A Critical Incident Study of Preservice Teachers' Beliefs about Teaching Success and Nonsuccess

Abstract

Written critical incident descriptions were collected from prospective teachers to understand what they see as salient features of their own successful and nonsuccessful teaching. Researchers reliably extracted, sorted, and categorized these features from descriptions until categories for success and nonsuccess stabilized. Participants (195, from two universities) produced 300 nonsuccess (19 categories) and 413 success (20 categories) features, providing teacher educators with indirect evidence of things their students already have learned about teaching. Many success and nonsuccess features grouped around students (over half), teacher (about a third), learning tasks, and environment. The largest number of responses in a single category was student noncompliance (29.7% of all responses) in the nonsuccessful teaching dimension.

Key Words:

• preservice teachers
• prospective teachers
• teacher trainees
• critical incidents
• teacher be liefs
• teaching success
• teaching nonsuccess
• teaching failure