| The purpose of this study was to identify the patterns of expressed concerns of elementary student teachers. The questions which guided this study were: (1) What are the concerns of elementary student teachers during their experiences? (2) Are there common patterns demonstrated in the data? If so, do they change over time? (3) Do the patterns match one or more of the theories of stage development for student teaching?; The principal method of investigation was a qualitative analysis of journals written by 12 student teachers. Informal interviews were conducted with the student teachers to clarify their journal entries. The patterns of concerns that emerged from the journals were organized into six major categories: (a) anxiety, (b) classroom management, (c) self, (d) curriculum/methodology, (e) children, and (f) cooperating teacher. Quotations from the journals were used to describe the experiences and concerns perceived by the informants.; The results indicated that there were common patterns of concerns expressed by this group of elementary student teachers and those concerns changed and recurred over time. The results further indicated that the concerns expressed by this group were similar to those in early studies, but did not match sequential or clustered models of student teaching development. The results of this study were similar to models which included simultaneous and recurrent patterns of concern during the student teaching experience. Furthermore, the journal entries indicated an earlier involvement with deeper issues than noted in previous studies.; Findings generated in this study included: (1) The concerns of the student teachers shifted with the level of responsibility for instruction and expectations of the cooperating teacher and college supervisor. (2) The cooperating teacher/student teacher relationship was a predominant source of concern. (3) Ten out of 12 of the informants appeared to retain the beliefs and philosophy that they brought to the student teaching experience. |
