unique, individual student teachers’ teaching and socio-professional identities are cultivated in the learning-toteach process. A non-experimental survey research design involving quantitative data was used. A questionnaire, adapted from Caires and Almeida’s Inventory of
Experiences and Perceptions at Teaching Practice (IEPTP), was used to collect the data. The data were assessed through statistical analysis, using mean ranking scores. Higher levels of success were observed with regard to the professional and institutional socialisation, learning and professional development, and vocational sub-scales. Lower levels of success were found in the support and supervision and socio-emotional sub-scales. Ralph’s contextual supervision model and exploration of feelings and emotions are put forward as measures to scaffold, respectively, the supervision and socio-emotional dimensions of becoming a teacher.

Keywords: contextual supervision model; dimensions of becoming a  teacher; initial teacher education; learning to teach; personal and socio-professional development; student teachers; teaching practice