Professional Growth: How do Cooperating Teachers Grow Through the Experience of Having a Student Teacher?
School of Education, Gardner-Webb University
How they used Delve
A doctoral candidate at Gardner-Webb University used Delve to hold and code the focus group and interview transcripts in a mixed-methods study of how cooperating teachers grow from hosting a student teacher, running two rounds of coding and tallying code frequency per teacher.
“After the focus group met, I transcribed the meeting using the software of Delve Tool, a platform for qualitative data analysis, where the document was labeled focus group. The transcripts were prepared for analysis through the coding process, and themes began to emerge.”
- Field
- Teacher education / cooperating teachers and student teaching placements
- Data
- A cooperating teacher survey sent to 84 teachers (31 usable responses), followed by a focus group with six invited participants — two in person, two responding electronically — and individual interviews with six cooperating teachers
- Approach
- Qualitative arm of a mixed-methods study: two rounds of coding, one on the focus group and one on the interviews, keeping the same codes and subcodes across both; first reading pulled out repeated main ideas and words, second reading grouped them into categories that became themes and subthemes, with code frequency tallied per teacher
- Data types
- Focus groups, Interviews, Open-ended survey responses
Abstract
Cooperating teachers and student teachers share a unique internship that allows the development of skills for both individuals. The literature states that cooperating teachers can grow from student teachers; however, there are a few sources that state the areas in which this growth occurs. The purpose of this study was to determine if growth or impact happened in the areas of instructional practices, coaching skills, and self-efficacy during the student teaching process. This mixed methods study included a survey, focus group interview, and single interviews to determine whether any change was made. The survey created descriptive statistics, a Pearson correlation test, and interviews to balance the quantitative and qualitative data. The findings revealed that student teachers had an impact on instructional practices within the survey, focus group, and interviews. Coaching skills and self-efficacy revealed the impact was subtle as it showed in the positive correlation. The significance of these was that teachers reflect more because of the student teacher process and thus become better teachers; this leads to higher student achievement. Cooperating teachers pass on their knowledge to student teachers and colleagues by working together in collaboration and teaming to do what is best for the students.
Citation
Ashton D Coppley (2020). Professional Growth: How do Cooperating Teachers Grow Through the Experience of Having a Student Teacher?. Digital Commons, Gardner-Webb University.