Reflection on the quality of teacher education professional thinking as reflected by pre-service teachers

Abstract

Reflection is a mysterious concept to many of the students who enter the pre-service teacher educator programme. The study of exploring the quality of pre-service teacher education programme of a newly qualified educators have not been undertaken in our context, many have not written or even thought reflectively during early years of their career. This paper reports on the findings of a research conducted on the quality of teacher education programme for pre-service students who enrolled for the teacher programme. The key issue examined in the paper was to establish the quality of pre-service teacher programme and whether these programme has indeed produced students that have a significant contribution to the world of work. The assumption made is that pre-service teacher who have performed better in high school are likely to complete their qualification in the designated time at the university and perform better in the workplace. In an effort to widen understanding regarding the factors that predict the performance of a pre-service teacher at work, prior academic achievement results in the form of university results were examined. 228 student admitted in the pre-service qualification programme at the beginning of 2004 academic year were sampled for the study. Data concerning completion rate, satisfaction with the experiental learning, self inquiry, professional inquiry, professional training and mentoring progress were assessed. The survey were designed to study reflections of respondents related to the quality of their education courses and understanding of different educational phenomena with a purpose of studying changes in their pedagogical thinking. Data about career development were obtained from interviews with graduates, School Management Teams and learning facilitators. An analysis of the results revealed significant differences in the professional thinking of the educator readiness of co-operation with colleagues, in the perception of learners' characteristics and problems of teaching, and in the attitudes towards learners. The results reveal that pre-service teacher perfomance at university had a significant effect on world of work. High perfomance is associated with significantly less time before graduation, better career progression and better productivity in the teaching subjects. Gender differences were found in the study duration and career progress. Female students graduate earlier and have a better chance of climbing the ladder in terms of career progress.