Teacher educators perceptions of the existing instructional strategies in pre-service teacher education

Teachers' perceptions play an important role in developing their conceptual understanding of instructional methods. According to Marland (1994), the classroom actions of teachers are guided by internal frames of references, which are deeply rooted in personal experiences, especially in school and are based on the interpretation of those experiences. This study explored teacher educators' perceptions about the instructional strategies currently used in Diploma Education Programmes. Teachers' perceptions about instructional strategies are important to be considered and studied if we are to understand the context and dimension of their classroom practices. In the light of the literature on teacher education, the current Pre- or In- Service Teacher Education Programmes seem to be influenced mainly by teacher education orientations, but the majority of the programmes are grounded in academic orientations. Teacher education in Pakistan seems to have gone through many changes, however the lecture method still seems to dominate teacher education programmes. Findings from the study also support the view that teachers tend to use more than one instructional approach, but the lecture method seems to be dominant. Although, they also seemed to have theoretical knowledge of different methods such as discussion method, lecture-cum-demonstration method and hands-on learning approach, they lack the skills for using them in the classroom. Teacher educators do have a conceptual understanding about all the instructional strategies but their implementation, or a lack of it, is based on many factors such as; familiarity with the strategy, maximum coverage of the syllabus and exam oriented beat. Finally, certain limitations of the study are presented with some recommendations, lessons learnt and areas for future study.