Lack of progression is the dividing line: mentoring teachers’ perspectives on student teachers’ emotional challenges during work placement education

ABSTRACT

Student teachers commonly report encountering emotional challenges in work placements during teacher education. Even so, the perspective of mentoring teachers has been given little attention regarding the student teachers’ emotional challenges. In this study, the authors’ aim is to investigate what mentoring teachers perceive to be the emotional challenges student teachers face and what support they think they can offer student teachers. A sample of 25 Swedish mentoring teachers participated in an interview study. According to the findings, the mentoring teachers reported three main emotional challenges that they perceived that student teachers encounter: conflicts with/among pupils, encountering diverse pupil populations and dealing with failure. Mentoring teachers’ reports can be understood in the light of their idea of what work placement should be. Their rationales included the need for student teachers to be either exposed to ‘reality’ or protected from worst-case scenarios.

KEYWORDS:

• Mentoring
• teacher education
• emotional challenges
• constructivist grounded theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council [grant number 2018-04098].

Notes on contributors

Henrik Lindqvist

Henrik Lindqvist PhD is Associate Professor at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linkoping University in Sweden. His research areas are (1) student teachers learning from, and coping with, emotionally challenging situations in teacher education, and (2) special education.

Maria Weurlander

Maria Weurlander PhD is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the Department of Education at Stockholm University in Sweden. Her main research focuses are on student learning in higher education, and student teachers’ and medical students’ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training.

Linda Barman

Linda Barman PhD, is a Lecturer in Technology and Learning at the Department of Learning in Engineering Sciences. Her research focuses on change and development in higher education with emphasis on professions’ education, and higher education teachers’ learning and development related to change processes.

Annika Wernerson

Annika Wernerson PhD, MD, is Professor in Renal and Transplantation Science at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology (CLINTEC) at Karolinska Institutet, where she is Academic Vice President of Higher Education. Her research areas in medical education focus on learning in higher education and medical students’ and student teachers’ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training and early professional life.

Robert Thornberg

Robert Thornberg PhD, is Professor of Education at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linkoping University in Sweden. His main focuses are on (a) bullying and peer victimization among children and adolescents in school settings, (b) values education, rules, and social interactions in everyday school life, and (c) student teachers and medical students’ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training.