HEI school partnership in initial teacher training: the balance of HEI-school responsibilities for, and the nature of, secondary PGCE courses

摘要

This study examines the balance of HEI-school responsibilities for secondary PGCE courses, and extends previous work in this dimension of partnership by moving beyond the perspective of HEI course managers through content analysis of HEI course documentation and interviews with HEI course leaders. The views of mentor, school ITT co-ordinator, university tutor, and student participants in these courses were also examined, through a questionnaire survey across ten HEI-school partnerships. More specifically, the aim has been to examine the balance of HEI-school responsibility for: course planning and organisation; the assessment of students' teaching; and the assessment of students' work other than teaching. Here, as in other aspects of the study, the experience of participants has been analysed at the level of the overall course, and from the perspective of each of the participant roles. A second, more extensive, aim of the study has been to establish the nature of these courses, particularly within a framework of what may be ailed 'technical', 'interpretive', and 'critical' conceptions of teaching This model has also been extended to the importance placed upon the foci of students' reflection, and other aspects of the nature of teachers', tutors' and students' work on PGCE courses. The implications of these course characteristics in terms of the forms of teacher professionalism associated with them provides a complementary theme which runs through the study. The latter part of this thesis includes a survey of four School Centred Initial Teacher Training Schemes. Differences between data from the HEI documentation, and the perspectives of HEI course leaders, and the teacher, tutor, and student participants have been examined. The association between the balance of HEI-school responsibilities and the nature of courses was also examined, with particular reference to the evident association of shared HEI-school course responsibilities with course experiences, which may support the development of extended forms of professionalism.