Negotiating an apprenticeship of observation: an investigation of second-level pre-service teachers' conceptions of teaching

This study problematised pre-service teachers’ talk about their ‘apprenticeship of observation’. This construct is consistently presented in research as a limiting factor on pre-service teachers’ conceptions of teaching, their agency and their professional development. Employing a discourse analysis methodology, the study engaged 42 pre-service teachers on post-primary, concurrent, initial teacher education programmes in semi-structured interviews. The study utilised two psychological theoretical lenses; the Self Memory System and Identity Status with the aim of exploring the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ construct and its impact on pre-service teachers’ teaching conceptions. Using the Self Memory System Theory lens, the research found that pre-service teachers’ agentically constructed their memories of the ‘apprenticeship of observation’, thereby making it a unique construct to each individual pre-service teacher. Using Identity Status Theory, analysis of the participants’ career choice decisions established that a high percentage of participants appeared to present at the time of interview with a ‘foreclosed’ identity status; they closed on a goal of teaching early in their schooling. This identity status is associated with cognitive traits that could result in resistant, simplistic teaching conceptions and practices. This finding suggested that a high number of participants’ experience of schooling was channelled through an underdeveloped, individual schema that enabled them to interpret information about teaching to help them achieve their career goal. Furthermore, it corroborated the findings that suggested that participants had some agency in the construction of the memory-set of their schooling period, thereby reinforcing the notion of the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ as a bespoke individual construction. These research findings highlight the need for teacher educators to re-examine the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ construct. Furthermore, they suggest that infusing psychological constructs to pedagogical work in initial teacher education could support new understandings of long-held assumptions underpinning teacher educators’ beliefs about preservice teachers’ learning and experiences during their schooling.