Pre-service Teachers’ conceptions of their own learning: does context make a difference?

Abstract

We present an analysis of pre-service teachers' (PSTs) conceptions of their own learning, focusing on relationships between where PSTs learn and conceptions of their own learning. Our data come from in-depth interviews carried out over a six-month period with PSTs on different routes into teaching. We identify four components of learning to teach: beliefs about knowledge for teaching and the focus, timing and selfdetermination of reflection. We found weak relationships between PSTs' conceptions and their route into teaching (led by a school or university) and stronger relationships between conceptions of their own learning and their experience of mentoring in school. KeywordsRoutes into teaching; conceptions of teacher learning; mentoring; teacher reflection; phenomenography; variation theory. reviewers and participants in the biennial conference of the European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction, Tampere, 29 th August-2 nd September 2017, for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We are grateful to anonymous referees for their very helpful comments which have helped in the preparation of this paper.

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