Do Experiences With Their Own Teachers Predict How Preservice Teachers Understand Teaching?

• In Event: Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Teacher Knowledge and Beliefs in the Context of Schooling

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that former teachers provide models for how pre-service teachers conceive teaching. Though there is preliminary evidence for this hypothesis, more systematic research is missing. In a survey of N = 496 pre-service teachers, first, we identified three types of belief systems about teaching: (a) teaching as knowledge transmission (27%), (b) teaching as constructive support for learning (40%), (c) and teaching as a broad array of teaching activities involving both scaffolding and knowledge transmission (33%). Second, as expected, we found that pre-service teachers who estimated their former teachers as highly competent are less likely to fall in category (a), that is, to associate teaching solely with knowledge transmission.

Authors

• Johannes Bauer, Technische Universität München

• Barbara Drechsel, University of Bamberg