Recent curricular change in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2008) has been accompanied by a critical review of teacher education (see Donaldson, 2011). Many changes to the way we prepare teachers are proposed in that report, but notable by its absence is any reference to a developmental perspective on how students grow in pedagogical terms. At the University of Dundee, a series of projects is looking at the student experience of undergraduate teacher education. Data have already been collected in relation to students’ engagement with learning processes on campus (Knight & Shimi, in preparation). The work reported here looks at issues related to professional learning on placement and how this impacts upon students’ self-perceptions at different stages of their development. Although situated in the Scottish context, the issues of professional learning on school placements will be of interest to teacher educators in other European systems also.

The research literature on how student teachers develop during the course of their training is not extensive. It has often focused on the role of the placement teachers or mentors in the development of professional competence (see, for example, Edwards & Protheroe, 2003; Zeichner, 2002) or the nature of knowledge for teaching (e.g. Colucci-Gray & Fraser, 2008).  In the literature which looks more closely at the perceptions of student teachers themselves, studies have highlighted the extra pressures that students feel when out on placement (Macintyre & Tuson,1995; Miller & Fraser, 1998, 2000). However, with few exceptions  (e.g. Calderhead, 1991; Maynard & Furlong, 1993) there seems little on how students’ beliefs are actually influenced from a developmental perspective.

Some insights can be gained from writing which looks at the nature of professional knowledge more widely and such work has alerted us to qualitative differences in the ways that novices at different stages of professional development interpret experiences (Dreyfus, 2001; Berliner, 1988). These different perceptions also include the extent to which individuals focus on themselves and/or on the nature of the task facing them (Fuller & Bown, 1975) A further perspective on differences in student thinking and reflection can be conceptualised in terms of McIntyre’s levels of reflection in teacher education (see McIntyre 1993).

Our work in this area is an attempt to bring together several of these perspectives to better understand the process of student teacher development. The focus of this presentation will be data collected from undergraduate students which point to qualitative differences in how they interpret experiences in primary classrooms. Issues emerging include the nature of (mainly technical) reflection at different stages of the teacher education programme and the interpretive repertoires which appear to be in evidence. Quantitative data relating to perceptions of self-competence and self-worth are correlated with data from a content analysis of student narratives to further investigate relationships. Taken together these analyses provide insights into the relationship between individual self-perceptions and development in students’ understanding of the complexities of classroom teaching. They provide useful information for teacher educators planning for student progression over the course of a four-year primary teaching degree.

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