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Motivations and profiles of cooperating teachers: Who volunteers and why?
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Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 263–279 www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Motivations and profiles of cooperating teachers: Who volunteers and why? Catherine Sinclaira,, Martin Dowsonb, Judith Thistleton-Martina a
School of Education and Early Childhood Studies, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, New South Wales, Australia b SELF Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Abstract University teacher education programs often struggle to attract cooperating teachers. Given this situation, it is obviously of interest to determine what factors may attract teachers to, or repel them from, the cooperating role. It is also of interest to determine, in general terms at least, what characteristics cooperating teachers share. This paper develops a profile of cooperating teachers who agreed to work with student teachers, and discusses factors that encourage or dissuade them from taking on their important role. Results suggest that teachers’ positive motivations to take practicum students revolve around a solid set of professional commitments to self, students, and the profession. However, the actual experience of working with student teachers can run counter to these positive motivations, and may dissuade teachers from continuing in their cooperating role. The findings have strong implications for developing a cohort of motivated, committed and capable school-based cooperating teachers to work with the future generation of teachers. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cooperating teachers; Professional experience; Motivation
0. Introduction University teacher education programs often struggle to attract cooperating teachers (Hong, 1999; Sinclair & Thistleton-Martin, 1999). Despite this situation, and also despite the widespread acknowledgement in the literature concerning the importance of cooperating teachers to student teachers’ professional development (for example, Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Ganser, 2002; Loughran & Northfield, 1996; Murray-Harvey, 2001; Shantz & Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 9772 6433; fax: +61 2 9772 6738. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Sinclair).
Brown, 1999; Weasmer & Woods, 2003), little is known about the kinds of teachers who offer to take student teachers, or about their motivations for doing so. Indeed, while the literature reports extensively on the roles cooperating teachers undertake (for example, Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Fairbanks, Freedman, & Kahn, 2000; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Gratch, 1998; Goodfellow & Sumsion, 2000; McNally, Cope, Inglis, & Stronach, 1997; Sanders, Dowson, & Sinclair, 2005; Stanulis & Russell, 2000; Weasmer & Woods, 2003), it is apparently almost devoid of research which reports on the personal and professional characteristics and motivations of teachers who are likely to volunteer to take students teachers. We were only able to identify two studies
0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.11.008
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(Clarke, 2001; and see also his citation of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Research about Teacher Education Project—Study Four RATE IV) that have published a profile of cooperating teachers. However, there has been no such published profile of cooperating teachers in the Australian context nor, in any context, of teachers’ motivations to offer to supervise student teachers. For this reason, the development of a profile of characteristics that defines teachers who take practicum students, and a catalogue of salient reasons why they take students, would obviously fill a gap in the literature as well as being very useful for university recruiters of cooperating teachers. 1. Starting points for determining motivations to supervise and mentor 1.1. Boosters Although the literature has not examined teachers’ motivations to take practicum students per se, there are a number of studies extant in the literature which relate to this topic. For example, in order to identify some potential positive motivations we used related, relevant work by the first author (Gaffey, 19941) and others (see below). Using the taxonomy developed by Martin (2002, 2003) in his work on student motivation, we entitled these positive motivations ‘boosters’. Gaffey (1994) in her mixed-method study comparing the effects of supervision training on the knowledge and practice of 71 cooperating teachers found that the most commonly reported factors facilitating their work as cooperating teachers was their own enthusiasm for the role, a block practicum structure where student teachers attend every day of the week rather than once a week, having only one student teacher on their classes at a time, sound guidelines from the university, the quality of the student teacher they received and prior supervision experience. In a related qualitative study into the roleperceptions and actual roles undertaken by 20 cooperating teachers, Beck and Kosnik (2000) found that cooperating teachers were highly satisfied with their role and so continued to volunteer to take student teachers. They also reported that cooperating teachers learned from their mentoring 1
Catherine Sinclair earlier published under the married name of Gaffey.
experience and from their student teacher, valued the personal relationship developed with the university, considered that their pupils learned more whilst the practicum was in progress and wished to provide an experience for student teachers unlike the negative ones they had experienced themselves. Like Battersby and Ramsay’s case study of the practicum at a New Zealand Teachers’ College (1988), Goodfellow and Sumsion’s (2000) focus group discussions with 129 early childhood cooperating teachers also found that cooperating teachers considered their primary role as helping student teachers to learn about the realities of teaching (see also, Taylor & Williams, 1989). Finally, Ganser’s (2002) survey of 94 cooperating teachers asking them to compare their roles as a cooperating teacher and a mentor found, like Gaffey (1994), that teachers did not undertake these roles because of extrinsic rewards such as payment. While the studies reviewed above do not set out to directly measure cooperating teachers’ motivations to take student teachers, they provided an insight into the roles undertaken by cooperating teachers that potentially might have influenced their decisions to become cooperating teachers. Following similar logic, other potential ‘boosters’ might also include professional development for the cooperating teacher in teaching and/or supervision (Koerner, 1992), the opportunity to share professional knowledge with student teachers (Goodfellow & Sumsion, 2000), and the opportunity to relate theory and practice (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Zanting, Verloop, & Vermut, 2001; Zeichner, 2002). 1.2. Guzzlers In a similar manner to the potential boosters, we developed a starting list of negative motivations that may dissuade cooperating teachers from taking student teachers. Following Martin’s (2002, 2003) taxonomy again we termed the negative motivations ‘guzzlers’. For example, Koerner’s case study of eight experienced elementary and preschool teachers found that cooperating teachers thought that supervising a student teacher added an additional responsibility to an already busy working day, and were disappointed by insufficient and conflicting guidelines from the university as to their role. Hong’s (1999) discussion of the difficulties experienced in China in attracting cooperating teachers suggested that cooperating teachers were unenthusiastic about or unwilling to supervising student teachers as they
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are more interested in their personal interests and in promotion. Cooperating teachers may also be reluctant to take student teachers due to a lack of confidence in their own ability as an appropriate role model or supervisor (Battersby & Ramsay, 1990; Ganser, 2002; Koerner, 1992; Yarrow, 1992), a lack of time for or commitment to undertaking the supervisory role (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999; Koerner, 1992), and poor views held of student teachers, such as that they were insufficiently prepared or committed (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994). From our (admittedly anecdotal) experiences over nearly 20 years as university-based supervisors of student teachers and coordinators of practicum programs we speculated that additional potential guzzlers may include factors relating to the nature of cooperating teachers themselves (such as the desire to have a respite from practicum supervision) or the positions they hold in their schools (such as being a beginning teacher or starting at a new school). Other somewhat pragmatic reasons might include not being invited by the school principal or university to take a student, considering that their present class was unsuitable for a student teacher, or not being in a mainstream class position (such as being a teacherlibrarian, or multi-class support teacher). 1.3. Enticers Finally, we sought to create a list of possible future positive motivations cooperating teachers may have to take student teachers. (The boosters and guzzlers focussed on present positive and negative motivations). Using our own label we termed these positive future motivations ‘enticers’. Again drawing upon the research concerning cooperating teachers’ roles in the practicum, and also considering the converse of the ‘guzzlers’, we speculated that the enticers might centre on factors relating to cooperating teachers and their schools, university-based teacher education programs and procedures, and the characteristics of student teachers themselves. ‘Enticers’ relating to cooperating teachers and their schools include increased extrinsic rewards, such as payment2 (Ganser, 2002; Hong, 1999); additional teaching experience or time at the present school (Gaffey, 1994); additional 2 The amount paid to cooperating teachers is determined by the teachers’ union through legislation and is not determined by the university.
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supervisor or mentor training (Gaffey, 1994); and improved school situations, such as more time to work with student teachers, release from other responsibilities, or additional school support (Gaffey, 1994). University provided ‘enticers’ would include improved university practicum administration and enhanced communication of university expectations of cooperating teachers and student teachers (Gaffey, 1994); additional contact with, or support from, university staff (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999); and particular models of practicum, for example, block or continuous experience, one student teacher per class or student pairs on classes (Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999). Finally, higher quality (i.e. more motivated and prepared) student teachers may also be an enticer (Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999). The ‘boosters’, ‘guzzlers’ and ‘enticers’ discussed above formed the basis of the content of the Profiles and Motivations for Practicum Survey (PMPS) described later. 2. Theoretical location Since the very early days of motivation research in psychology (e.g. Atkinson, 1957; McClelland, 1961; Tolman, 1932), and up until the present time (e.g. Dowson, 2005; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996; Martin, 2003), the distinction between factors which ‘drive’ (or ‘push’) behaviour and factors which ‘draw’ (or ‘pull’) behaviour has been made. Drive factors are typically conceptualised as relatively stable factors, internal to the person, which provide both the cognitive and affective stimulus for behaviour. Drive factors may include personal values, beliefs, goals or desires which are expressed in, and through, given behaviours. Draw factors are typically conceptualised as less stable factors, associated with particular tasks or situations. As such, draw factors are largely external to the person. Draw factors may include the social, financial, professional or other ‘rewards’ that a person perceives they will gain from participation in a given behaviour. Continued participation (or non-participation) in behaviours based on draw-type motivations may be more fragile than participation based on drive-type factors. This relative fragility is due to the fact that the perceived rewards, or the perceived value of the rewards (e.g. Eccles, 1983), gained from participation in a behaviour may change substantially over time. Thus, for example, financial rewards may be more or
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Time Frame Motivational Orientation
Present
Future
Approach
Boosters (Drive or draw) Enticers (Drive or draw)
Avoidance
Guzzlers (Drive or draw)
Fig. 1. Relationship of motivational constructs to the nomenclature used in the present study.
less available or salient at given times than at others, or social relationships—or their perceived importance—may similarly wax and wane. Conversely, drive-type motivations may remain more stable across time (e.g. a person’s fundamental values and beliefs are presumed to change relatively slowly if at all). So participation (or non-participation) in behaviours based on these drive-type motivations will be more stable across time as well. Drive and draw factors may work in both a positive and a negative direction. Thus, a person may be driven or drawn towards, or away from, particular behaviours. When a person is driven or drawn towards a particular behaviour they are said to display an ‘approach’ motivational orientation. When a person is driven or drawn away from a particular behaviour they are said to display an ‘avoidance’ motivational orientation (see Barker, Dowson, & McInerney, 2002). In the present case, as an example, teachers may be driven or drawn towards accepting a student for practicum, in which case they will display an ‘approach orientation’ towards accepting a student teacher. Alternatively, teachers may be driven or drawn away from accepting a student, in which case they will display and avoidance orientation towards accepting a student. In the present study we define ‘boosters’ as any factor (drive or draw) that leads to an approach orientation towards accepting a student for practicum. Similarly, we define ‘guzzlers’ as any drive or draw factor that leads to an avoidance orientation towards taking a practicum student. Finally, we define ‘enticers’ as those factors which will lead to an approach orientation to taking students in the future. The key distinctions and definitions in the discussion immediately above are represented in Fig. 1. 3. Research questions The lack of information in the literature concerning the characteristics of teachers who volunteer to supervise and/or mentor student teachers and their motivations for doing so suggests the need to
develop a profile of these teachers and a catalogue of factors encouraging or dissuading them from working with student teachers. The specific research questions we aimed to answer were, therefore: (1) What parameters define the profile of cooperating teachers willing to supervise/mentor student teachers? (2) What factors act to encourage and dissuade teachers from supervising/mentoring student teachers? (3) What factors may encourage teachers to take practicum students in the future? 4. Method 4.1. Participants Participants in the study were 322 primary (elementary) school teachers from 95 schools in the Sydney (Australia) metropolitan area. Of these participants: (a) 239 (approx. 74%) were females, (b) 293 (approx. 91%) were full-time teachers, (c) most (n ¼ 156, approx. 48%) came from schools with between 250 and 500 students, or (n ¼ 86, approx. 27%) from schools of more than 500 students, (d) most (n ¼ 127, approx. 39%) taught in Years 3–6, while a similar number (n ¼ 110, 34%) taught in Kindergarten to Year 2. The remaining respondents were employed in specialist or non-teaching (administrative) positions. (e) most (n ¼ 153, approx. 48%) had taught for more than 16 years, with a significant minority (n ¼ 80, 25%) having taught for between 6 and 10 years. (f) the largest group had supervised practicum student for between 6 and 10 years (89, 28% approx.), with the second largest group (69, 21% approx.) having supervised students for just 1 year (g) almost half (n ¼ 144, approx. 45%) said they had, or would, take a practicum student in the current year. 4.2. Measures The PMPS was designed to measure: (a) present positive motivators that encourage teachers to accept student teachers for practicum (‘boosters’),
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(b) present negative motivators that dissuade teachers from taking students for practicum (‘guzzlers’), and (c) factors which may entice reluctant teachers to take students for practicum in the future (‘enticers’).
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pants ranked in order of importance. Thus, the data in the study were rank-type (ordinal) data. 4.5. Administration
The PMPS also measured relevant personal characteristics of the participants i.e. their sex, years of teaching experience, qualifications, and previous supervisory experience; and the structural characterises of the participants i.e. the participants position in the school, whether they were full- or part-time, and what Year (Grade) they were teaching in the current school year. Finally, the PMPS measured the size of the school (in terms of student numbers) in which the teacher taught.
The PMP survey, and an accompanying letter outlining the purpose of the survey and assuring respondents of confidentiality and anonymity, was faxed to all 155 elementary schools in the southwestern region of Sydney to which the university placed student teachers. From 95 schools (61.3% response rate), 322 questionnaires were received. Most frequently, there was one questionnaire returned from each school (49 schools). The overall average number of teachers responding from each school was 3.4, and the maximum number responding in any one school was 17.
4.3. Item construction
4.6. Additional data supplied by the participants
The initial content of items in the PMPS was developed from two major sources. The first source was the literature on teachers’ roles in practicum (reviewed above). For example, the ‘booster’ item ‘enthusiasm and commitment to producing quality beginning teachers’ was extrapolated from studies indicating teachers’ satisfaction with their ‘development’ role during practicum (e.g. Beck & Kosnik, 2000). The second source was anecdotal comments and concerns gathered from cooperating teachers over nearly 20 years of practicum management by the authors. For example, the perceived ‘laziness’ of student teachers (a ‘guzzler’ item in the survey) is consistently mentioned by cooperating teachers in formal reviews of practicum programs and in comments to university staff working in the schools. The survey was not piloted before administration. However, the format and the content of the survey was analysed by experienced colleagues working in teacher education before it was sent to participants.
Not only did respondents answer the ranking questions in the PMPS, but many included additional information on the survey forms themselves. The researchers even received whole letters accompanying the surveys, and some participants reported utilising their entire weekly 2 h of release from class teaching to either write these letters or provide additional information on the PMPS forms. Apparently, the survey had opened a ‘Pandora’s box’ for teachers and principals just waiting to be asked for their views concerning practicum! The additional information provided by participants also suggests that the participants took the survey seriously. 4.7. Analyses Once the surveys were returned, the data were entered into SPSS-X for analysis. All analyses reported here were conducted within the SPSS statistics package.
4.4. Item format and response type In order to measure the boosters, guzzlers and enticers, the PMPS asked teachers to rank responses to three stem questions i.e. What were the main reasons that you agreed to take a student teacher? What were the main reasons that you did not take a student teacher? What would encourage you to take a student teacher? What followed these questions was a series of 13, 16 and 21 options, including an ‘Other’ option in each question, which the partici-
4.7.1. Descriptive statistics It was possible for the participants to rank the ‘boosters’ (positive motivators) from 1 to 13, the ‘guzzlers’ (negative motivators) from 1 to 16, and the ‘enticers’ (future motivators) from 1 to 21. Of most interest for the present analyses, however, were the most salient boosters, guzzlers and enticers. We, thus, ordered each of the boosters, guzzlers, and enticers according to the number of participants who ranked each booster, guzzler, or enticer as the
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most important reason (i.e. a rank of ‘1’) or an important reason (i.e. a rank of 1–5).
5. Results 5.1. Boosters
4.7.2. Inferential statistics Discriminant analysis (DA) is an appropriate statistical methodology for identifying independent variables which may ‘discriminate’ (distinguish) between groups with respect to a particular outcome (dependent) variable (Pedhazur & Pedhazur Schmelkin, 1991). Specifically, DAs are used where the dependent variable represents groups of participants (in this case teachers who took practicum students and teachers who did not), and the interest is in developing models that correctly replicate these known groups on the basis of the independent variables included in the models. Another way of stating the above is that DAs are appropriate where the dependent variable is categorical, as opposed to nominal or continuous, and where the interest is optimising the accuracy of group classifications with respect to the categorical dependent variable. Following procedures outlined by Dowson and McInerney (in press), the current study employed a staged series of four DAs. The first DA investigated the ability of participants’ personal characteristics (i.e. participants’ sex, years of teaching experience, qualifications, and previous supervisory experience) to discriminate between the ‘takers’ (those who took practicum students in the current year) and the ‘notakers’ (those who did not). The second DA investigated the ability of participants’ structural characterises (i.e. their characteristic within their school environment namely their position in their school, whether they were full- or part-time, and what Year (Grade) they were teaching in the current school year) to discriminate between the takers and the no-takers. The third DA investigated the ability of the size of the school (which is a factor independent of the participants, and hence represents a different class of variable) to discriminate between the takers and no-takers. The final DA took the most salient predictors from each of the first three DAs and included these in a single DA to determine whether these predictors when taken together (rather than in separate DAs) still represented the most salient discriminators. Thus, the final DA acted as a confirmation of the salience of the factors identified in the first three DAs. In the DA we used a unique sums-of-squares approach, which means that only the unique variance attributable to each variable was used to calculate the discriminant function.
Table 1 records the results of participants’ rankings of boosters for taking practicum students. Table 1 appears to indicate three distinct blocks of boosters. These blocks may be identified on the basis of the number of participants identifying each of the boosters in these blocks as an important reason for taking practicum students. Thus, there appears to be a fairly clear delineation between the first block of boosters (each identified by more than 100 participants as an important reason for taking students), the second block (each identified by between 55 and 70 participants as an important reason), and the third block (each identified by less that 15 participants as an important reason). Similar patterns identified on the same basis as that described above are evident in Tables 2 and 3 referred below. The first block in Table 1 comprises four practicum student-centred boosters (from the desire to ‘share a knowledge of teaching’ to the desire to ‘enable student teachers to put university learning into practice’). More than a third of participants rated each of these boosters as important motivators for taking practicum students. Moreover, more than one-quarter of participants rated the first three of these boosters as the most important reason for taking practicum students. The second block of boosters comprised four teacher-centred, or at least teacher-referenced, reasons for taking practicum students. These ranged from ‘own professional development’ to ‘ensure better teacher training than their own’. Approximately 20% of participants rated each of these boosters as an important reason taking practicum students, with approximately 10% rating these boosters as the most important reason for taking students. The final block of four boosters (largely related to external reasons such a request by Principal or the university) was considered an, or the most, important reason by less than 5% of participants. 5.2. Guzzlers Table 2 records the results of participants’ rankings of guzzlers militating against taking practicum students.
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Table 1 Boosters: positive motivations to take student teachers for practicum Boosters
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
143 137 133 104
46.4 44.5 43.2 33.8
79 81 106 46
25.6 26.3 34.4 14.9
Block 2 Own professional development (on teaching) For the payment Own professional development (on supervision) Ensure better teacher training than their own
68 60 55 55
22.1 19.5 17.9 17.9
31 25 26 23
10.1 8.1 8.4 7.5
Block 3 Assist with cooperating teacher’s promotion aspirations Invited by principal Good rapport with University supervisor Invited by University
14 11 2 0
4.5 3.6 0.6 0.0
5 9 0 0
1.6 2.9 0.0 0.0
Block 1 Share knowledge of teaching Help students learn about ‘real world’ of teaching Ensure better quality beginning teachers Enable student teachers to put university learning into practice
Table 2 Guzzlers: motivations not to take student teachers for practicum Guzzlers
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
Block 1 Ineligible by position in school to have student teacher Too busy
46 40
14.9 13.0
45 35
14.6 11.4
Block 2 Student teachers unprepared for practicum Wanted a break from supervising student teachers No-one had asked them to supervise a student teacher
23 19 17
7.5 6.2 5.5
18 15 16
5.8 4.9 5.2
Block 3 Student teachers are lazy Cooperating teacher’s first year of teaching Class unsuitable for student teachers Cooperating teacher’s first year at present school
10 9 9 8
3.2 2.9 2.9 2.6
5 9 7 7
1.6 2.9 2.3 2.3
Table 2 appears to indicate three distinct blocks of guzzlers. The first block comprises two guzzlers where participants considered themselves ineligible to take students due to their position in the school or workload pressures. Between 10% and 15% of participants identified these as an, or the most, important motivators for not taking practicum students. The second block and third block of guzzlers include a variety of negative student-related reasons
(students are not prepared for practicum, student teachers are lazy), teacher-related reasons (wanted a break from students, the teacher was in their first year of teaching altogether, or their first year of teaching at their present school), and structural reasons (the teacher’s class was unsuitable for students teachers, or the teacher was not asked (!)). Between 5% and 8% of participants responded that the second block of reasons was an, or the most, important reason not to take students. Less
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Table 3 Enticers: future motivations for taking practicum students Enticers
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
Block 1 More time to work with student teacher Student teachers on block practicum only Time release from teaching responsibilities Greater payment Better university guidelines on expectations of student teacher
41 38 32 30 29
13.3 12.3 10.4 9.7 9.4
29 28 24 23 17
9.4 9.1 7.8 7.5 5.5
Block 2 Better university administration of practicum Supervising only one student teacher at a time Release from other responsibilities More information from university about student teacher’s course
22 20 18 17
7.1 6.5 5.8 5.5
16 14 9 12
5.2 4.5 2.9 3.9
than 4%, and in all but one case less than 3%, of participants reported that reasons in this third block of guzzlers were an, or the most, important reason for not taking students. 5.3. Enticers Table 3 records the results of participants’ rankings of enticers, which may encourage them to take practicum students in the future. We identified two blocks of responses here. However, these are not as clearly delineated as for the boosters and guzzlers. However, for both the categorisations of responses (i.e. ‘an important reason’ and ‘the most important reason’) there is no overlap in percentages between blocks one and two (as is also the case with all previous blocks of boosters and guzzlers). The enticers in both blocks largely revolve around practical considerations (time-related issues, the structure of practicum, and university management of the practicum) with payment considerations also featuring relatively highly. 6. Summary of boosters, guzzlers and enticers The most salient boosters for taking practicum students (Block 1 in Table 1) revolve around the desire to assist practicum students to become better teachers. Moreover, by far the largest number of responses (at least with respect to ‘an important reason’) occurred in this block. Despite this finding, and disregarding for the moment ineligibility, time
pressures, and other ‘structural’ reasons, difficulties with student teachers ranked highly amongst the guzzlers. This suggests the possibility that although teachers are motivated by the desire to help student teachers, they may also be ‘put off’ by negative experiences with them. The enticers may be interpreted in light of these identified boosters and guzzlers i.e. the enticers appear to revolve around structural adjustments which would allow teachers to maximise their impact on the professional growth of student teachers (e.g. more time with students and time release from teaching responsibilities), or minimise the opportunity for bad experiences with student teachers (e.g. student only on block practicum and clearer university expectations). This said, payment represents both a booster and an enticer that does not fit this overall pattern. We could summarise all the above by saying that, although the teachers in this study are motivated by a desire to help practicum students, availability, difficult experiences with past students, perceived poor practicum management, and inadequate payment may all moderate this desire. Conversely, adjustments to increase teachers’ availability, improve the management of practicum, and increase payment may all act to entice teachers to take practicum students. 6.1. Profiling the takers and no-takers Results of the DAs described in the method section are reported in Table 4.
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Table 4 Discriminant analyses: takers and no-takers F
Analysis
Variable
Mean: takers
Mean: no takers
Personal Factors
Sex Teaching experience Qualifications Previous supervisory experience
1.78 3.86 2.98 3.02
1.75 4.03 3.16 2.60
.309 1.15 1.84 6.20
.579 .285 .176 .013
Position Full or part time Year taught
3.75 1.01 1.81
3.71 1.08 2.06
.05 7.45 5.53
.824 .007 .019
School Factor
School size
2.17
2.01
4.08
.044
Best Factors
Previous supervisory experience Full or Part time Year taught School size
3.09 1.01 1.82 2.20
2.59 1.06 1.99 2.04
10.01 4.28 2.61 3.39
.002 .040 .107 .067
Structural Factors
Sig.
% correct
59.5% (64.0%)
56.7% (77.3%) 54.5% (32.9%)
62.7% (69.2%)
Note: (1) The bold faced entries in Table 4 are the factors which significantly discriminate between the taker and the no-taker in each discriminant analysis. (2) The slightly different means between Best Factors and the same factors in other analyses are due to the list-wise deletion of cases, which resulted in slightly different sample sizes between analyses. (3) The coding pattern for each of the factors was: Sex: 1 ¼ ‘male’, 2 ¼ ‘female’. Teaching experience: 1 ¼ ‘1 year’, 2 ¼ ‘2–5 years’, 3 ¼ ‘6–10 years’, 4 ¼ ‘11–15 years’ and 5 ¼ ‘16 or more years’. Qualifications: 1 ¼ ‘2-year trained teacher’, 2 ¼ ‘3 year teaching certificate’, 3 ¼ ‘4 year degree or equivalent’, 4 ¼ ‘postgraduate diploma’, 5 ¼ ‘masters degree’, and 6 ¼ ‘doctoral degree’. Previous sup. experience: 1 ¼ ‘none’, 2 ¼ ‘1 year’, 3 ¼ ‘2–5 years’, 4 ¼ ‘6–10 years’, and 5 ¼ ‘11 or more years’ Position: 1 ¼ ‘principal’, 2 ¼ ‘deputy or assistant principal’, 3 ¼ ‘executive teacher’, 4 ¼ ‘advanced skills teacher’, and 5 ¼ ‘class teacher’. Full or part time: 1 ¼ ‘full time’, and 2 ¼ ‘permanent part-time’. Year taught: 1 ¼ ‘class in the range of Kindergarten to Year 2’, 2 ¼ ‘class in the range of Years 3–6’, and 3 ¼ ‘responsible for classes across the range of Kindergarten to year 6’ School size: 1 ¼ ‘small or less than 250 students’, 2 ¼ ‘medium or 251–500 students’ and 3 ¼ ‘large or 501 or more students’ Correlations between variables in Table 4: * ¼ significant at .05 level, ** ¼ significant at .01 level.
1. Sex 2. Teach exp. 3.Qualification 4. Super exp. 5. Position 6. Full/part 7.Year taught 8. School size
1
2
3
4
5
— .102 .143* .004 .355** .071 .136* .052
— .066 .438** .406** .054 .156** .032
— .053 .261** .111 .153** .023
— .282** .091 .014 .051
— .202** .167** .077
Table 4 contains several interesting findings. Of the Personal Factors, only previous supervisory experience discriminated significantly between the
6
7
8
— .113
—
— .117* .124
takers and the no-takers, with the takers having more supervisory experience (M ¼ 3:02 years) than the no-takers (M ¼ 2:6 years). Of the Structural
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Factors whether the teacher was full- or parttime and the Year that teachers taught both discriminated between the takers and the no-takers. More full-time teachers were amongst the takers, and the takers on average taught in earlier Years in elementary school. School size also discriminated between the takers and no-takers, with takers coming on average from larger schools. Finally, when the significant discriminators were combined in one analysis, both Year Taught and School Size dropped out of the analysis as significant predictors. This left Previous Supervisory Experience and Full or Part-time in the analysis as significant predictors. However, by far the most important variable in this discriminant function was previous supervisory experience (F ¼ 10:01, p ¼ :002). An analysis of the discriminative ‘power’ of each discriminant function (i.e. set of variables) is also of interest. The Personal Factors, Structural Factors, and School Factor correctly classify roughly the same number of cases i.e. they correctly classify takers as takers and no-takers as no-takers in between 55% and 60% (approx.) of cases. These are the un-bracketed percentages in the last column of Table 4. However, the bracketed figures in the last column of Table 4 refer only to the number of takers correctly classified as takers. This figure is potentially of more interest than the overall number of correctly classified cases because identification of those who will take students is obviously more critical for the success of practicum placement than the identification of those who will not. Both Personal Factors and Structural Factors identify the takers much better than the takers and no-takers overall, and in the case of the Structural Factors, substantially so. Thus, these factors, and particularly the significance of these factors, may be particularly salient in the profiles of practicum takers. However, for school size, the opposite is the case. This suggests that school size is a much better predictor of those who will not (or, at least, do not) take students than those who will. As might be expected, the best discriminators function correctly classified the greatest number of cases overall. However, Structural Factors still explained the greatest number of takers. It is also interesting to note that, as the overall percentage of takers in the sample was 46.8%, a ‘chance’ discriminant model (i.e. a model based on random a selection of cases) would be expected to
correctly classify about 47% of cases. In every one of our analyses the classification of takers was much higher than this percentage implicating the classificatory power of the variables in the analyses. 7. Discussion 7.1. Motivations, de-motivations and future motivations It is both interesting and encouraging to note that reasons surrounding the development of student teachers, the development of the teaching profession as a whole, and the professional development of the cooperating teacher all represent significant boosters for teachers’ motivation to take practicum students. This finding suggests that teachers’ positive motivations to take practicum students revolve around a solid set of professional commitments to self, students, and the profession. We think this is cause for, if not celebration, at least satisfying reflection. Conversely, it is also interesting to note (supporting Beck & Kosnik, 2000) that, alongside issues of availability (including position, busyness, and not being asked(!)), negative experiences with practicum students may ‘guzzle’ teachers’ motivation to take practicum students. Thus, teachers’ actual experiences with student teachers may run counter to teachers’ professional commitments to their development. It is possible to speculate that whilst teachers’ professional commitments may ‘insulate’ them to some extent from negative experiences with student teachers; prolonged experiences of this type may eventually act to undermine these commitments, and thus teachers’ motivations to take students in the future. For this reason, longevity in practicum supervision, especially amongst teachers with weaker or developing professional commitments, may be substantially reliant upon ongoing positive experiences with their student teachers. In this light, the enticers give a clue as to what positive experiences with student teachers might mean. More time with student teachers (e.g. Collins, 1998; Guyton & McIntyre, 1990), release from other duties, clearer university guidelines and administration, and even more payment (e.g. Ganser, 2002), might all make for a more positive experience for teachers. Universities should heed these enticers as they may both enhance teachers’ intrinsic boosters and inhibit their guzzlers. In other words, the
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enticers may provide the framework within which teachers’ boosters are maximised and their guzzlers minimised. Conversely, inadequate enticers may do precisely the opposite. One final way of looking at the boosters, guzzlers and enticers is in terms of school, university and student roles in facilitating cooperating teachers’ motivations to take students. For example, assuming that teachers are professionally motivated to take practicum students: (a) schools can enhance this motivation by releasing teachers as much as possible to undertake the supervisory role, (b) universities can enhance this motivation by running efficient, manageable and clearly explained practica, and (c) students can facilitate this motivation by being well prepared and working hard on practicum. When these conditions are satisfied, we speculate it is most likely that teachers’ professional commitments will come to the fore, and as a result more teachers will be ‘available’ for supervision. Conversely, we speculate that if schools will not release teachers, if universities run poorly structured practica, and if students are ill-prepared and lazy, then it is quite likely that teachers’ professional motivations to take students will be undermined, perhaps to the extent where they will be unwilling to take students, even if they are ‘objectively’ available. 7.2. Who takes students and who does not? If we were to build a profile of a teacher who may take students, as contrasted with one who may not, our research would suggest that the teacher: (a) will have more supervisory experience than a teacher who does not take students, (b) will be a full-time as opposed to part-time teacher, and (c) will teach in lower grades than a no-taking teacher. Also, while we cannot say with the same degree of confidence that ‘taking’ teachers will come from medium or larger schools, we can say that ‘notaking’ teachers are more likely to come from smaller schools. In other words, whether a teacher comes from a medium or large school does not discriminate between the takers and the no-takers as
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well as whether a teacher comes from a smaller school, which identifies the no-takers quite well. One interesting corollary of the findings above relates to what universities can and cannot control. Thus, while universities may wish to target full-time teachers, teaching younger grades in other than smaller schools in order to maximise their recruitment, they have no control over these variables. However, they do have some control (or at least influence) over the amount of supervisory experience a teacher may have. Thus, if universities are able to (not least through the judicious management of teachers’ boosters, guzzlers and enticers) initially recruit and then hold cooperating teachers they will likely be developing not only their present pool of takers, but their future pool as well. This, in turn, highlights the need to not only actively recruit teachers to practicum supervision, but to nurture teachers in that supervision so that they will be a supervisory resource both now and in the future. 7.3. Summary The results of the study do not allow us to claim that we have identified a definitive ‘formulae’ for identifying new cooperating teachers. However, we do claim that knowing something about the present ‘status’ of teachers who take practicum students, and why they do so, is an important starting point for identifying new practicum teachers. The logic underlying this assertion is that the profiles and motivations of new practicum supervisors are likely to be not too dissimilar from that of present supervisors. Hence, mapping the profiles and motivations of present cooperating teachers is likely to be an important first step to identifying and encouraging new practicum supervisors. 7.4. Limitations and directions for future research One limitation of this research is that it utilised a single method of data collection (survey items) and a single response format to those questions. We recognise, however, that teachers’ reasons for accepting student teachers (or not) are likely to be varied and complex. It may be, then, that the survey methodology used in this study may not have been sensitive to the full-range of teachers’ reasons for accepting (or not) students. One key direction for future research, then, would be to further
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investigate teachers’ reasons using different methodologies e.g. interviews with teachers (and student teachers), or focus groups. The salience of the boosters, guzzlers and enticers identified in this study, as well as others that may not have been identified, could be tested through these different methods. A second limitation relates to the rating response format used in the PMPS survey. We chose the rating response format used in this study for deliberate reasons. These reasons included, particularly, the desire to make the survey easy to complete by cooperating teachers in order to maximise the return rate, and the desire to identify, from amongst genuinely competing alternatives, the most salient boosters, guzzlers, and enticers. Despite these reasons, we recognise that the rating response format does have limitations. Perhaps the most important of these limitations is that the relationships between the individual boosters, guzzlers and enticers (e.g. boosters, guzzlers and enticers that may correlate more or less strongly with each other) cannot be examined easily in a non-parametric environment. A direction for future research, then, would be to measure the boosters, guzzlers and enticers identified in this study using (for example) a Likert-type rating scale. In this way different types of analyses may be bought to bear on the constructs. A third limitation of the research lies in the possibility that some teachers who wanted to take a practicum student were not, for a variety of reasons, able to do so. In this study, all teachers who offered to take student received one (not least because the University’s need for cooperating teachers was, and is, so great). There were, however, 17 teachers who indicated that they had not been asked to take a practicum student, and 46 teachers who said that they were ineligible to take a practicum student due to their current position in their school (and so did not make an offer). It may be that some of these ‘un-asked’ or unavailable teachers were angry or frustrated due to their unfulfilled desire to take a student, and that this possible anger or frustration may have affected their responses to the survey. Our present data did not allow us to make the distinction between teachers who wanted and received a student, from those who wanted but did not receive student. Thus, a possible direction for future research would be to examine the interaction between offering to take, and actually receiving, a practicum student, and teachers’ responses to the PMPS survey.
Despite the comments above, this study has identified important boosters, guzzlers and enticers that act to motivate, de-motivate, or future-motivate teachers to take practicum students. We are aware of no other studies that have attempted to identify these motivations (positive and negative, present and future). However, because this is an initial study, we cannot conclude that these motivations will be salient with other groups of participants. We suspect that the most significant boosters, guzzlers and enticers may be similar for similar groups of participants, but we cannot be sure of this until further research has been conducted. However, if these boosters, guzzlers, and enticers do prove to be relatively stable across groups, this would be very valuable information for university recruiters indeed. What we offer, then, is our study as a first step in the ongoing investigation of teachers’ present and future motivations to take, and not-take, practicum students. Similar comments may be made about the profile of taking versus no-taking teachers. Such a profile, if proven relatively stable across samples, may be particularly useful—if only to provide universities and schools with information about that which they may wish to change. However, again, we can make no comment from the present research as to how stable the profile we have identified here may be— only that, in the present study at least, it is fairly well defined. Again, future research may investigate the stability of this profile. Future research may also investigate interaction between teachers’ profiles and their motivations. For example, do teachers from different sized schools report different booster, guzzlers, or enticers? This sort of comparison could be made for all elements of teachers’ practicum profiles.
8. Conclusion The present research has made a first step towards investigating the motivations and profiles of teachers taking, and not taking practicum students. We think the findings of the study are illuminating, but also that they require confirmation. We hope, then, that the study will provide both a methodological and empirical basis for further investigations of its type. Such investigations should contribute to our knowledge of who takes practicum students, and what may be done to attract more teachers to this important role.
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Appendix A. Profiles and motivations for practicum survey
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of information processing: A fresh look at relations between students’ academic motivation and cognition. Educational Psychology, 22, 571–589. Battersby, D., & Ramsay, P. D. K. (1988). A case study of in-school training at a New Zealand teachers’ college. The Journal of Teaching Practice, 8(1), 47–66.
ARTICLE IN PRESS C. Sinclair et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 263–279 Battersby, D., & Ramsay, P. D. K. (1990). Practice teaching in New Zealand: Policies, practices and problems. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 18(1), 19–26. Beck, C., & Kosnik, C. (2000). Associate teachers in preservice education: Clarifying and enhancing their role [Electronic Version]. Journal of Education for Teaching, 26(3), 207–225. Clarke, A. (2001). Characteristics of cooperating teachers. Canadian Journal of Education, 26(2), 237–256. Collins, A. (1998). The student teaching practicum: Is it a collaborative partnership? Journal of Professional Studies, 5(2), 38–43. Darling-Hammond, L. (1999). Educating teachers: The academy’s greatest failure or its most important future? Academe, 85(1), 26–33. Dowson, M. (2005). Why religious beliefs motivate: An expectancy-value perceptive on religion and motivation. In M. L. Maehr, & S. Karabencik (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement. (pp. 11–35). vol. 14: Religion and motivation. Oxford: Elsevier. Dowson, M., & McInerney, D. M. (in press). Psychological determinants of early school leaving: Distinguishing between the ‘leavers’ and ‘stayers’. British Journal of Educational Psychology. Eccles, J. (1983). Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In J. Spence (Ed.), Achievement and achievement motivation. San Francisco: Freeman. Elliot, A., & Harackiewicz, J. (1996). Approach and avoidance achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: A mediational analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 461–475. Fairbanks, C. M., Freedman, D., & Kahn, C. (2000). The role of effective mentors in learning to teach. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(2), 102–112. Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). Helping novices learn to teach [Electronic version]. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(1), 17–30. Gaffey, C. (1994). Effects of a training program on practicum supervisor knowledge and performance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Ganser, T. (2002). How teachers compare the roles for cooperating teacher and mentor [Electronic Version]. The Educational Forum, 66(4), 380–386. Goodfellow, J., & Sumsion, J. (2000). Transformative pathways: Field-based teacher educators’ perceptions. Journal of Education for Teaching, 26(3), 245–257. Gratch, A. (1998). Beginning teacher and mentor relationships. Journal of Teacher Education, 49, 220–227. Guyton, E., & McIntyre, J. (1990). Student teaching and school experiences. In W. Houston (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education. New York: McMillan Publishing. Hong, Z. (1999). The controbution of school partnership to practice teaching in tertiary teacher education. Chinese Education and Society, 32(1), 40–50.
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Koerner, M. E. (1992). The cooperating teacher: An ambivalent participant in student teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1), 46–56. Loughran, J., & Northfield, J. (1996). Opening the classroom door: Teacher, researcher, learner. London: Falmer Press. Martin, A. J. (2002). Motivation and academic resilience: Developing a model of student enhancement. Australian Journal of Education, 14, 34–49. Martin, A. J. (2003). How to motivate your child for school and beyond. Sydney: Bantam. McClelland, D. C. (1961). The achieving society. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. McNally, J., Cope, P., Inglis, B., & Stronach, I. (1997). The student teacher in school: Conditions for development. Teacher and Teacher Education, 13, 485–498. Murray- Harvey, R. (2001). How teacher education students cope with practicum concerns [Electronic Version]. The Teacher Educator, 37(2), 117–133. Pedhazur, E. J., & Pedhazur Schmelkin, L. (1991). Measurement, design, and analysis: An integrated approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sanders, M., Dowson, M., & Sinclair, C. (2005). What do master teachers do anyway? A comparison of theoretical conceptualisations and observed practices in the field. Teachers College Record, 107(4), 706–738. Shantz, D., & Brown, M. (1999). Developing a positive relationship: The most significant role of the supervising teacher [Electronic Version]. Education, 119(4), 693–694. Sinclair, C., & Thistleton-Martin, J. (1999). School–University tensions in an Australian practicum: Partnership or imposition? Paper presented at the practical experience in professional education conference, Christchurch, New Zealand. Stanulis, R. N., & Russell, D. (2000). ‘‘Jumping in’’: Trust and communication in mentoring student teachers [Electronic Version]. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16(1), 65–80. Taylor, A., & Williams, D. (1989). The influence of policy on practicum organisation: A New South Wales perspective. In K. Appleton, D. Price, & K. Zeichner (Eds.), The practicum in teacher education. Proceedings of the fourth national conference (pp. 125–130). Rockhampton, Queensland: University College of Central Queensland. Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive behavior in animals and man. New York: Century. Weasmer, J., & Woods, A. M. (2003). The role of the host teacher in the student teaching experience [Electronic Version]. The Clearinghouse, 76(4), 174–180. Yarrow, A. (Ed.). (1992). Teaching role of supervision in the practicum. Cross-faculty perspectives. Brisbane, Queensland: Queensland University of Technology. Zanting, A., Verloop, N., & Vermut, J. D. (2001). Student teachers eliciting mentors’ practical knowledge and comparing it to their own beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 725–740. Zeichner, K. (2002). Beyond traditional structures of student teaching [Electronic Version]. Teacher Education Quarterly, 29(2), 59–65.
Teaching and Teacher Education 22 (2006) 263–279 www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
Motivations and profiles of cooperating teachers: Who volunteers and why? Catherine Sinclaira,, Martin Dowsonb, Judith Thistleton-Martina a
School of Education and Early Childhood Studies, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, New South Wales, Australia b SELF Research Centre, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Abstract University teacher education programs often struggle to attract cooperating teachers. Given this situation, it is obviously of interest to determine what factors may attract teachers to, or repel them from, the cooperating role. It is also of interest to determine, in general terms at least, what characteristics cooperating teachers share. This paper develops a profile of cooperating teachers who agreed to work with student teachers, and discusses factors that encourage or dissuade them from taking on their important role. Results suggest that teachers’ positive motivations to take practicum students revolve around a solid set of professional commitments to self, students, and the profession. However, the actual experience of working with student teachers can run counter to these positive motivations, and may dissuade teachers from continuing in their cooperating role. The findings have strong implications for developing a cohort of motivated, committed and capable school-based cooperating teachers to work with the future generation of teachers. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cooperating teachers; Professional experience; Motivation
0. Introduction University teacher education programs often struggle to attract cooperating teachers (Hong, 1999; Sinclair & Thistleton-Martin, 1999). Despite this situation, and also despite the widespread acknowledgement in the literature concerning the importance of cooperating teachers to student teachers’ professional development (for example, Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Ganser, 2002; Loughran & Northfield, 1996; Murray-Harvey, 2001; Shantz & Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 2 9772 6433; fax: +61 2 9772 6738. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Sinclair).
Brown, 1999; Weasmer & Woods, 2003), little is known about the kinds of teachers who offer to take student teachers, or about their motivations for doing so. Indeed, while the literature reports extensively on the roles cooperating teachers undertake (for example, Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Fairbanks, Freedman, & Kahn, 2000; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Gratch, 1998; Goodfellow & Sumsion, 2000; McNally, Cope, Inglis, & Stronach, 1997; Sanders, Dowson, & Sinclair, 2005; Stanulis & Russell, 2000; Weasmer & Woods, 2003), it is apparently almost devoid of research which reports on the personal and professional characteristics and motivations of teachers who are likely to volunteer to take students teachers. We were only able to identify two studies
0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2005.11.008
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(Clarke, 2001; and see also his citation of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Research about Teacher Education Project—Study Four RATE IV) that have published a profile of cooperating teachers. However, there has been no such published profile of cooperating teachers in the Australian context nor, in any context, of teachers’ motivations to offer to supervise student teachers. For this reason, the development of a profile of characteristics that defines teachers who take practicum students, and a catalogue of salient reasons why they take students, would obviously fill a gap in the literature as well as being very useful for university recruiters of cooperating teachers. 1. Starting points for determining motivations to supervise and mentor 1.1. Boosters Although the literature has not examined teachers’ motivations to take practicum students per se, there are a number of studies extant in the literature which relate to this topic. For example, in order to identify some potential positive motivations we used related, relevant work by the first author (Gaffey, 19941) and others (see below). Using the taxonomy developed by Martin (2002, 2003) in his work on student motivation, we entitled these positive motivations ‘boosters’. Gaffey (1994) in her mixed-method study comparing the effects of supervision training on the knowledge and practice of 71 cooperating teachers found that the most commonly reported factors facilitating their work as cooperating teachers was their own enthusiasm for the role, a block practicum structure where student teachers attend every day of the week rather than once a week, having only one student teacher on their classes at a time, sound guidelines from the university, the quality of the student teacher they received and prior supervision experience. In a related qualitative study into the roleperceptions and actual roles undertaken by 20 cooperating teachers, Beck and Kosnik (2000) found that cooperating teachers were highly satisfied with their role and so continued to volunteer to take student teachers. They also reported that cooperating teachers learned from their mentoring 1
Catherine Sinclair earlier published under the married name of Gaffey.
experience and from their student teacher, valued the personal relationship developed with the university, considered that their pupils learned more whilst the practicum was in progress and wished to provide an experience for student teachers unlike the negative ones they had experienced themselves. Like Battersby and Ramsay’s case study of the practicum at a New Zealand Teachers’ College (1988), Goodfellow and Sumsion’s (2000) focus group discussions with 129 early childhood cooperating teachers also found that cooperating teachers considered their primary role as helping student teachers to learn about the realities of teaching (see also, Taylor & Williams, 1989). Finally, Ganser’s (2002) survey of 94 cooperating teachers asking them to compare their roles as a cooperating teacher and a mentor found, like Gaffey (1994), that teachers did not undertake these roles because of extrinsic rewards such as payment. While the studies reviewed above do not set out to directly measure cooperating teachers’ motivations to take student teachers, they provided an insight into the roles undertaken by cooperating teachers that potentially might have influenced their decisions to become cooperating teachers. Following similar logic, other potential ‘boosters’ might also include professional development for the cooperating teacher in teaching and/or supervision (Koerner, 1992), the opportunity to share professional knowledge with student teachers (Goodfellow & Sumsion, 2000), and the opportunity to relate theory and practice (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Zanting, Verloop, & Vermut, 2001; Zeichner, 2002). 1.2. Guzzlers In a similar manner to the potential boosters, we developed a starting list of negative motivations that may dissuade cooperating teachers from taking student teachers. Following Martin’s (2002, 2003) taxonomy again we termed the negative motivations ‘guzzlers’. For example, Koerner’s case study of eight experienced elementary and preschool teachers found that cooperating teachers thought that supervising a student teacher added an additional responsibility to an already busy working day, and were disappointed by insufficient and conflicting guidelines from the university as to their role. Hong’s (1999) discussion of the difficulties experienced in China in attracting cooperating teachers suggested that cooperating teachers were unenthusiastic about or unwilling to supervising student teachers as they
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are more interested in their personal interests and in promotion. Cooperating teachers may also be reluctant to take student teachers due to a lack of confidence in their own ability as an appropriate role model or supervisor (Battersby & Ramsay, 1990; Ganser, 2002; Koerner, 1992; Yarrow, 1992), a lack of time for or commitment to undertaking the supervisory role (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999; Koerner, 1992), and poor views held of student teachers, such as that they were insufficiently prepared or committed (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994). From our (admittedly anecdotal) experiences over nearly 20 years as university-based supervisors of student teachers and coordinators of practicum programs we speculated that additional potential guzzlers may include factors relating to the nature of cooperating teachers themselves (such as the desire to have a respite from practicum supervision) or the positions they hold in their schools (such as being a beginning teacher or starting at a new school). Other somewhat pragmatic reasons might include not being invited by the school principal or university to take a student, considering that their present class was unsuitable for a student teacher, or not being in a mainstream class position (such as being a teacherlibrarian, or multi-class support teacher). 1.3. Enticers Finally, we sought to create a list of possible future positive motivations cooperating teachers may have to take student teachers. (The boosters and guzzlers focussed on present positive and negative motivations). Using our own label we termed these positive future motivations ‘enticers’. Again drawing upon the research concerning cooperating teachers’ roles in the practicum, and also considering the converse of the ‘guzzlers’, we speculated that the enticers might centre on factors relating to cooperating teachers and their schools, university-based teacher education programs and procedures, and the characteristics of student teachers themselves. ‘Enticers’ relating to cooperating teachers and their schools include increased extrinsic rewards, such as payment2 (Ganser, 2002; Hong, 1999); additional teaching experience or time at the present school (Gaffey, 1994); additional 2 The amount paid to cooperating teachers is determined by the teachers’ union through legislation and is not determined by the university.
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supervisor or mentor training (Gaffey, 1994); and improved school situations, such as more time to work with student teachers, release from other responsibilities, or additional school support (Gaffey, 1994). University provided ‘enticers’ would include improved university practicum administration and enhanced communication of university expectations of cooperating teachers and student teachers (Gaffey, 1994); additional contact with, or support from, university staff (Beck & Kosnik, 2000; Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999); and particular models of practicum, for example, block or continuous experience, one student teacher per class or student pairs on classes (Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999). Finally, higher quality (i.e. more motivated and prepared) student teachers may also be an enticer (Gaffey, 1994; Hong, 1999). The ‘boosters’, ‘guzzlers’ and ‘enticers’ discussed above formed the basis of the content of the Profiles and Motivations for Practicum Survey (PMPS) described later. 2. Theoretical location Since the very early days of motivation research in psychology (e.g. Atkinson, 1957; McClelland, 1961; Tolman, 1932), and up until the present time (e.g. Dowson, 2005; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996; Martin, 2003), the distinction between factors which ‘drive’ (or ‘push’) behaviour and factors which ‘draw’ (or ‘pull’) behaviour has been made. Drive factors are typically conceptualised as relatively stable factors, internal to the person, which provide both the cognitive and affective stimulus for behaviour. Drive factors may include personal values, beliefs, goals or desires which are expressed in, and through, given behaviours. Draw factors are typically conceptualised as less stable factors, associated with particular tasks or situations. As such, draw factors are largely external to the person. Draw factors may include the social, financial, professional or other ‘rewards’ that a person perceives they will gain from participation in a given behaviour. Continued participation (or non-participation) in behaviours based on draw-type motivations may be more fragile than participation based on drive-type factors. This relative fragility is due to the fact that the perceived rewards, or the perceived value of the rewards (e.g. Eccles, 1983), gained from participation in a behaviour may change substantially over time. Thus, for example, financial rewards may be more or
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Time Frame Motivational Orientation
Present
Future
Approach
Boosters (Drive or draw) Enticers (Drive or draw)
Avoidance
Guzzlers (Drive or draw)
Fig. 1. Relationship of motivational constructs to the nomenclature used in the present study.
less available or salient at given times than at others, or social relationships—or their perceived importance—may similarly wax and wane. Conversely, drive-type motivations may remain more stable across time (e.g. a person’s fundamental values and beliefs are presumed to change relatively slowly if at all). So participation (or non-participation) in behaviours based on these drive-type motivations will be more stable across time as well. Drive and draw factors may work in both a positive and a negative direction. Thus, a person may be driven or drawn towards, or away from, particular behaviours. When a person is driven or drawn towards a particular behaviour they are said to display an ‘approach’ motivational orientation. When a person is driven or drawn away from a particular behaviour they are said to display an ‘avoidance’ motivational orientation (see Barker, Dowson, & McInerney, 2002). In the present case, as an example, teachers may be driven or drawn towards accepting a student for practicum, in which case they will display an ‘approach orientation’ towards accepting a student teacher. Alternatively, teachers may be driven or drawn away from accepting a student, in which case they will display and avoidance orientation towards accepting a student. In the present study we define ‘boosters’ as any factor (drive or draw) that leads to an approach orientation towards accepting a student for practicum. Similarly, we define ‘guzzlers’ as any drive or draw factor that leads to an avoidance orientation towards taking a practicum student. Finally, we define ‘enticers’ as those factors which will lead to an approach orientation to taking students in the future. The key distinctions and definitions in the discussion immediately above are represented in Fig. 1. 3. Research questions The lack of information in the literature concerning the characteristics of teachers who volunteer to supervise and/or mentor student teachers and their motivations for doing so suggests the need to
develop a profile of these teachers and a catalogue of factors encouraging or dissuading them from working with student teachers. The specific research questions we aimed to answer were, therefore: (1) What parameters define the profile of cooperating teachers willing to supervise/mentor student teachers? (2) What factors act to encourage and dissuade teachers from supervising/mentoring student teachers? (3) What factors may encourage teachers to take practicum students in the future? 4. Method 4.1. Participants Participants in the study were 322 primary (elementary) school teachers from 95 schools in the Sydney (Australia) metropolitan area. Of these participants: (a) 239 (approx. 74%) were females, (b) 293 (approx. 91%) were full-time teachers, (c) most (n ¼ 156, approx. 48%) came from schools with between 250 and 500 students, or (n ¼ 86, approx. 27%) from schools of more than 500 students, (d) most (n ¼ 127, approx. 39%) taught in Years 3–6, while a similar number (n ¼ 110, 34%) taught in Kindergarten to Year 2. The remaining respondents were employed in specialist or non-teaching (administrative) positions. (e) most (n ¼ 153, approx. 48%) had taught for more than 16 years, with a significant minority (n ¼ 80, 25%) having taught for between 6 and 10 years. (f) the largest group had supervised practicum student for between 6 and 10 years (89, 28% approx.), with the second largest group (69, 21% approx.) having supervised students for just 1 year (g) almost half (n ¼ 144, approx. 45%) said they had, or would, take a practicum student in the current year. 4.2. Measures The PMPS was designed to measure: (a) present positive motivators that encourage teachers to accept student teachers for practicum (‘boosters’),
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(b) present negative motivators that dissuade teachers from taking students for practicum (‘guzzlers’), and (c) factors which may entice reluctant teachers to take students for practicum in the future (‘enticers’).
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pants ranked in order of importance. Thus, the data in the study were rank-type (ordinal) data. 4.5. Administration
The PMPS also measured relevant personal characteristics of the participants i.e. their sex, years of teaching experience, qualifications, and previous supervisory experience; and the structural characterises of the participants i.e. the participants position in the school, whether they were full- or part-time, and what Year (Grade) they were teaching in the current school year. Finally, the PMPS measured the size of the school (in terms of student numbers) in which the teacher taught.
The PMP survey, and an accompanying letter outlining the purpose of the survey and assuring respondents of confidentiality and anonymity, was faxed to all 155 elementary schools in the southwestern region of Sydney to which the university placed student teachers. From 95 schools (61.3% response rate), 322 questionnaires were received. Most frequently, there was one questionnaire returned from each school (49 schools). The overall average number of teachers responding from each school was 3.4, and the maximum number responding in any one school was 17.
4.3. Item construction
4.6. Additional data supplied by the participants
The initial content of items in the PMPS was developed from two major sources. The first source was the literature on teachers’ roles in practicum (reviewed above). For example, the ‘booster’ item ‘enthusiasm and commitment to producing quality beginning teachers’ was extrapolated from studies indicating teachers’ satisfaction with their ‘development’ role during practicum (e.g. Beck & Kosnik, 2000). The second source was anecdotal comments and concerns gathered from cooperating teachers over nearly 20 years of practicum management by the authors. For example, the perceived ‘laziness’ of student teachers (a ‘guzzler’ item in the survey) is consistently mentioned by cooperating teachers in formal reviews of practicum programs and in comments to university staff working in the schools. The survey was not piloted before administration. However, the format and the content of the survey was analysed by experienced colleagues working in teacher education before it was sent to participants.
Not only did respondents answer the ranking questions in the PMPS, but many included additional information on the survey forms themselves. The researchers even received whole letters accompanying the surveys, and some participants reported utilising their entire weekly 2 h of release from class teaching to either write these letters or provide additional information on the PMPS forms. Apparently, the survey had opened a ‘Pandora’s box’ for teachers and principals just waiting to be asked for their views concerning practicum! The additional information provided by participants also suggests that the participants took the survey seriously. 4.7. Analyses Once the surveys were returned, the data were entered into SPSS-X for analysis. All analyses reported here were conducted within the SPSS statistics package.
4.4. Item format and response type In order to measure the boosters, guzzlers and enticers, the PMPS asked teachers to rank responses to three stem questions i.e. What were the main reasons that you agreed to take a student teacher? What were the main reasons that you did not take a student teacher? What would encourage you to take a student teacher? What followed these questions was a series of 13, 16 and 21 options, including an ‘Other’ option in each question, which the partici-
4.7.1. Descriptive statistics It was possible for the participants to rank the ‘boosters’ (positive motivators) from 1 to 13, the ‘guzzlers’ (negative motivators) from 1 to 16, and the ‘enticers’ (future motivators) from 1 to 21. Of most interest for the present analyses, however, were the most salient boosters, guzzlers and enticers. We, thus, ordered each of the boosters, guzzlers, and enticers according to the number of participants who ranked each booster, guzzler, or enticer as the
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most important reason (i.e. a rank of ‘1’) or an important reason (i.e. a rank of 1–5).
5. Results 5.1. Boosters
4.7.2. Inferential statistics Discriminant analysis (DA) is an appropriate statistical methodology for identifying independent variables which may ‘discriminate’ (distinguish) between groups with respect to a particular outcome (dependent) variable (Pedhazur & Pedhazur Schmelkin, 1991). Specifically, DAs are used where the dependent variable represents groups of participants (in this case teachers who took practicum students and teachers who did not), and the interest is in developing models that correctly replicate these known groups on the basis of the independent variables included in the models. Another way of stating the above is that DAs are appropriate where the dependent variable is categorical, as opposed to nominal or continuous, and where the interest is optimising the accuracy of group classifications with respect to the categorical dependent variable. Following procedures outlined by Dowson and McInerney (in press), the current study employed a staged series of four DAs. The first DA investigated the ability of participants’ personal characteristics (i.e. participants’ sex, years of teaching experience, qualifications, and previous supervisory experience) to discriminate between the ‘takers’ (those who took practicum students in the current year) and the ‘notakers’ (those who did not). The second DA investigated the ability of participants’ structural characterises (i.e. their characteristic within their school environment namely their position in their school, whether they were full- or part-time, and what Year (Grade) they were teaching in the current school year) to discriminate between the takers and the no-takers. The third DA investigated the ability of the size of the school (which is a factor independent of the participants, and hence represents a different class of variable) to discriminate between the takers and no-takers. The final DA took the most salient predictors from each of the first three DAs and included these in a single DA to determine whether these predictors when taken together (rather than in separate DAs) still represented the most salient discriminators. Thus, the final DA acted as a confirmation of the salience of the factors identified in the first three DAs. In the DA we used a unique sums-of-squares approach, which means that only the unique variance attributable to each variable was used to calculate the discriminant function.
Table 1 records the results of participants’ rankings of boosters for taking practicum students. Table 1 appears to indicate three distinct blocks of boosters. These blocks may be identified on the basis of the number of participants identifying each of the boosters in these blocks as an important reason for taking practicum students. Thus, there appears to be a fairly clear delineation between the first block of boosters (each identified by more than 100 participants as an important reason for taking students), the second block (each identified by between 55 and 70 participants as an important reason), and the third block (each identified by less that 15 participants as an important reason). Similar patterns identified on the same basis as that described above are evident in Tables 2 and 3 referred below. The first block in Table 1 comprises four practicum student-centred boosters (from the desire to ‘share a knowledge of teaching’ to the desire to ‘enable student teachers to put university learning into practice’). More than a third of participants rated each of these boosters as important motivators for taking practicum students. Moreover, more than one-quarter of participants rated the first three of these boosters as the most important reason for taking practicum students. The second block of boosters comprised four teacher-centred, or at least teacher-referenced, reasons for taking practicum students. These ranged from ‘own professional development’ to ‘ensure better teacher training than their own’. Approximately 20% of participants rated each of these boosters as an important reason taking practicum students, with approximately 10% rating these boosters as the most important reason for taking students. The final block of four boosters (largely related to external reasons such a request by Principal or the university) was considered an, or the most, important reason by less than 5% of participants. 5.2. Guzzlers Table 2 records the results of participants’ rankings of guzzlers militating against taking practicum students.
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Table 1 Boosters: positive motivations to take student teachers for practicum Boosters
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
143 137 133 104
46.4 44.5 43.2 33.8
79 81 106 46
25.6 26.3 34.4 14.9
Block 2 Own professional development (on teaching) For the payment Own professional development (on supervision) Ensure better teacher training than their own
68 60 55 55
22.1 19.5 17.9 17.9
31 25 26 23
10.1 8.1 8.4 7.5
Block 3 Assist with cooperating teacher’s promotion aspirations Invited by principal Good rapport with University supervisor Invited by University
14 11 2 0
4.5 3.6 0.6 0.0
5 9 0 0
1.6 2.9 0.0 0.0
Block 1 Share knowledge of teaching Help students learn about ‘real world’ of teaching Ensure better quality beginning teachers Enable student teachers to put university learning into practice
Table 2 Guzzlers: motivations not to take student teachers for practicum Guzzlers
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
Block 1 Ineligible by position in school to have student teacher Too busy
46 40
14.9 13.0
45 35
14.6 11.4
Block 2 Student teachers unprepared for practicum Wanted a break from supervising student teachers No-one had asked them to supervise a student teacher
23 19 17
7.5 6.2 5.5
18 15 16
5.8 4.9 5.2
Block 3 Student teachers are lazy Cooperating teacher’s first year of teaching Class unsuitable for student teachers Cooperating teacher’s first year at present school
10 9 9 8
3.2 2.9 2.9 2.6
5 9 7 7
1.6 2.9 2.3 2.3
Table 2 appears to indicate three distinct blocks of guzzlers. The first block comprises two guzzlers where participants considered themselves ineligible to take students due to their position in the school or workload pressures. Between 10% and 15% of participants identified these as an, or the most, important motivators for not taking practicum students. The second block and third block of guzzlers include a variety of negative student-related reasons
(students are not prepared for practicum, student teachers are lazy), teacher-related reasons (wanted a break from students, the teacher was in their first year of teaching altogether, or their first year of teaching at their present school), and structural reasons (the teacher’s class was unsuitable for students teachers, or the teacher was not asked (!)). Between 5% and 8% of participants responded that the second block of reasons was an, or the most, important reason not to take students. Less
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Table 3 Enticers: future motivations for taking practicum students Enticers
An important reason
The most important reason
No.
%
No.
%
Block 1 More time to work with student teacher Student teachers on block practicum only Time release from teaching responsibilities Greater payment Better university guidelines on expectations of student teacher
41 38 32 30 29
13.3 12.3 10.4 9.7 9.4
29 28 24 23 17
9.4 9.1 7.8 7.5 5.5
Block 2 Better university administration of practicum Supervising only one student teacher at a time Release from other responsibilities More information from university about student teacher’s course
22 20 18 17
7.1 6.5 5.8 5.5
16 14 9 12
5.2 4.5 2.9 3.9
than 4%, and in all but one case less than 3%, of participants reported that reasons in this third block of guzzlers were an, or the most, important reason for not taking students. 5.3. Enticers Table 3 records the results of participants’ rankings of enticers, which may encourage them to take practicum students in the future. We identified two blocks of responses here. However, these are not as clearly delineated as for the boosters and guzzlers. However, for both the categorisations of responses (i.e. ‘an important reason’ and ‘the most important reason’) there is no overlap in percentages between blocks one and two (as is also the case with all previous blocks of boosters and guzzlers). The enticers in both blocks largely revolve around practical considerations (time-related issues, the structure of practicum, and university management of the practicum) with payment considerations also featuring relatively highly. 6. Summary of boosters, guzzlers and enticers The most salient boosters for taking practicum students (Block 1 in Table 1) revolve around the desire to assist practicum students to become better teachers. Moreover, by far the largest number of responses (at least with respect to ‘an important reason’) occurred in this block. Despite this finding, and disregarding for the moment ineligibility, time
pressures, and other ‘structural’ reasons, difficulties with student teachers ranked highly amongst the guzzlers. This suggests the possibility that although teachers are motivated by the desire to help student teachers, they may also be ‘put off’ by negative experiences with them. The enticers may be interpreted in light of these identified boosters and guzzlers i.e. the enticers appear to revolve around structural adjustments which would allow teachers to maximise their impact on the professional growth of student teachers (e.g. more time with students and time release from teaching responsibilities), or minimise the opportunity for bad experiences with student teachers (e.g. student only on block practicum and clearer university expectations). This said, payment represents both a booster and an enticer that does not fit this overall pattern. We could summarise all the above by saying that, although the teachers in this study are motivated by a desire to help practicum students, availability, difficult experiences with past students, perceived poor practicum management, and inadequate payment may all moderate this desire. Conversely, adjustments to increase teachers’ availability, improve the management of practicum, and increase payment may all act to entice teachers to take practicum students. 6.1. Profiling the takers and no-takers Results of the DAs described in the method section are reported in Table 4.
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Table 4 Discriminant analyses: takers and no-takers F
Analysis
Variable
Mean: takers
Mean: no takers
Personal Factors
Sex Teaching experience Qualifications Previous supervisory experience
1.78 3.86 2.98 3.02
1.75 4.03 3.16 2.60
.309 1.15 1.84 6.20
.579 .285 .176 .013
Position Full or part time Year taught
3.75 1.01 1.81
3.71 1.08 2.06
.05 7.45 5.53
.824 .007 .019
School Factor
School size
2.17
2.01
4.08
.044
Best Factors
Previous supervisory experience Full or Part time Year taught School size
3.09 1.01 1.82 2.20
2.59 1.06 1.99 2.04
10.01 4.28 2.61 3.39
.002 .040 .107 .067
Structural Factors
Sig.
% correct
59.5% (64.0%)
56.7% (77.3%) 54.5% (32.9%)
62.7% (69.2%)
Note: (1) The bold faced entries in Table 4 are the factors which significantly discriminate between the taker and the no-taker in each discriminant analysis. (2) The slightly different means between Best Factors and the same factors in other analyses are due to the list-wise deletion of cases, which resulted in slightly different sample sizes between analyses. (3) The coding pattern for each of the factors was: Sex: 1 ¼ ‘male’, 2 ¼ ‘female’. Teaching experience: 1 ¼ ‘1 year’, 2 ¼ ‘2–5 years’, 3 ¼ ‘6–10 years’, 4 ¼ ‘11–15 years’ and 5 ¼ ‘16 or more years’. Qualifications: 1 ¼ ‘2-year trained teacher’, 2 ¼ ‘3 year teaching certificate’, 3 ¼ ‘4 year degree or equivalent’, 4 ¼ ‘postgraduate diploma’, 5 ¼ ‘masters degree’, and 6 ¼ ‘doctoral degree’. Previous sup. experience: 1 ¼ ‘none’, 2 ¼ ‘1 year’, 3 ¼ ‘2–5 years’, 4 ¼ ‘6–10 years’, and 5 ¼ ‘11 or more years’ Position: 1 ¼ ‘principal’, 2 ¼ ‘deputy or assistant principal’, 3 ¼ ‘executive teacher’, 4 ¼ ‘advanced skills teacher’, and 5 ¼ ‘class teacher’. Full or part time: 1 ¼ ‘full time’, and 2 ¼ ‘permanent part-time’. Year taught: 1 ¼ ‘class in the range of Kindergarten to Year 2’, 2 ¼ ‘class in the range of Years 3–6’, and 3 ¼ ‘responsible for classes across the range of Kindergarten to year 6’ School size: 1 ¼ ‘small or less than 250 students’, 2 ¼ ‘medium or 251–500 students’ and 3 ¼ ‘large or 501 or more students’ Correlations between variables in Table 4: * ¼ significant at .05 level, ** ¼ significant at .01 level.
1. Sex 2. Teach exp. 3.Qualification 4. Super exp. 5. Position 6. Full/part 7.Year taught 8. School size
1
2
3
4
5
— .102 .143* .004 .355** .071 .136* .052
— .066 .438** .406** .054 .156** .032
— .053 .261** .111 .153** .023
— .282** .091 .014 .051
— .202** .167** .077
Table 4 contains several interesting findings. Of the Personal Factors, only previous supervisory experience discriminated significantly between the
6
7
8
— .113
—
— .117* .124
takers and the no-takers, with the takers having more supervisory experience (M ¼ 3:02 years) than the no-takers (M ¼ 2:6 years). Of the Structural
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Factors whether the teacher was full- or parttime and the Year that teachers taught both discriminated between the takers and the no-takers. More full-time teachers were amongst the takers, and the takers on average taught in earlier Years in elementary school. School size also discriminated between the takers and no-takers, with takers coming on average from larger schools. Finally, when the significant discriminators were combined in one analysis, both Year Taught and School Size dropped out of the analysis as significant predictors. This left Previous Supervisory Experience and Full or Part-time in the analysis as significant predictors. However, by far the most important variable in this discriminant function was previous supervisory experience (F ¼ 10:01, p ¼ :002). An analysis of the discriminative ‘power’ of each discriminant function (i.e. set of variables) is also of interest. The Personal Factors, Structural Factors, and School Factor correctly classify roughly the same number of cases i.e. they correctly classify takers as takers and no-takers as no-takers in between 55% and 60% (approx.) of cases. These are the un-bracketed percentages in the last column of Table 4. However, the bracketed figures in the last column of Table 4 refer only to the number of takers correctly classified as takers. This figure is potentially of more interest than the overall number of correctly classified cases because identification of those who will take students is obviously more critical for the success of practicum placement than the identification of those who will not. Both Personal Factors and Structural Factors identify the takers much better than the takers and no-takers overall, and in the case of the Structural Factors, substantially so. Thus, these factors, and particularly the significance of these factors, may be particularly salient in the profiles of practicum takers. However, for school size, the opposite is the case. This suggests that school size is a much better predictor of those who will not (or, at least, do not) take students than those who will. As might be expected, the best discriminators function correctly classified the greatest number of cases overall. However, Structural Factors still explained the greatest number of takers. It is also interesting to note that, as the overall percentage of takers in the sample was 46.8%, a ‘chance’ discriminant model (i.e. a model based on random a selection of cases) would be expected to
correctly classify about 47% of cases. In every one of our analyses the classification of takers was much higher than this percentage implicating the classificatory power of the variables in the analyses. 7. Discussion 7.1. Motivations, de-motivations and future motivations It is both interesting and encouraging to note that reasons surrounding the development of student teachers, the development of the teaching profession as a whole, and the professional development of the cooperating teacher all represent significant boosters for teachers’ motivation to take practicum students. This finding suggests that teachers’ positive motivations to take practicum students revolve around a solid set of professional commitments to self, students, and the profession. We think this is cause for, if not celebration, at least satisfying reflection. Conversely, it is also interesting to note (supporting Beck & Kosnik, 2000) that, alongside issues of availability (including position, busyness, and not being asked(!)), negative experiences with practicum students may ‘guzzle’ teachers’ motivation to take practicum students. Thus, teachers’ actual experiences with student teachers may run counter to teachers’ professional commitments to their development. It is possible to speculate that whilst teachers’ professional commitments may ‘insulate’ them to some extent from negative experiences with student teachers; prolonged experiences of this type may eventually act to undermine these commitments, and thus teachers’ motivations to take students in the future. For this reason, longevity in practicum supervision, especially amongst teachers with weaker or developing professional commitments, may be substantially reliant upon ongoing positive experiences with their student teachers. In this light, the enticers give a clue as to what positive experiences with student teachers might mean. More time with student teachers (e.g. Collins, 1998; Guyton & McIntyre, 1990), release from other duties, clearer university guidelines and administration, and even more payment (e.g. Ganser, 2002), might all make for a more positive experience for teachers. Universities should heed these enticers as they may both enhance teachers’ intrinsic boosters and inhibit their guzzlers. In other words, the
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enticers may provide the framework within which teachers’ boosters are maximised and their guzzlers minimised. Conversely, inadequate enticers may do precisely the opposite. One final way of looking at the boosters, guzzlers and enticers is in terms of school, university and student roles in facilitating cooperating teachers’ motivations to take students. For example, assuming that teachers are professionally motivated to take practicum students: (a) schools can enhance this motivation by releasing teachers as much as possible to undertake the supervisory role, (b) universities can enhance this motivation by running efficient, manageable and clearly explained practica, and (c) students can facilitate this motivation by being well prepared and working hard on practicum. When these conditions are satisfied, we speculate it is most likely that teachers’ professional commitments will come to the fore, and as a result more teachers will be ‘available’ for supervision. Conversely, we speculate that if schools will not release teachers, if universities run poorly structured practica, and if students are ill-prepared and lazy, then it is quite likely that teachers’ professional motivations to take students will be undermined, perhaps to the extent where they will be unwilling to take students, even if they are ‘objectively’ available. 7.2. Who takes students and who does not? If we were to build a profile of a teacher who may take students, as contrasted with one who may not, our research would suggest that the teacher: (a) will have more supervisory experience than a teacher who does not take students, (b) will be a full-time as opposed to part-time teacher, and (c) will teach in lower grades than a no-taking teacher. Also, while we cannot say with the same degree of confidence that ‘taking’ teachers will come from medium or larger schools, we can say that ‘notaking’ teachers are more likely to come from smaller schools. In other words, whether a teacher comes from a medium or large school does not discriminate between the takers and the no-takers as
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well as whether a teacher comes from a smaller school, which identifies the no-takers quite well. One interesting corollary of the findings above relates to what universities can and cannot control. Thus, while universities may wish to target full-time teachers, teaching younger grades in other than smaller schools in order to maximise their recruitment, they have no control over these variables. However, they do have some control (or at least influence) over the amount of supervisory experience a teacher may have. Thus, if universities are able to (not least through the judicious management of teachers’ boosters, guzzlers and enticers) initially recruit and then hold cooperating teachers they will likely be developing not only their present pool of takers, but their future pool as well. This, in turn, highlights the need to not only actively recruit teachers to practicum supervision, but to nurture teachers in that supervision so that they will be a supervisory resource both now and in the future. 7.3. Summary The results of the study do not allow us to claim that we have identified a definitive ‘formulae’ for identifying new cooperating teachers. However, we do claim that knowing something about the present ‘status’ of teachers who take practicum students, and why they do so, is an important starting point for identifying new practicum teachers. The logic underlying this assertion is that the profiles and motivations of new practicum supervisors are likely to be not too dissimilar from that of present supervisors. Hence, mapping the profiles and motivations of present cooperating teachers is likely to be an important first step to identifying and encouraging new practicum supervisors. 7.4. Limitations and directions for future research One limitation of this research is that it utilised a single method of data collection (survey items) and a single response format to those questions. We recognise, however, that teachers’ reasons for accepting student teachers (or not) are likely to be varied and complex. It may be, then, that the survey methodology used in this study may not have been sensitive to the full-range of teachers’ reasons for accepting (or not) students. One key direction for future research, then, would be to further
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investigate teachers’ reasons using different methodologies e.g. interviews with teachers (and student teachers), or focus groups. The salience of the boosters, guzzlers and enticers identified in this study, as well as others that may not have been identified, could be tested through these different methods. A second limitation relates to the rating response format used in the PMPS survey. We chose the rating response format used in this study for deliberate reasons. These reasons included, particularly, the desire to make the survey easy to complete by cooperating teachers in order to maximise the return rate, and the desire to identify, from amongst genuinely competing alternatives, the most salient boosters, guzzlers, and enticers. Despite these reasons, we recognise that the rating response format does have limitations. Perhaps the most important of these limitations is that the relationships between the individual boosters, guzzlers and enticers (e.g. boosters, guzzlers and enticers that may correlate more or less strongly with each other) cannot be examined easily in a non-parametric environment. A direction for future research, then, would be to measure the boosters, guzzlers and enticers identified in this study using (for example) a Likert-type rating scale. In this way different types of analyses may be bought to bear on the constructs. A third limitation of the research lies in the possibility that some teachers who wanted to take a practicum student were not, for a variety of reasons, able to do so. In this study, all teachers who offered to take student received one (not least because the University’s need for cooperating teachers was, and is, so great). There were, however, 17 teachers who indicated that they had not been asked to take a practicum student, and 46 teachers who said that they were ineligible to take a practicum student due to their current position in their school (and so did not make an offer). It may be that some of these ‘un-asked’ or unavailable teachers were angry or frustrated due to their unfulfilled desire to take a student, and that this possible anger or frustration may have affected their responses to the survey. Our present data did not allow us to make the distinction between teachers who wanted and received a student, from those who wanted but did not receive student. Thus, a possible direction for future research would be to examine the interaction between offering to take, and actually receiving, a practicum student, and teachers’ responses to the PMPS survey.
Despite the comments above, this study has identified important boosters, guzzlers and enticers that act to motivate, de-motivate, or future-motivate teachers to take practicum students. We are aware of no other studies that have attempted to identify these motivations (positive and negative, present and future). However, because this is an initial study, we cannot conclude that these motivations will be salient with other groups of participants. We suspect that the most significant boosters, guzzlers and enticers may be similar for similar groups of participants, but we cannot be sure of this until further research has been conducted. However, if these boosters, guzzlers, and enticers do prove to be relatively stable across groups, this would be very valuable information for university recruiters indeed. What we offer, then, is our study as a first step in the ongoing investigation of teachers’ present and future motivations to take, and not-take, practicum students. Similar comments may be made about the profile of taking versus no-taking teachers. Such a profile, if proven relatively stable across samples, may be particularly useful—if only to provide universities and schools with information about that which they may wish to change. However, again, we can make no comment from the present research as to how stable the profile we have identified here may be— only that, in the present study at least, it is fairly well defined. Again, future research may investigate the stability of this profile. Future research may also investigate interaction between teachers’ profiles and their motivations. For example, do teachers from different sized schools report different booster, guzzlers, or enticers? This sort of comparison could be made for all elements of teachers’ practicum profiles.
8. Conclusion The present research has made a first step towards investigating the motivations and profiles of teachers taking, and not taking practicum students. We think the findings of the study are illuminating, but also that they require confirmation. We hope, then, that the study will provide both a methodological and empirical basis for further investigations of its type. Such investigations should contribute to our knowledge of who takes practicum students, and what may be done to attract more teachers to this important role.
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Appendix A. Profiles and motivations for practicum survey
−
275
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i
G
. .
did not offer . .
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. .
. .
For teachers who did not offer to take a student this year: . .
. . . .
would
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. .
, ..
would
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