Search results for: Longitudinal studies

In a mixed-methods longitudinal study, the authors monitored the development of interaction skills among a group of Dutch pre-service teachers with repeated measures for 3 years and structured interviews. The results of a linear mixed-effects model revealed an impressive growth of interaction skills during the pre-service training. The qualitative interview data revealed progress of pre-service teachers’ professional reflection on their interaction with young children. These outcomes show the effectiveness of pre-service training for the development of interaction skills and professional reflection in early childhood education and care. However, progress is relatively modest for instructional skills and this domain needs further investment in pre-service training.

This longitudinal study investigated four secondary social studies teachers, who identified as being constructivist teachers, during their student teaching practicum through their first year of teaching in the classroom. Specifically, this study focused on the relationship between the teachers’ constructivist-oriented beliefs and their use of related practices in their history classrooms. The findings showed that issues of classroom control were major barriers for the implementation of constructivist-oriented practices. Furthermore, the analysis showed that the participants had a limited development of practical tools. The author argues that although their teacher preparation program exposed them to many different types of instructional techniques and their methods course included the teaching of a model lesson to the class, the participants desired more practical tools as they entered their first year.

In this study, the authors examined whether preservice teachers’ experiences with video analyses during teacher preparation had long-lasting effects on their reflective practices once they entered the profession. Specifically, they examined whether teachers who had opportunities to analyze student thinking and learning during teacher preparation, continued to do so when they reflected on their teaching effectiveness as full-time teachers. The authors found that teachers who attended the video-enhanced course during teacher preparation outperformed their counterparts in both the quality of evidence they drew upon and their attention to individual or subgroups of learners. The results highlight that different teachers thought differently about their lessons when asked whether they were effective.

This study utilises three dimensions of identity construction (multiplicity vs. unity; social vs. individual; discontinuity vs. continuity) to examine how teachers describe their different roles, how they develop dialogical relations among multiplicity. The findings showed that all participants’ initial identity positions, except one female, have changed, either slightly or radically, during the course of this study. They experienced disequilibrium among different identity positions during the change, which confirms existing research that disequilibrium is considered essential for changes to occur. This study also showed that these teachers’ multiple Identity positions and the conflicts among them are not bounded within the classroom teaching domain or instructional and pedagogical issues.