A Case Study of Student Teachers' Changing Self-perceptions in a Field Experience Setting

In the field of education new teacher candidates may not be exposed to best practices and given constructive feedback. In fact, student teachers may be at risk of not recognizing their own growing abilities as teachers, which can impact their performance in the classroom. Student teachers' perceptions of their own teaching abilities are greater when master teachers model best practices and provide constructive feedback during the field experience rotation. When student teachers feel as though there has not been sufficient modeling of best practices by the master teacher or that the master teacher provided inadequate feedback, the students can develop low self-esteem and/or poor self-image about their own teaching abilities. Thus the investigation of student teachers' self-perceptions was of utmost importance. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover how the self-perceptions of student teachers evolved over the course of a field rotation and to determine what events student teachers believed positively influenced those perceptions during their field rotation under the guidance of a master teacher. Interviews were conducted with eight student teachers at both the beginning and ending of the field placements, and journals were kept by the student teachers throughout the field placement to obtain information about how the student teachers' self-perceptions evolved. An analysis of the data revealed that, student teachers were generally confident about their own abilities to teach at the beginning of a field placement but there was still a growth in confidence levels after the experience was completed. This was attributed to having experiences in the field, having an opportunity to see real-life teachers model teaching in the field, receiving feedback from a master teacher in the field, and self-reflecting on their overall field experiences.