Student teachers' self-regulated learning

Abstract

The focus of this thesis is on student teachers’ self-regulated learning in a dual learning programme, in which learning in practice and at university are combined. These programmes, especially one-year post-graduate teacher education programmes only form a very time-limited intervention in the professional development of a teacher. Therefore, it is extremely important that these programmes support the development of student teachers’ conceptions and skills necessary for their further professional development as a teacher. The quality of student teachers’ learning depends for a significant part on the ability to control and steer their learning. Currently, detailed descriptions of how and to what extent student teachers regulate their learning to teach, as well as how it develops throughout a dual learning programme are lacking. Therefore, the main research question of this dissertation was: What is the nature and development of student teachers’ self-regulated learning in a dual learning programme? To answer this research question, two empirical studies have been carried out. In the first study, student teachers’ regulation activities and their learning conceptions were examined with an open question log. The results showed that the relations among the various regulation activities could be described by an underlying structure of two dimensions: passive versus active regulation of learning and prospective versus retrospective regulation of learning. Active regulation dominated in practice schools, passive regulation at the university. Most student teachers showed multiple types of regulation while learning in a dual learning programme, and almost all student teachers showed at least once within their six learning experiences an active way of regulating their learning. Furthermore, the relation between student teachers’ learning conception and regulation pattern turned out to be more complex than has been suggested by academic learning theories. The large variety in regulation of learning within student teachers, showed that exploring one learning experience is not enough to give a valid estimation of student teachers’ regulation of learning. To be able to collect longitudinal data of multiple learning experiences in a larger sample, a structured log, called Learning Report, was developed based on the descriptions from the answers on the open questions from the first study. This instrument was used in the second study to describe student teachers’ development in self-regulated learning throughout a dual learning programme. A longitudinal design with three measurement occasions was adopted in this study, in which 81 (90%) student teachers from two tracks of one dual teacher education programme participated. Results showed that student teachers became more passive in their regulation throughout the programme. In terms of learning orientations, only one third of the student teachers changed in the direction of the desired independent meaning-oriented way of learning, while the others changed away from it or kept the same orientation over time. Also differences between the job-track and intern-track of the programme in learning orientations were found, in favour of the job-track. The results show that more specific interventions need to be developed to increase student teachers’ conceptions and skills to become a self-regulated lifelong learning teacher.