Online Practicum Effectiveness: Investigation on Tutors’ and Student-Teachers’ Perceptions Pre/Post-Pandemic

Abstract

The practicum is an essential activity for initial teacher training courses as it ensures the immersion in real contexts and sharing practice with experts. The early experiments on online practicums occurred thanks to the development of technologies and in view of overcoming unbridgeable distances. In the COVID-19 pandemic phase, online practicum experiences are carried out and studies have investigated their effects in general and on the student-teachers involved. This work presents the first results of an investigation on the perceptions of effectiveness of 578 student-teachers and 33 tutors regarding the online practicum carried out at the ‘Primary Education Sciences’ bachelor’s degree at the University of Bari and Bergamo. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a mixed questionnaire and analyzed statistically and through the QDA procedure. The study offers elements to understand the effectiveness of the online practicum from the perspective of student-teachers and tutors, i.e., overcoming spatial distance and greater sharing of experiences and materials. It paints online practicum as a positive post-pandemic reality and offers some useful insights for teacher training course leaders and teacher education scholars.

What Is Known about Assistive Technologies in Distance and Digital Education for Learners with Disabilities?

“…Interaction platforms were massified, teacher capacities were improved, access from different realities to common virtual spaces that became virtual learning communities was possible, and at the same time, multiple difficulties emerged, such as an increase in pre-existing social gaps, overexposure to devices, differences in the pedagogical capacities of teachers, exclusion of communities without access to devices or the internet, and so on [12]. Distance education became the only means of teaching and learning during confinement, and later, with the experience accumulated around distance education modalities, it became an option for access to learning even in challenging times of post-pandemic normality [13][14][15][16][17][18][19].…”