Becoming a teacher: preservice teacher education using personal construct theory

Preservice teacher education programmes require student teachers to observe and assess, both formally and informally, their own and others’ teaching. This is done so that student teachers can understand and absorb knowledge and skills pertinent to classroom teaching. Such knowledge and skills are then practised in simulated and real teaching situations. During this phase the student teacher is observed and assessed by teacher educators and supervising teachers. Observation and assessment procedures used by both student teachers and supervisors are based on studies of teachers and their teaching. Two traditions of studying teachers and their teaching have emerged over the past fifty years: the psychometric and the phenomenological. These two traditions must be seen as complementing each other in terms of validating generalizations about teaching, providing stimulus materials for teacher education programmes and providing as wide a range of procedures for student teachers and supervisors to observe and assess teaching. Procedures developed from personal construct theory (PCT) are in the phenomenological tradition. Such procedures can help student teachers to explore the mental world of the teacher, to show the student the variety of decisions to be made when teaching and guide the student in the transformation from tertiary student to teacher. The use of personal construct theory procedures provides the means for student teacher and supervisor/teacher educator to discuss and examine all aspects of teaching in a counselling situation.