Master's Degree in Teacher Training: How Do Master's Students Describe Their Quality Profile? – A Portuguese Exploratory Qualitative Study

Author(s):

Ana Baptista(presenting / submitting)Ana Cabral

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 12 A, Narratives and Quality Profiles in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B217 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Peter Gray

Contribution

The Bologna Process has motivated major changes in the Portuguese legal framework concerning the role of the Master's degree in the context of the Teacher Training courses (Portuguese Republic Law 43/2007). At present, according to the new ‘Legal Framework for Qualifications for Teaching’ (Portuguese Republic Law 1189/2010), the Master's degree has the core objective of conferring professional qualifications legally required to teach at all levels: from Pre-School to Secondary Education. This recent legal background has moved the emphasis from a purely research-focused Master's approach attended by previously legally awarded professionals (until the academic 2007/2008) to a professionally-focused approach to achieve the teaching qualification.

This new design of the Master's degree stresses that training at this postgraduate level aims to promote the construction of the teacher's professional identity, by including the development of research skills and an in-depth reflection on professional contexts combined with a critical understanding of different dimensions of the educational career. It promotes a strategic interaction between the teaching and research processes, with reference to the development of a set of knowledge about the action in pedagogical settings intertwined with references from the scope of the areas of educational sciences and teaching.

In practice, this means that, within the 2^nd cycle of Bologna (that corresponds to the Master's degree), students will have 3 semesters with the curricular units associated with Didactics (teacher and learning pedagogy in specific content areas: Portuguese language, Maths, Science/Geography/History and Arts/Design, ICT), curricular development and organisation or epistemology of education. In the second and third semesters, the students have a curricular unit that integrates and supervises a pre-service experience (teacher training internship) in a kindergarten (2^nd semester) and primary school education (3^rd semester). Simultaneously, Master's students have a specific curricular unit (seminar) where reflection on the professional contexts of the pre-service practice allow the development of a research project aiming to answer a research question chosen by the student. This research project, at the end, will have the form of a research report that integrates: (i) the answers to the chosen research questions, and (ii) an integrated in-depth reflection about the research impacts and outcomes to the daily life and practice of the future teacher. This approach allows the development of a clear interaction between theory/practice/action and a feedback from and to the professional setting – considered to be the major asset emerging from the new design of this degree.

Considering the new configuration of the Master's degree in Portugal, discussions must be stimulated in order to understand the consequences to the actors that are involved: Master's students, teachers of the taught courses, cooperative supervisor at the educational context – the school where students (teachers-to-be) do the teacher practice internship, as well as the research supervisor. In addition, other reflections must be stimulated to better comprehend the impact of those changes in terms of curriculum design; the choice of pedagogical approaches; the definition of the ‘frontiers’ regarding teaching vs learning vs research contexts. Furthermore, it leads us to question the learning paths ‘Bologna students’ experience in this postgraduate level of study. Following the latter idea, it drives us to question what the quality profiles of all those actors previously identified are.

Taking into account the previous background, with this presentation the authors aim to point out the perceptions/ opinions of the Master's students concerning their quality profile considering this ‘renewed’ Master's format, previously described. Therefore, the authors intend to answer to the next research question: what are Master's students’ perspectives on the competences that constitute their own quality profile?

Method

This study follows a qualitative approach based on the development of a focus group in order to explore in-depth conceptions of the participants, and simultaneously analyse the coherence and proximities of their opinions. It seeks to access the 'voices' of the students who attend Master's studies, aiming to discuss, reflect, share experiences, present and confront perspectives, sensitivities and perceptions. This strategy for data collection was chosen, because it stimulates interaction, discussion, and self and meta-reflection among participants. It encourages participants to engage in the “dynamic nature of the process”, be actively involved and “think conceptually” (Greenbaum, 2000, p.13). A very small group constituted with 4 students was run, since the authors wanted to provoke an intense and open discussion. Moreover, it was assured that a comfortable context for the participants to share their experiences, values and beliefs was established. It was followed a semi-structured focus group: at the same time there were certain thematic frontiers, there was also a space for diversity, and flexibility. The students have opened themselves to each other and to the discussion, sharing similar perspectives on several topics: course design and approach, its overall quality, the ideal quality profiles of Master's students and supervisors, the teaching, learning and processes, and skills’ development. This fact highlights that their experiences crossed and are tuned, reinforcing the conclusions we describe in the next section. Therefore, in this section, a descriptive perspective regarding the results is adopted. Although the focus group only involved 4 students, an individualistic approach to the data was emphasised in order to capture the actual grounded experience of the group as a whole as well as each individual contribution. The participants were 4 female students from the Master's in Pre-School and Primary Education, enrolled in a Higher Education institution in the northern part of the country. These students were born in the period between 1979 and 1989. Though data were collected in a specific HE institution, we envisage that the conclusions will have wider scope. It is expected this presentation may address other international/European contexts’ concerns, due to this issue’s supra-institutional and supra-national character.

Expected Outcomes

Firstly, a Master's student in a Teacher Training Course should be totally passionate for teaching and practice. Considering that the subject was chosen by them and emerged from their practice, they must always put great effort on all their tasks; must feel truly involved, available to learning and to be enriched along the way; and must be intrinsically motivated to become experts in that specific topic, by improving themselves as future teachers, and the context where they work. In fact, willingness to work, to be bold/audacious in the way they are involved in practice and the way they will work the topic that they choose to research, and curiosity are other competences that should always drive them – both as professionals/teachers-to-be and researchers. Naturally, the Master's students truly believe they must be autonomous and should know how to manage their time: they should construct their individual knowledge, by intersecting theory, practice and research. This means that they consider the Master's student must be more mature, must look to the theory and practice with critical eyes. This critical positioning is essential not only to collate and systematise perspectives from diverse sources, but also to be reflective to overcome difficulties, to search for ‘newness’ and suitable strategies to always enhance the practice and the overall educational context where they are integrated. Additionally, the authors intend to stimulate discussion around these results and also obtain feedback from other European participants on this topic. Particularly, we aim to promote a reflection on the following questions: - What are the links and/or frontiers regarding theory/practice/research? - What is or should be the importance (and place) of research at this postgraduate level?

References

Greenbaum, T.L. (2000). Moderating facus groups: a pratical guide for group facilitation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Portuguese Republic Law 1189/2010. (2010, 1st series, 17 November). Minister of Education, Science and Technology and Higher Education of the Portuguese Republic. Available at: http://legislacao.min-edu.pt/np4/np3content/?newsId=5294&fileName=portaria_1189_2010.pdf Portuguese Republic Law 43/2007. (2007, 1st series, 22nd February). Minister of Education of the Portuguese Republic. Available at: http://www.dges.mctes.pt/NR/rdonlyres/84F15CC8-5CE1-4D50-93CF-C56752370C8F/1139/DL432007.pdf

Author Information

Ana Baptista (presenting / submitting)

CIDInE Portugal, Portugal; CID - Research and Development Centre, Gaya Superior Polytechnic Institute, Gaia, Portugal; CIDTFF - Research Centre Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers, University of Aveiro, Portugal

Ana Cabral

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