Exploring the use of narratives to understand pre-service teachers' practicum experiences from a sociocultural perspective

Abstract

This paper reports on an exploratory study designed to investigate what aspects of practicum pre-service teachers narrate as meaningful experiences and how these narratives help them promote teacher awareness and professional development. The study is conducted with 21 fourth-year pre-service teachers attending the practicum at the time of the study. The data consist of 84 narratives written in 2015-16 academic year and oral interviews with pre-service teachers conducted in seminar courses. A two-person review panel analysed the data through inductive data analysis from a sociocultural perspective. The analysis points to the nature of narratives, the practicum school context these narratives emerge, and the link between narratives and their contributions to pre-service teachers' awareness and professional learning. The article concludes by considering implications for developing the content of practicum and pre-service teachers' reflective practices.