Teachers are main factors determining the efficiency of the education system, quality of teaching influence student achievement the most. (OECD, 2005; Mourshed and Barber, 2007; Mourshed, Chijoke and Barber, 2010). Therefore it is important to deal with teacher education, within that the most important element, the practicum, which is a workplace learning activity under the guidance of a cooperating teacher. The cooperating teachers are in the focus of our research, because they play a very important role in student teachers preperation (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014). Clarifying the role of the cooperating teacher is essential to the success of the practicum, without it they cannot fully support the student teachers (Knowles and Cole, 1996) and on the other hand student teachers cannot cope with the classroom situation without a cooperating teacher (Hodges, 1982).

In the English literature we can find the cooperative teacher name which is a historical name, although they were attempts to change it but without changeing the accompanied roles and responsibilites, the name cooperating teacher remained (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014). In the Hungarian teacher education during the individual school practice the mentor teacher (leader of practicum) is defined by the 8/2013. (I. 30.) EMMI regulation on the common requirements of teacher preperation and the learning outcomes of certain teacher education programmes. It poses the tasks to know the school and the teacher complex educational tasks, the social and legal environment of the school within the following context: tasks related to teaching of disciplinary subjects, teaching tasks not related to the disciplinary subjects and the school as an organization and its support system. Interpreting teacher education as a continious professional development the cooperating teacher has a professional socialization role as well (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014). The question arise wether or not the current term mentor in the Hungarian context actually covers the roles and responsibilites which it implies (and what is needed).

The are many studies on the cooperating teachers role, competencies, tasks, responsibilites, believes and functions but in the Hungarian context there are few empirical research. According to the literature review there are many responsibilites a cooperating teacher can (and must) assume differentiating according to the level of participation from the absentee landlord to the coach. These categories can be interpreted alongside different roles (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014):

• Providers of Feedback (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014)
• Gatekeepers of the Profession (Nolan és Hoover, 2008)
• Modelers of Practice (Calderhead és Robson, 1991)
• Supporters of Reflection (Schön, 1987)
• Purveyors of Context (White, Deegan és Allexsaht-Snider, 1997)
• Conveners of Relation (Clarke, Triggs és Nielsen, 2014)
• Agents of Socialization (Anderson, 2007)
• Advocates of the Practical (Wang és Odell, 2002)
• Gleaners of Knowledge (Clarke, 2006)
• Abiders of Change (Caruso, 1998)
• Teachers of Children (Feiman-Nemser, 2001)

The above mentioned roles are reflecting well to Hudson’s model (2004) where the personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling and feedback are mentioned as the main tasks and competencies of a cooperating teacher. Based on this model Koc (2011) developed the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory which proved to be a valid and reliable tool to assess the roles and responsibilites of cooperating teachers in a Turkish sample. 

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