The aim of this study is to get a deeper understanding of how Norwegian school-based mentors experience collaboration in field practice. Teacher education takes place at two learning arenas: campus and practice schools (Dahl et al., 2016). A close collaboration between these arenas is crucial for pre-service teachers´ professional development (Lillejord & Børte, 2014; Munthe et al., 2020; Zeichner, 2010). “Third space” is used when the activity with the involved parts is described (Zeichner, 2010). A successful third space involves actors with different competencies that are willing to merge their cultures (Zeichner, 2010). Despite good intentions, both national and international studies shows that pre-service teachers struggle to find coherence between the arenas (Canrinus et al., 2017; Smith, 2016; Ulvik et al., 2021).

Also, in Norway the weak coherence has been offered attention, and several changes have been done to improve Norwegian teacher education (Klemp & Nilssen, 2017). One example is when the Norwegian government in 2010 decided that school-based mentors should have at least 15 European Credit Transfer Credits [ETC] in mentoring to be qualified as teacher educators in schools (Ministry of Education and Research, 2016). Another example is that the school-based mentor, campus-based mentor, and principals together are responsible for assessing the pre-service teachers (Ministry of Education and Research, 2010). In addition, national guidelines for partnerships for stable and mutually developing collaborations between school and university are developed (Ministry of Education and Research, 2017).

Guided by the research question How does school-based mentors experience collaboration in field practice? this case study is a contribution to get insight of the situation of school-based mentors at two study programs at one university in Norway. A mixed method approach gave insight in how the participants experienced the collaboration in field practice. The factor analysis revealed four factors of importance: general attitudes towards the schoolyear, being part of a field-based practice school, the assessment, and the collaboration with the university. These factors give directions for the discussion, where the qualitative results contribute with in-depth information of what the school-based mentors think will help reducing the gap. First: the school-based mentors were experienced, both as teachers and school-based mentors. Most of them worked at schools with two or more school-based mentors. They were overall satisfied with their own effort, and they highly valued their own mentoring competence. Nevertheless, less than half of them had the required ECTs in mentoring. Second: The results revealed a broad variation on how the school-based mentors experienced collaboration about field practice at their schools. While some described tight collaboration with their colleagues preparing for field practice, others longed for school-leaders that could prioritize being leader of a practice school.

Third: Even if they were standing alone with the assessment, they did not critically evaluate the situation. The participants found this part of the job easy. Fourth: the collaboration with the university. This category consists of two parts: collaboration with administrative tasks and the campus-based mentor. Even if a major part of the participants were satisfied with the information they received, the results were clear that there is no collaboration between campus and the school-based mentors. Campus controls which and when information is delivered, and the school-based mentors become passive recipients. In addition, the school-based mentors also put attention on technological programs that are used in field practice, highlighting the importance of programs that should be easily accessible. The results showed a variation of how the school-based mentors collaborated with campus-based mentors. If the collaboration with campus-based mentor should work out, this person must be interested in field practice and have a relationship with the pre-service teachers.

This study uses a case study design (Yin, 2009) with a mixed-method approach (Tashakkori & Creswell, 2007). Data were collected from school-based mentors representing two programs at one Norwegian university. The survey was conducted digitally in spring 2020, where all school-based mentors (N= 372) in two programs received an email with invitation to conduct a survey evaluating field-based practice the schoolyear 2019/2020. In total, 242 (n=242, 65%) answered the questionnaire. The items in the survey covered several areas related to evaluating field-based practice during the schoolyear 2019/20. The questionnaire consisted of closed questions and open responses. Most of the items was using a five-point Likert scale (1 strongly disagree – 5 strongly agree) was used in addition to “I have not reflected about this”. Based on research questions and previous research, items describing four arenas was chosen for further analysis. Data were also collected through reflection logs with 21 new school-based mentors who participated in an online teacher professional development (OTPD) program in mentoring (Dille, under review). During the schoolyear 2019/2020 they wrote 6 reflection logs about different aspects of becoming teacher educators. The new school-based mentors were also asked to answer the survey. The study has been approved by NSD (The Norwegian Center for Research Data). The quantitative data direct the analysis of qualitative data within the framework of the research question. The quantitative data were analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics, and through factor analysis using SPSS (Clark & Creswell, 2014; IBM, n.d.). Descriptive statistics were used to provide contextual information on participants and general response trends. The qualitative analyses of the open responses and the reflection logs were analysed separately, but followed the same procedures inspired by the constant comparative method of analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In the first phase preliminary codes were developed through line-by-line coding uniting simple sentences and longer phrases concerning the same topic. Through axial coding and by scrutinizing characteristics and dimensions, the categories became clearer (Charmaz, 2014). As the next step, the categories were compared with the quantitative results. The qualitative data gave opportunities to elaborate and go further in-depth to attain a better understanding of the results from derived from the quantitative analysis.

In this study, we have provided the perspectives from school-based mentors and how they experience collaboration about field practice. Even if some of the participants describe a positive development, the results revealed the two learning arenas are not working as intended in a shared third space. The low attention of assessing in a community and collaboration, both inside own school and together with the campus-based mentors, indicates that as much as half of the school-based mentors stands alone with the responsibility. The broad variation within the responses indicates that the quality of field practice is not equal. A stronger collaboration between the two learning arenas must be prioritized, and in these processes’ teacher education is main responsible (Dille, under review; Raaen, 2017). Despite these results, the school-based mentors are satisfied with their own effort and think they have the skills needed. Interestingly, only half of the participants have the required ECTs in mentoring. Even if this study joins the ranks of other studies presenting a gap between the two learning arenas, it adds valuable insight in what school-based mentors find important in their job as teacher educators. This study represents two Norwegian teacher education programs, at the same time the results should be interesting for all program that include practical components, both national and international. There are limitations to this study. Even if more than half of field practice were fulfilled before COVID-19 resulted in lockdown, the answers are probably affected of the situation. Another limitation is that the participants are connected to one university. Nevertheless, the results are in line with previous research conducted at other teacher educations, both national and internationally. It would be of interest for further research to replicate this study in other contexts, both in other countries and in other Norwegian cohorts.

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