Interventions of mentor teachers during student teacher’s lessons: Relation to their need for cognitive closure
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Part of student teachers’ (ST) professional development is based on mentor teachers’ (MT) feed-back and support during STs’ practice. One of studied areas are MTs’ interventions during STs’ lessons. Recent studies (Prins, Jaspers, Meijer, & Wubbles, 2017) showed that MTs intervene quite frequently, mainly guiding pupils, being less aware of their role as MT for STs. Situational premises (e.g. ST’s year of study), values and empirical premises impacted MTs intensity to intervene. Our study focuses on one of the personal characteristics that might influence MTs’ interventions and STs’ responses to them – need for cognitive closure (NfC) as individual’s motivation in information processing and judgement; a desire for an answer in order to end further information processing and judgment, even if that answer is not the correct or best answer (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). NfC represents a relatively stable dispositional characteristic but it can be temporarily increased or decreased by situational determinants. Our questions: When and how do MTs intervene during STs’ lessons? How do STs and their pupils respond to MTs’ interventions? How are interventions of MTs and responses of STs related to their NfC? The research is based on an integrated mixed methods design. The main, qualitative part is designed as ethnographic field research and includes analysis of video-recordings of lessons (regarding MTs’ interventions during STs’ lessons; STs’ and pupils’ responses to them), interviews with MTs/STs and reflective diaries of STs via thematic and open coding. The quantitative part is based on statistical analyses of adapted Need for (Cognitive) Closure Scale – NfCS (Roets & Van Hiel, 2011; Czech version Širůček, 2014) consisting of 15 items with 6-point Likert scale measuring 5 sub-scales: desire for predictability, preference of order and structure, discomfort with ambiguity, decisiveness, and close-mindedness. The sample consists of 6 MTs and 6 STs in 6 lower secondary comprehensive classes in 6 schools (ISCED 2A) in the Czech Republic. From each MT/ST we videotaped (teacher and student camera) 6 lessons taught in Civics, Czech or History; conducted an interview, and administered NfCS. STs wrote electronic reflective diaries about their teaching practice. Findings: NfC is related with MTs perception of critical situations in STs’ lessons and with when and how MTs intervene. We describe three types of MTs/STs: with low, middle, high NFC and show MTs interventions during STs’ lessons and STs’/pupils’ responses to them. The findings can be beneficial in MT/ST education in European countries as MTs/STs are exposed to similar conditions. The findings emphasise the role of MT and ST co-operation in ST/MT professional development. |
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