Student teachers’ classroom management during the school internship

ABSTRACT

Classroom management (CM) is one of the core issues in student teachers’ learning. In teacher education, however, CM often has a marginal place in the curriculum. This is striking, since most student teachers struggle with this competence, especially during their internship. This study investigated the intended CM internship curriculum. The intended curriculum for CM is mapped by analysing curricular documents (written curriculum), by interviewing teacher educators (ideal/preferred curriculum) and by comparing these findings to topics suggested by literature (theoretical curriculum). A variety of potential CM topics emerges from the literature, but limited and implicit attention for CM was found in the written curriculum. For the preferred curriculum, teacher educators recognised CM as essential, considering student teachers’ relationship with pupils’ as the core of CM. In addition, they stressed the practical side of CM: encouraging student teachers to get experience and expand their repertoire by teaching independently.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom management
• teacher education curriculum
• workplace learning

1. Introduction

It is widely known that beginning teachers experience problems with the gap between teacher education and everyday practice in the classroom, in particular with respect to classroom management (CM) (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Dicke et al. 2015). Research has shown that teachers who manage their classroom effectively have a better teacher–student relationship and realise higher cognitive and affective outcomes for their pupils (Hattie 2009; Wubbels et al. 2006, 2015). Effective teaching and learning cannot take place in poorly managed classrooms (Jones and Jones 2012; Marzano, Marzano, and Pickering 2003). Inadequate CM is not only one of the crucial beginning teachers’ problems, it is also one of the main causes for stress, lack of job satisfaction and teacher dropout (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Walker 2009; Chang 2009).

Despite the widely acknowledged importance of CM, the concept seems to be undervalued in the teacher education curriculum and several researchers have noted issues with the topic of CM in teacher education, for example a gap between the CM research knowledge base and the content of teacher education programmes (Freeman et al. 2014), limited content and exposure of CM in the teacher education curriculum (Jones 2006; O’Neill and Stephenson 2011), disagreement on what should be taught for CM in the curriculum (Stewart-Wells 2000), lack of visibility of CM in the curriculum (O’Neill and Stephenson 2011) and ineffective strategies taught for CM (Oliver and Reschly 2010). Various European and American scholars (van Tartwijk and Hammerness 2011; Stough 2006; Wubbels 2011) therefore have asked for more attention on CM in teacher education curricula. The aforementioned studies mainly focused on the role of CM in the institutional part of teacher education, less research has been done on the role of CM during the internship part of the teacher education curriculum. It is not clear what actually should be present in the curriculum in terms of content and practice during the school internship. This is remarkable, since a large portion of most teacher education programmes takes place at practice schools during an internship period, and many student teachers often indicate that this period is essential to the development and mastering of CM competence (Stough et al. 2006).

Bridging this gap between CM theory and teacher education practice and meeting student teachers’ needs fits the international tendency in teacher education of positioning a teacher curriculum with sufficient attention for CM at the workplace (Dicke et al. 2015; Jenset, Klette, and Hammerness 2018; Hammerness and Kennedy 2019). Also, much of what we know about CM is based on ’written curricula’, but little is known about teacher educators’ views on the place of CM in the teacher education curriculum and about what the literature indicates as being relevant for CM in the teacher educational curriculum. These elements form the core of studying the intended curriculum (Thijs and van den Akker 2009). As research shows, there is often a discrepancy between the intended and implemented curriculum. This lack of coherence is explained by teachers and learners’ views and needs. As a result, this might have an effect on learning outcomes. Hence, it is important to interpret what is intended in the curriculum (Thijs and van den Akker 2009; Wayne et al. 2008).

For this reason, we set out to research how much attention is given to CM in the context of one teacher education curriculum in the Netherlands. This teacher education institute is representative for a large part of teacher education in the Netherlands, namely those programmes taught at universities of applied science (in Dutch: ‘hogescholen’)¹ that prepare students for teaching in secondary education.

2. Theoretical framework

In order to research the attention given to CM in the teacher education internship period, the following sub-topics will be discussed: the definition of classroom management, learning during the internship phase and curricular representations.

2.1 The definition of classroom management

There is not one broadly accepted definition of CM (Hammerness 2011). This is possibly due to its complexity (Martin et al. 2016). According to Brophy (2006) CM refers to ’actions taken to create and maintain a learning environment conductive to successful instruction (arranging the physical environment, establishing rules and procedures, maintaining students’ attention to lessons and engagement in activities)’ (p. 17).

Evertson and Weinstein (2006) refer to these actions by describing five components in their definition of CM. In order to attain high-quality CM, they argue that teachers must (1) develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils, (2) organise and implement instruction in ways that optimise pupils’ access to learning, (3) encourage pupils’ engagement in academic tasks, (4) promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation and (5) use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems.

We regard these specific goals as the core of CM competence and they are the basis of our analytical framework in this study, in line with various recent European CM studies (Korpershoek et al. 2016; Girardet 2018).

In both the definitions of Brophy and Evertson and Weinstein, the importance of actions taken by the teacher to facilitate learning among the students is emphasised. Furthermore, Evertson and Weinstein seem to indicate the ongoing interaction between teachers and their pupils in their definition.

2.2 Learning during the internship period

During a large part of their teacher education curriculum, the vast majority of student teachers are placed in a special context (a professional development school; PDS) whereby institutional courses are integrated in the context of the workplace. Important to note that this is the main difference with regular practice schools, where no teacher curriculum components are taught in the school context. Also, supervising teachers at PDS schools receive training from the university and obtain time from school management for student-teacher supervision, where this is not necessarily the case at regular practice schools. The PDS is an intensified collaboration between teacher education institutes and secondary schools, which aims to reduce the gap between theory and practice (as experienced by novices) and where teacher education, research and professional development of teachers go hand-in-hand (Darling-Hammond 2005; Helms-Lorenz et al. 2018). In the PDS selected for this study, all curriculum courses were given at the PDS, not at the teacher education institute. From recent studies, there are indications that PDS show better results in terms of student-teacher development than regular practice schools (Helms-Lorenz et al. 2018). Interestingly, it is unclear what this means for student teachers’ CM competence development during their internship period.

2.3 Curricular representations

A distinction is often made between three representations of the curriculum: the intended, implemented and attained curriculum (Thijs and van den Akker 2009). The present study is a first exploration in studying the role of CM during the internship part of the teacher education curriculum; therefore, the intended curriculum is the first aspect being analysed. According to Thijs and van den Akker (2009), the intended curriculum can be divided into two elements: the ideal (or preferred) curriculum, which is the ‘vision’ (rationale or basic philosophy underlying the curriculum), and the formal ‘written’ curriculum (intentions as specified in curricular documents and materials). In order to put these two elements into perspective, a description of the theoretically recommended CM attention is added in the present study. These steps follow the curriculum development process indicated by Thijs and van den Akker (2009), as they indicate that curriculum development often starts with a fundamental analysis of the current situation, needs and knowledge base. Subsequently, based on these elements, this leads to guidelines that form the basis of design principles, that will be shaped more concretely after an analysis of the implemented and attained curriculum (Thijs and van den Akker 2009). The choice of our design is thus both a strength as well as a limitation, as it allows for a more in-depth analysis of the intended state, but does not show the transfer of this state to one of implementation or attained results. However, the choice for this seemed justified, given the current lack of research on the role of CM in the internship curriculum. To come to this theoretically advised content for the CM curriculum, both editions of the Handbook of Research on Classroom Management (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Emmer and Sabornie 2015) were used as main source.

This study investigates the following main research question: What does the intended (PDS) school-based part of the curriculum concerning classroom management look like in terms of the written and preferred curriculum, and how does it compare to the theoretically suggested curriculum content?

The following sub-questions were investigated:

- What are, in the Handbook of Classroom Management as seminal work, seen as relevant topics for the CM curriculum?

- What is written in curricular documents of the teacher education programme studied in this context concerning CM learning?

- What are teacher educators’ preferences for CM attention in the curriculum of the mentioned teacher education programme?

In answering these questions, specific focus – although not exclusively – is given to the school-based (e.g. internship) part of the curriculum.

3. Method

The present study employed a qualitative research approach, using a single case study design. The research questions were addressed by (a) identifying relevant CM curriculum topics in the Handbook of Research on Classroom Management, (b) analysing curricular documents for the intended CM curriculum, and (c) interviewing teacher educators who taught in the context of the programme, regarding their preferred intended CM curriculum.

3.1 Context

This research focuses in particular on the fourth, and final year, of teacher education for secondary education in the context of a programme of one University of Applied Science. During this year, student teachers have their most lengthy internship period (certainly in comparison with earlier school-based learning periods), in which they work at the school as a relatively autonomous teacher an entire academic year running from September until June. They teach their own classes and perform tasks comparable to any other teacher in the school.

The teacher education institute at which this research was done, collaborates with several PDS networks. In these networks, student teachers learn in peer-groups, which consist of multiple student teachers supervised by different institute-based and school-based teacher educators. Most of these networks offer internship placements for the teacher education curriculum from years 1 through 4. The internship part of the curriculum consists of activities at the practice school, such as teaching classes observed by school-based educators, and thematic or peer coaching meetings. These meetings at the PDS school are supervised by both teacher education institute educators and school-based teacher educators. The curriculum is set up similarly at different practice schools. Peer coaching meetings are formal sessions organised by the teacher educators to discuss student teachers’ learning-related issues. Also, the teacher educators provide (individual) feedback and coaching.

Positionality

The first author works as a teacher educator at the teacher training institute where this research was held. However, the author was not involved in designing any of the components of the written curriculum. The second and third author were not involved in the programme or the context of research.

3.2 Data collection and participants

To establish the most relevant topics for the theoretical CM curriculum, both editions of the Handbook of Classroom Management (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Wubbels et al. 2015) were used as unique and primary data source, because these are the most comprehensive publications concerning CM. These are the only scientific handbooks uniquely focusing on CM. Whereas the first edition presented the still widely accepted definition of CM (Korpershoek et al. 2016; Girardet 2018), the historical development of CM and subsequent developing ideas and research in the field of CM, the second edition addressed some continued lines of research from the first handbook and new recently emerging topics in the development of CM of the last decade (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Wubbels et al. 2015). Some chapters of the 2015 edition show great overlap with the 2006 edition. In these cases, the most recent chapters were chosen to select because these were the most comprehensive chapters. In the present study the focus is on student-teacher classroom management competence development in teacher education. Therefore, the main interest is on broad, generic CM topics, relevant for all student teachers, regardless of the school subject or context, as well as CM pedagogical approaches and principles in teacher education. For each chapter the first, second and third author determined, independent from one another, what the central, most dominant, theme(s) or topic(s) were in terms of (student) teachers learning, and these were mapped onto the framework as proposed by Evertson and Weinstein (2006), whereby themes sometimes could be linked to multiple components of their framework. Afterwards, they compared the similarities and differences, and discussed these until consensus was reached.

In order to study the written intended curriculum in the selected teacher education programme, the attention for CM in 13 documents focussing on the first 3 years of the curriculum was investigated first, by analysing curricular documents addressing these specific years. Subsequently, all available curricular documents used specifically in the fourth-year curriculum were analysed. In total, three documents for this fourth year were analysed: (1) the professional development school document (PDS: a vision and organisational document), (2) the professional development curriculum document (PDC), issued by the teacher education institute, containing general learning goals for the student teachers, and (3) a document describing the pedagogical research course (PRC: competence development research project with emphasis on the pedagogical teachers’ role). This last one is a research course the student teachers are enrolled in during their internship period.

In order to study the ideal written curriculum and the preferred content, one school network of the programme was selected, and six teacher educators were interviewed. They were all the responsible teacher educators for the curriculum in this network. In Table 1, a short overview is provided regarding the interviewed participants: their fictional name, gender, experience, whether they are a school-based or institute-based teacher educator and their educational background. Informed consent was organised and educators participated on a voluntary basis. They were informed that all data were treated confidentially.

Table 1. Interviewed teacher educators, gender, experience, teacher educator type and educational background.

Participant	Male/Female	Years of experience	Type educator
Mark	M	10	School-based
Judith	F	15	School-based
Theo	M	7	Institute-based
Eline	F	4	School-based
Paul	M	7	Institute-based
Herman	M	4	School-based

3.3 Instruments

The data were collected, audiotaped and analysed using the case study analysis approach (Yin 1994). In order to map the ideal curriculum, the teacher educators were interviewed in two rounds. In the first round, the focus of the interviews was to understand the rationale underlying the written curriculum, and getting an overview of CM attention in the curriculum. The interviews were semi-structured, and the questions asked served the purpose of trying to identify the presence of the concept of CM as formulated by Evertson and Weinstein (2006). As a result, we obtained an overview of where and how CM occurred in the curriculum. In order to validate these data, and to dig deeper concerning certain aspects, a second round of interviews was held. In this second round, the answers of the first round were verified (member check), and more specifically focus was put onto learning content and objectives of CM in the curriculum by asking additional questions on teacher educators’ views on the attention for CM in the curriculum. Both interview rounds were held via face-to-face conversations, took approximately 45 minutes per conversation and were audiotaped for analytical purposes.

3.4 Analysis

The core of the analytical framework was the components of CM (Evertson and Weinstein 2006). In addition, we also looked at didactical principles mentioned in the data that described how to (best) teach CM to student teachers, such as teaching methods, theoretical framing, sequencing, the role of the teacher educator, and so on. The first and second author coded the full data set (documents and interviews) independently (coding scheme based on the analytical framework), and discussed differences and similarities, in order to achieve consensus.

4. Findings

In Table 2, an overview of the findings from the literature, documents and teacher educators interviews is given. As can be seen in Table 2, most attention is given to the CM components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’, ‘promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation’ and ‘use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems’. This is particularly visible in the theoretical and ideal curriculum. Less attention is given to the other components.

Table 2. Overview overall research outcomes.

Intended	Theoretical (Literature)	Written (documents)	Ideal (Educators)
Components of CM	# of topics	# of CM courses	# of educators referring to a sub-category (n = 6)
(1) develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils	6 topics Interpersonal perspective/Communication en interaction/Relationships between children and teachers/Social and emotional learning/Teacher-student interactions and relationships/Skills for communication and interpersonal interaction	1 course in year 1 Content: the interpersonal relationship in the classroom.	6 educators Topics: interpersonal skills, relation with pupils and class
(2) organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning	2 topics Process-outcome approaches for effective CM/Teacher support	1 course in year 2 Content: coaching pupils’ learning, learning concepts and processes	1 educator Topic: learning processes
(3) encourage pupils’ engagement in academic tasks	-	-	1 educator Topic: subject-pedagogical skills
(4) promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation	6 topics The role of the community in the context of the school/Social motivation/Social interdependence/Preventive teachers’ CM strategies/School-wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS)/Rewards, motivation and behaviour	-	4 educators Topics: SWPBS, mentorship
(5) use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems	6 topics Behavioural approaches/Dealing with problematic behaviour/Bullying prevention and intervention/Strategies for structuring school discipline/Perspectives on CM and ethics/Student perceptions of CM and misbehaviour	-	5 educators Topics: classroom and schoolwide rules, problematic pupils’ behaviour, steps in handling disruptive behaviour
CM-workplace educational didactical principles	Ecological approaches/Programs for preventing and solving discipline problems Pedagogical coursework/supervised field practica (added with reflective activities, portfolios, videos)/programs such as SWPBS/positive, preventive and proactive strategies to prevent problematic pupil behaviour/mentoring		Students are in the lead of own learning process, relationship with pupils is the core of CM, practical side of CM (experience in teaching) is essential

4.1 Relevant topics according to the literature

In both editions of the Handbook of Classroom Management (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Wubbels et al. 2015) relevant topics for an intended CM curriculum were mentioned. In this section, each topic is briefly elaborated, and an overview of the different topics is presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Overview findings in literature.

CM Component	Topic	Chapters
Develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’	Interpersonal perspective	Wubbels et al. (2006)
	Communication en interaction	Morine-Dershimer (2006)
	Relationships between children and teachers	Pianta (2006)
	Social-emotional learning	Schwab and Elias (2015)
	Teacher-student interactions and relationships	Wubbels et al. (2015)
	Skills for communication and interpersonal interaction	Raczynski and Horne (2015)
Organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils access to learning	Process-outcome approaches for effective CM	Gettinger and Kohler (2006)
	Teacher support	McCaslin, Sotardi, and Vega (2015)
Promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation	The role of the community in the context of the school	Watson and Battistich (2006)
	Social motivation	Wentzel (2006)
	Social interdependence	Johnson and Johnson (2006)
	Preventive teachers’ CM strategies	Bear (2015)
	School-wide positive behaviour support (SWPBS)	Lewis, Mitchell, Trussel, and Newcomber (2015)
	Rewards, motivation and behaviour	Reeve (2015)
Use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems	Behavioural approaches	Landrum and Kauffman (2006)
	Dealing with problematic behaviour	Robinson and Ricord Griesemer (2006)
	Bullying prevention and intervention	Espelage (2015)
	Strategies for structuring school discipline	Skiba and Rausch (2015)
	Perspectives on CM and ethics	Bullough Jr. and Richardson (2015)
	Student perceptions of CM and misbehaviour	Montuoro and Lewis (2015)

The component ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’ was visible in various topics discussed in the handbooks. A central topic for this component was the interpersonal perspective, with attention for views on teaching, communicative systems, the model for interpersonal teacher behaviour and, consequently, the various types of teacher styles, teacher-student interpersonal relationships, communication and interaction in the classroom and social-emotional learning.

The component ‘organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning’, was visible in two topics: (1) process-outcome approaches, and (2) teacher support strategies to promote pupils’ self-regulated learning.

The component ‘promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation’ was visible in six different topics. First, the topic social motivation and social interdependence concerns effective strategies for pupils to meet their goals. Second, teachers should know why and when rewards work; third, how to promote certain support in classroom engagement, and, fourth, focus on preventive strategies in the curriculum. Fifth, teachers should be aware of the role of the community in the context of the school. Sixth, the topic School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPB) offers a school-wide approach to promote social skills and self-regulation and to reduce problematic pupil behaviour.

Concerning the component ‘use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems’, again six topics were found: (1) behavioural approaches, (2) dealing with problematic behaviour, (3) bullying prevention and intervention, (4) strategies for structuring school discipline, (5) perspectives on CM and ethics, and (6) student perceptions of CM and misbehaviour.

All studied chapters in Handbook of Classroom Management (Wubbels et al. 2015) primarily focused on the theoretical explanation of the topic and discuss the current state in academic research. However, overall, the chapters did offer some practical suggestions for the setup of teacher education, though they were mentioned in the Handbook only to a limited degree. Six chapters contained sections that specifically mentioned insights or design principles for teacher education and professional development. Doyle (2006) described ecological approaches, in which multiple factors in and around the classroom are taken into account. Freiberg and Lapointe (2006) argued for implementing programmes in the curriculum for preventing and solving discipline problems. Bullough Jr. and Richardson (2015) summed up what was known from student-teacher perspectives about CM based on various research in multiple settings. Wubbels et al. (2015) discussed various research into interventions that aim to help student teachers to develop productive relationships with their pupils. Two other chapters specifically focussed on the question how a teacher can be an effective classroom manager, and how this should be taught at in the curriculum. Jones (2006) argued for CM coursework in small classes, time for self-examination and extensive knowledge and skill development, field experiences and coaching by mentor teachers and supervisors. Stough and Montague (2015) argued for pedagogical coursework, supervised field practice (with in addition reflective activities, portfolios, videos), specific programmes such as SWPBS, mentoring and teaching positive, preventive and proactive strategies to prevent problematic pupil behaviour. The chapters did not specifically distinguish between the institutional part of teacher education and the school-based part of teacher education.

4.2 The intended curriculum according to curricular documents

Where and how CM has a place in the written curriculum of the selected teacher education programme is reported in this section. In the first year, the curriculum, as described in one course guide, in terms of CM, focusses on the interpersonal relationship between teachers and pupils in the classroom. More specifically the focus is on communication, social processes between teacher and pupils, and group-processes in the classroom (pedagogical classroom climate). In the second year, as described in another course guide, the focus is on coaching pupils’ (learning) processes (e.g. cognitive psychology, pedagogical and learning skills). These topics are viewed by the educators seen as elementary CM knowledge and skills. In year 3, as described in a course guide, the student teachers conduct a case study, in which they focus on a pedagogical topic related to their classroom practice, which could be related to CM if the student-teacher choose to do so. This principle is also the basis of the fourth year of the curriculum. The content of the curriculum in the fourth year focuses on three main aspects: the internship and a research project conducted in relation to the internship (student teachers are free to choose the pedagogical/educational topic), extra-curricular workshops organised by and at the practice school, and peer coaching meetings. By analysing the four documents for the fourth year, it became clear that the curriculum explicitly describes the overall framework for student learning, but not the content itself. In year 4, student teachers choose the focus of their action research project, based on their developmental needs. However, there are some implicit objectives that are related to the CM-definition in our theoretical framework. This is especially the case in the PDC document, the document which sets the general goals of workplace learning. The student teachers need to ’Create a safe, supporting and stimulating classroom climate, in which learning can take place (.) and respects differences in pupils’ social-emotional needs and promotes pupils’ learning’. Although CM is not mentioned, the content of the learning outcome relates implicitly to the components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’, ‘organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning’ and ‘encourage pupils’ engagement in academic tasks’. Student teachers take the initiative in choosing their learning goals, related to the goals of the courses and their own developmental needs. The pedagogical development course (PRC) gives the student teacher the opportunity to choose their own focus to study a specific topic in line with their learning goals. Should the student teacher decide to focus on a topic related to CM, the attention for CM could potentially be 100%. When the student teacher decides not to focus on CM, the attention could be 0%.

The PDS document describes extra-curricular workshops as part of the internship. These are formal meetings, offered by the educators and experts in the school. Five workshops were planned: mentorship, inclusive education, street culture, parental meetings and the preparation for job interviews. More specifically, the first three workshops relate to CM learning topics.

The peer coaching meetings are also described in the PDS document. During these meetings, the student teachers discuss internship issues they encounter with their fellow peers. No topics are specified in the document, CM is potentially a topic of discussion if it emerges from students’ needs or concerns.

To conclude, a fair amount of CM focus is intended in the first half of the teacher education curriculum (years one and two), which mainly takes place at the teacher education institute. Topics mentioned relate to the components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’ and ‘organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning’ (Evertson and Weinstein 2006). In documents describing the second half of the intended curriculum, the topic of CM is not explicitly mentioned once, but may emerge as a potential topic depending on student-teacher needs.

4.3 The intended curriculum according to the teacher educators

In the interviews the focus was primarily on mapping teacher educators’ ideals behind the CM attention in the workplace learning curriculum. According to all teacher educators, CM should be an important focus of the internship part of the curriculum and the core of fourth-year student teachers’ learning.

Participants were asked to define the rationale for CM in the curriculum. They all seemed to have a definition of CM in the workplace curriculum, in which they mainly outlined and connected the components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’ and ‘organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning’.

For example, Paul stated that the content of CM is ‘everything teachers do to facilitate the learning of their pupils. There is an organisational component, but it is aimed at pupils’ learning, so what actions should you take as a teacher to ensure that your students learn? The answer to that question is all you need to take into account concerning CM.’

Mark: ‘CM is everything you can use to make things run smoothly. From curriculum, using models, activating prior knowledge, up to and including measures to maintain order. There is something technical, organisational, but there is also something mental, you need to have the experience to get control.’

Interestingly, only one teacher educator mentioned subject-pedagogical skills as a CM principle. All others emphasised other CM components.

Three teacher educators explicitly described the main aim of CM competence development for the final year of teacher education: ‘The aim is to make 4^th year student teachers, beginning teachers, who can teach unsupervised and independently.’ (Eline).

Paul: ‘Ultimately, he must be able to independently facilitate the classroom climate for his pupils, in which learning can take place.’

Theo: ‘A student teacher who graduates should be able to act appropriately, using different ways of teaching, and if a method does not work, he must be able to switch to something else. It is important to have a repertoire. And to show exemplary behaviour, provide structure and clarity. First working on the relationship with pupils, then performance.’ Interpersonal teacher skills are the key here, as these statements show.

As described in the document analysis, the student teachers were free to choose their competence development topics in the fourth year. This means student teachers need to be able to self-regulate their CM learning, to some extent. ‘A 4^th year student who is starting out must be able to look at themselves, at their strengths and weaknesses. And they should know what they need to work on. This implies self-knowledge, and the attitude and skills to be aware of their role in CM processes and acting accordingly.’ (Judith)

Also, various workshops were organised by the teacher educators, in order to promote student teachers learning, for tasks closely related to CM: ‘the workshop street culture gives student teachers more insight in the population they actually have in their classrooms’. (Herman)

Another interesting point of view regarding CM learning aims was something Mark noted: ‘A school is a learning community, everything happens there and you can’t participate as a loner (.) we are all responsible for the well-being of all pupils (.) If you are separated from the rest, you are no longer an integral part of a whole. Therefore, we need to work together to manage the classrooms, and the school as well.’In this view, the aim was connected to the topic of SWPBS, which means that teachers are not only responsible for CM in their own classroom, but also for maintaining and upholding CM agreements within the whole school.

As for the content of CM learning, all teacher educators mentioned the component ‘use appropriate interventions to assist students with behaviour problems’, as an important component. They mentioned that their student teachers have had challenges with typical CM situations and dealing with disruptions and pupils’ behaviour. Herman described this as follows: ‘Dealing with disruptions is what all students’ questions are about. This is what concerns them, makes them insecure, but also what makes them learn.’

Concerning principles for teacher education, according to teacher educators, CM is best learned by simply engaging in the act of teaching: ‘As a teacher you only learn how to deal with CM challenges in the classroom. I don’t think you can learn that solely by studying literature. CM is often a kind of intuition. It is a feeling, in finding out what suits you best. And by doing so they get more experience and add to their repertoire of CM strategies.’ (Mark)

Four educators explicitly indicated that student teachers need to have a sufficient amount of theoretical knowledge regarding CM: ‘(.) in the 4th year, student teachers should have obtained theoretical knowledge about educational psychology, social-emotional development, learning problems, sociology etc.’ (Theo)This fundamental knowledge is needed for student teachers to act based on established principles, ‘steps in handling disruptive behaviour’, as five educators explicitly described. The teacher educators all seemed to argue CM is a multi-level phenomenon, in which some components, such as establishing constructive relationships with pupils and using preventive strategies, are conditional to others, such as enforcing rules or procedures and organising classroom learning processes.

5. Conclusion and discussion

The focus of this research was on mapping the attention for CM in the intended teacher educational curriculum of one teacher education programme in the context of one PDS network. More specifically, the research question of this study was: what does the intended (PDS) school-based part of the curriculum concerning CM look like in terms of the written curriculum and curriculum as preferred by teacher educators, and how does it compare to the theoretical curriculum?

It was striking that in the both editions of the Handbook of Classroom Management (Evertson and Weinstein 2006; Wubbels et al. 2015) some of the CM components received much more attention than others, such as ‘promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation’ and ‘use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems’. A potential explanation could be that the Handbook of Classroom Management was mainly written for educational researchers, and only to some extent for teacher educators and (experienced) teachers.

As such, the topics may reflect more a trend in research focus, rather than suggesting a specific attention for CM in teacher education. It is striking, though, that only two chapters explicitly focused on how (student) teachers learn to become good classroom managers (Jones 2006; Stough and Montague 2015), and that only a limited number of chapters explicitly provided suggestions for teacher education.

As for the written curriculum, in the studied teacher education programme only limited CM attention was found and related mainly to the components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’ and ‘organise and implement instruction in ways that optimises pupils’ access to learning’. Nevertheless, due to the design of the curriculum, student teachers were given the opportunity to focus on CM, should they choose to do so.

In contrast with the written CM attention, educators seemed to value the component ‘promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation’ and ‘use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems’ more, and gave less attention to the other components.

Teacher educators confirmed the attention drawn to the various components of CM that were found in literature. However, teacher educators spoke more holistically about CM, while the literature was more analytic. A fair conclusion would be that there is a discrepancy in perspective between theory and practice, even within teacher educators at universities. Nonetheless, there is a mismatch between what is known from literature, and how this relates to the written curriculum. There is also a mismatch between teacher educators’ views of CM and the theoretical definition and content of CM. Overall, most attention was drawn to the components ‘develop a caring and supportive relationship with and among pupils’, ‘promote the development of pupils’ social skills and self-regulation’ and ‘use appropriate interventions to assist pupils with behaviour problems’. As a consequence, for our empirical perspective these components seemed to be the core definition of CM, both from the theoretical and the preferred curriculum perspective.

Finally, no clear distinction was found between what should be part of the school-based part of the curriculum and what of the institute-based part. More or less, it seemed that foundations and concepts should be laid during the institute-based part (often earlier in the curriculum) and application of these foundations and concepts should take place during the school-based part. The consequence of organising it in this way, is that there is no integration between the theory from literature, taught at the teacher institute, and practice in the classroom at the internship school. However, no indications were found for content that would belong better in either part, nor were indications found for the proposed amount of practice and application, the degree of supervision and peer coaching needed.

Furthermore, we saw that educators stated the importance of CM, as their student teachers had a lot of problems in the field of CM. On the other hand we saw that no CM guidelines, content and/or sequence in CM learning was structurally embedded in the curriculum. So, the teacher educators needed to support student teachers with their CM questions and struggles without theory or principles about CM available from the curriculum. Therefore, more research is needed to find out what kind of CM content can be helpful to support student teachers for their CM learning during the internship part of their programme. As for the teacher educators, it is important to understand how student teachers learn from their CM-related experiences, as CM seems to be a frequently emerging topic, in order to better be able to coach them during the internship.

Implications and limitations

Based on the finding that CM attention in the written curriculum is limited, yet regarded as important by both the literature and teacher educators, it is recommended to pay more explicit attention to CM in the teacher (workplace) written curriculum.

During the interviews, educators had a practical view on student teachers’ competence development as part of the internship, as they recognised CM in practice, but did not fully take CM into consideration from a theoretical point of view. However, they underlined the importance of CM for their student teachers, and noted that many student teachers struggle to maintain good CM. Hence, we strongly recommend constructing a CM knowledge base throughout the whole curriculum, especially for the internship part. We also recommend the teacher education institute to initiate a dialogue among teacher educators, in order to discuss what theoretical knowledge is necessary to implement in the curriculum. To study the theoretical curriculum of CM both handbooks of CM were selected. As described in the method section these books describe the history, research and actual developments in CM. However, this choice might be arbitrary. In handbooks usually the status-quo in research is reviewed. The CM database is subject to annual changes and therefore some recent developments might be missed in this selection. Furthermore, however inspired by various international authors, there is an emphasis in the handbooks on US sources, because of the tradition in research on CM in the US and since some of the leading authors in this field are from the US.

In this study, the CM components by Evertson and Weinstein (2006) were used as categories to elaborate on the data in more detail. Although this was an academic definition of CM, it was helpful in terms of getting an overview and comparing the different curricular forms. While the definition was helpful to determine more specific topics per component, more specification was needed in order to categorise the data. This is particularly important to prevent having multiple understandings of the components. However, we fully agree with Evertson and Weinstein (2006) that all the five components are important for CM. But do they all need equal attention in teacher education programmes? And what should be taught during initial teacher education, and what can be taught during the induction period, after student teachers graduate and start their jobs as qualified teachers? In other words, a point of discussion is the priority of the five components, and perhaps even their sequencing within teacher education and beyond (during the initial teaching years). We think that all components are essential to master, but some components are more essential to focus on because they are more conditional in terms of creating basic teacher essentials for other aspects (Shuell 1996).

This article was the first step in studying the attention for CM in the teacher education internship. Our focus on the intended curriculum was unique in its in-depth analysis including both the theoretical as well as the written and preferred curriculum. Prior studies mainly focused on the importance of CM attention in teacher curriculum (e.g. Hammerness and van Tartwijk 2011). However, the focus on the intended curriculum is also a limitation as this study did not make a connection to the implemented and attained curriculum. These latter phases are rather crucial in how the elements of the intended curriculum relate to the teaching practice or learning and learning outcomes. Indeed, Thijs and van den Akker (2009) argue that there is often a lack of coherence between these phases due to the differences in preferences by teachers and needs of learners in the other curriculum phases (Thijs and van den Akker 2009). Furthermore, as very little is known about how CM is learned by student teachers, and more specifically how student teachers’ prior CM experiences in earlier stages of their education lead to mastering CM during their internship or how they develop this competence during the final stage of their education, more research is needed, focused on the attention of CM on the implemented and attained CM curriculum.

Therefore, future research is needed to find out how the CM intended teacher internship curriculum relates to the implemented and attained curriculum. This will be the next study of our research, in which the focus will be more on student teachers and their pupils’ perspective. For studying the implemented curriculum it is important to interview both the teacher educators and student teachers, and collect all curriculum documents, such as portfolios, reflection documents etc. As for studying the attained curriculum, it is important to analyse the portfolio documents and to interview both the student teachers and teacher educators. Also, setting out the Questionnaire of Teacher Interactions (Wubbels et al. 2006) at the beginning and end of the internship in two or more classes, will give information about the growth in terms of student teachers’ competence development. Such research could uncover consistencies and differences between the various curricular forms and between different perceptions on the curriculum of the different actors involved.

As indicated in the introduction of this article, CM competence development is a topic of international interest, with many researchers discussing both the importance of this topic and the lack of attention for it in the teacher education curriculum (van Tartwijk and Hammerness 2011; Stough 2006; Wubbels 2011). This study contributes to international line of research by mapping the desired content for CM in the teacher education curriculum via the establishment of a knowledge base, using a framework of CM thematic categories. The analysis of the literature is relevant and useful for teacher educators and researchers to think about and discuss what topics should be part of the teacher education curriculum. This study is also unique in comparing the theoretically desired content with the preferences of teacher educators. By showing differences between both aspects, the study shows that it is important to make the preferences of teacher educators explicit, and discussing whether these differences are problematic or not. Given the international evidence on the presence of CM issues by beginning teachers and problems of teacher education institutes addressing it, the findings and implications are of broad value. Also, the study is illustrative for the gap between theory and educational programmes, as argued by Freeman et al. (2014). In future follow-up studies, the focus should be on investigating how the preferred or intended CM curriculum as investigated in this study is related to the implemented and attained curriculum in the teacher education internship, as even less in known about how CM is implemented and learned during the internship.

Author details

Tom Adams (correspondence: e-mail: [email protected]/Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2944-875X) works as a teacher educator at the Fontys University of Applied Science in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He also works on his PhD at the Wageningen University. The focus of his research is the competence development at the workplace of student teachers who are in the final stage of their education.

Bob Koster is an associate professor at Fontys University of Applied Science in Tilburg. He worked for over 30 years as a university-based teacher educator and researcher at Utrecht University. He has published on topics such as professional standards for teacher educators, learning and development of student teachers, and learning environments and innovation in higher, especially teacher, education.

Perry den Brok is a full professor and chair of the Education and Learning Sciences group at Wageningen University and Research. He also chairs the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education, a centre for innovation of the four universities of technology in the Netherlands. He has published on topics such as teacher learning and professional development, teacher-student interpersonal behaviour and classroom management, learning environments and innovation in secondary and higher education.

This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs [Dutch Organisation for scientific research] under Grant [number 023.011.014].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek.

Notes on contributors

Tom Adams

Tom Adams (correspondence: e-mail: [email protected] / Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2944-875X) works as a teacher educator at the Fontys University of Applied Science in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He also works on his PhD at the Wageningen University. The focus of his research is the competence development at the workplace of student teachers who are in the final stage of their education.

Bob Koster

Bob Koster is associate professor at Fontys University of Applied Science in Tilburg. He worked for over thirty years as a university based teacher educator and researcher at Utrecht University. He has published on topics such as professional standards for teacher educators, learning and development of student teachers, and learning environments and innovation in higher, especially teacher, education.

Perry Den Brok

Perry den Brok is full professor and chair of the Education and Learning Sciences group at Wageningen University and Research. He also chairs the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education, a centre for innovation of the four universities of technology in the Netherlands. He has published on topics such as teacher learning and professional development, teacher-student interpersonal behavior and classroom management, learning environments and innovation in secondary and higher education.

Notes

1. In the Netherlands, universities of applied science offer four-year teacher education programmes, leading to degrees in teaching. In addition, academic universities also offer teacher education programmes of 1 or 2 years in duration, leading to similar degrees. Typically, in the former programmes, more attention is given to pedagogy, while in the latter more attention is given to subject matter content and research.