It is widely accepted that what teachers do is shaped by their own personal practical theories of teaching (Levin et al., 2013; Tiilikainen et al., 2019). A practical theory includes the teacher’s personal philosophy of education and conceptions of human beings, knowledge, and learning, and it guides a teacher’s everyday choices (Elbaz-Luwisch, 2005). In this process, values and beliefs play an important role in teachers’ work: they are behind the teacher’s choices and they influence teachers’ willingness to adopt educational innovations as well as their instructional practices. The more conscious the teachers are of those beliefs and values, the better they can understand the complexity of educational practice ((Levin & He, 2008; Levin et al., 2013). The practical theory of the teacher is formed during teacher education and teaching practice but also in other life situations. In the case of young teachers or student teachers, practical theory may be less developed, due to limited experience. However, we need more knowledge of how a teacher’s personal practical theory may be developed during teacher studies before they enter the workforce. Therefore, this study explores the development of teachers’ personal practical theories during the primary teacher education programme in Austria. Since there are few longitudinal studies of the development of teachers’ personal practical theories, the results may be insightful for an international audience. 

Background

Recently, the Austrian teacher education programme has been redesigned to meet new societal challenges, harmonise teacher education for different school levels, and comply with the Bologna Process. The four-year bachelor’s degree enables teaching in temporary employment only. For permanent employment, a further one-year master’s programme is required, within five years of completion of the bachelor’s degree. These curricula are competence-oriented, in accordance with the definition provided by Weinert (2000). The new teacher education is embedded in a professional biographically oriented overall concept. The aim is to guarantee a high-quality academic education with scientifically based education theory and practice (Teacher Education New, 2021). In Austrian primary teacher education, the first teaching practicum consists of spending one day a week in field schools during the first academic year, observing teaching. Later block practicums include teaching activities.

Our paper is based on the longitudinal study that has followed a pilot group of students throughout their entire teacher studies (2015–2019). The empirical data consists of qualitative narrative interviews with 14 Austrian primary school student teachers carried out five times during their bachelor studies. The students represent the diversity of primary school student teachers in Austria with regard to age, gender, national background and previous teaching experience. During the first interviews, the student teachers were asked to relate how they became interested in teaching and to describe their first introduction to teacher education. In every interview wave they were asked to describe their experiences of teacher studies (including practice) and to explain their views on (good) teaching and learning, as well as their expectations for their studies and future work as teachers. In the last wave of interviews, students were asked at the beginning of the interview to outline their learning path in teacher education on paper (A3) in 10–15 minutes. These paths were discussed during the interviews. Narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) and inductive qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz, 2018; Miles et al., 2020) supported by the software that supports qualitative and mixed-methods research have been used to investigate student teachers’ personal practical theories of teaching. The basic ethical principle of the study was to protect the participants’ anonymity.

The preliminary results show that students’ practical theories manifest particularly in their narratives on teacher and student relationships. These narratives deal with, among other things, the effort to take into account the individual needs of learners, the tension between friendship and authority, and the desire to be a teacher respected and liked by the pupils. The experiences in school practice are described as meaningful experiences that clarify or reinforce the personal philosophy of teaching. However, learning paths and the nature of professional development are personal and diversified, varying from struggling with negative emotions and experiences of one’s own former schoolteachers and teacher educators in training schools to creating a personal philosophy of teaching through critical reflection on experiences of practice. Based on the results, we will further discuss how teacher educators could help student teachers to better reflect upon and develop their personal practical theories of teaching.

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