Section archive - Preservice Teachers

This study aims to investigate the relationship between beliefs about learning and teaching and participation in learning activities among student teachers. The authors found that student teachers student teachers appear to hold equally strong subject matter-oriented and pupil-oriented beliefs, but they also appear to vary in their beliefs. The findings reveal that pupil-oriented beliefs are positively related to participate in learning activities. No significant relationship exists between subject matter orientation and learning.

This article reports on the knowledge for teaching mathematics of 294 pre-service primary teachers from seven Australian universities participating in a project aimed at establishing a culture of evidence-based improvement of teacher education. The authors discuss the relative difficulties of items on each of the three subscales. Furthermore, the authors examine the differences between the participants’ performances on each subscale and the overall scale according to level of education, previous mathematics study, course type, mode of study, and confidence to teach mathematics at the grade levels for which they were being prepared.

The purpose of this study was to examine the motives for Swedish student teachers to study to become teachers and to explore the relationship between teachers’ motives and their academic engagement and dropout rates at the end of their studies. The findings reveal that the students enrolled in teacher education due to mainly altruistic motives, such as a desire to help and support students and contribute to society, and intrinsic motives, such as perceiving teaching to be stimulating and being interested in the particular school subjects. Extrinsic motives such as reliable income and secure job conditions were not as important to them. In addition, the findings showed a negative significant relationship between the altruistic motive and dropout, mediated by academic engagement, whereas the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motives and academic engagement were not significant.

This study investigates how master’s students who are also longtime teachers contend with the requirements of academic writing. The purpose of the study is to identify points of difficulty in order to find appropriate methods of support. To this end, the authors interviewed teachers pursuing a master’s degree at a college of education in Israel. During the interviews, the authors identified a number of patterns, including students who were used to different ways of expressing themselves and found it difficult to comply with the principles of academic writing.