In the twenty-first century, Australia gravitates towards Europe even though we are juxtapositioned, geographically.  Educational trends and reforms in teacher education in Australia are closely influenced by what happens for our European counterparts.  Our strong historical, familial, cultural, linguistic, economic and geo-political ties are renewed through membership of the British Commonwealth, O.E.C.D., N.A.T.O., the United Nations and the G20.  The main issue driving European and Australian reform agendas in teacher education, is the quality of, or perceived lack of it, in the professional work of teachers and pre-service teachers (Day, 2012; OECD, 1989; OECD, 2015; Ingvarson, 2015).  The quality of the professional work of pre-service teachers (PSTs) is on display in professional experience placements in all school sectors, as they work side-by-side with classroom supervising teachers (CSTs).  Observations and assessments of this work against reformed standards inform feedback exchanges (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) in which PSTs receive a professional opinion on their practice and capability in forming and sustaining a robust professional identity (Korthagen, 2004; Sutherland, Howard & Markauskaite, 2010).  Feedback is delivered with the obligation that it will be acted upon by PSTs as stakeholders feel an obligation to assist at every turn.  Identification as a professional is valued by all placement stakeholders (Schepens, Aelterman & Vlerick, 2009) not only as an indicator of the quality of professional practice and learning taking place for PSTs (Beijaard, Meijer & Verloop, 2004); but also for the connection it facilitates for relational growth in high-quality, high-stakes pedagogical and professional relationships (Alsup, 2006; Smyth, 2007); such as those experienced encased in supervision and mentoring partnerships.  The emphasis in teacher education preparation is on PSTs’ growth as reflective practitioners (Schön,1983).  What is overlooked in the literature is the subject of their reflection: their placement feedback and the professional and pedagogical practices they create from it for a sense of themselves as classroom ready teachers.  This is problematic  as there is little literature to guide PSTs’ professional learning from placement feedback and the continued professional learning of teachers who work with them in placement contexts. The following main research question led the phenomenological inquiry to fruition: "How does feedback on professional experience placement impact the contributions of pre-service teachers' professional identity? 

                The research inquiry had a two-fold intention.  First, it was to document the contribution of placement feedback for PSTs' professional identity growth from their voiced lived experiences (Larkin, Watts & Clifton, 2006; Sutherland, Howard & Markauskaite, 2010;van Manen, 1990).  Second, it was to understand what it is like for these pre-service teachers to live through this, from their life-world perspective (Dall' Alba & Sandberg, 2009).

The contribution of this inquiry is for teacher educators, pre-service teachers, teacher education providers, classroom supervising teachers, policy makers and other  stakeholders including researchers; to gain insights to meet the needs of pre-service teachers.  I chose a qualitative mixed methods approach, methodological eclecticism (Mutch, 2009) informed by a conceptual framework of a phenomenology of practice (van Manen, 2007, 2014) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to work with the research questions (micro) and pre-service teachers (PSTs).  Contributions of the data were made apparent by using a life-world approach (Sandberg & Dall’Alba, 2009) to understand how PSTs’ practices for identifications as teachers were constituted from placement feedback. The data reveals the manner (practices) in which PSTs brought to the fore, innovations and challenges with placement feedback through “entwinement” (Sandberg & Dall’Alba, 2009) with others and themselves.  It also shows that pre-service teachers prioritize the success of their practice as a teacher (professional identifications) as indicative of the quality of relationality (Edwards, 2010) and entwinement in pedagogical relationships from their life-world perspective.

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