How to achieve ‘egalitarian’ interaction between student teachers and mentor teachers? A study of a one-school-year teacher practicum in Germany

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated how student teachers and mentor teachers in a one-school-year teacher practicum in Germany interacted in an ‘egalitarian’ way despite their experience-based gap in expertise, status and power. Our study is embedded in a participatory research context to involve the agents of change. The sample consisted of 57 student teachers and 98 mentor teachers in primary and lower secondary education. We used the critical incidents technique; critical incidents were collected through focus group discussions and analysed by qualitative content analysis. Egalitarian interaction was achieved through the participants flexibly changing roles in providing and receiving feedback and the use of an ‘experimental room’ where both student teachers and mentor teachers could reflect on and develop their teaching practice (through co-constructive knowledge creation while working together on teaching-related activities). For student teachers, being assigned the status of a ‘colleague’ demonstrated egalitarian interaction. Implications for developing participatory-involved mentoring concepts were discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical incident technique
• egalitarian interaction
• mentoring
• participatory-involved approach
• practical training

Introduction

In the past several years, it has become an international trend to extend practical training phases in teacher education (Kosnik, Beck, and Goodwin 2016). Student teachers themselves regard the practical training part of their education as the most effective one in terms of occupational preparation and the acquisition of professional knowledge (Clarke, Triggs, and Nielsen 2014; Smith and Lev-Ari 2005). Research on this issue has increased in the last decade, as shown by many studies and systematic reviews (e.g. N. J. Ellis, Alonzo, and Nguyen 2020; Lawson et al. 2015).

There is broad consensus that the mentoring of student teachers (mentees) by teachers in the school (mentor teachers) is one crucial element contributing to the quality and success of practical training (e.g. Cohen, Hoz, and Kaplan 2013; Hoffman et al. 2015; Moulding, Stewart, and Dunmeyer 2014). Concepts and models related to how mentoring is implemented differ between bureaucratic-managerial or transmissive and participatory-involved or constructivist mentoring approaches (Lawson et al. 2015; Richter et al. 2013; Wang and Odell 2007). These approaches have differential consequences; in particularly, the constructivist-oriented approach impacts favourably on the future teachers’ health, well-being, self-efficacy and classroom-related confidence (Kutsyuruba, Godden, and Bosica 2019; Soini, Pietarinen, and Pyhältö 2016; Voss et al. 2017). Therefore, concepts based on (more) symmetric role conceptions are seen to be more advantageous (Hoffman et al. 2015; Orland-Barak 2016). To further implement such participatory-involved approaches research needs to be conducted on how mentor-mentee interaction can be shaped in practice in a (more) symmetric and egalitarian manner in spite of the experience-based difference in expertise, status/function and power between these groups.

To achieve this, the perspectives of both mentor teachers and mentees need to be included, as shared perspectives have often remained unconsidered (Lawson et al. 2015). We used Flanagan’s (1954) critical incident technique (CIT), and we argue in favour of participatory research (Bergold and Thomas 2012; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). Research of this type and on this topic must include the knowledge and perceptions of those who are agents of change (here, mentor teachers and mentees). Thus, we collected events that student teachers and mentor teachers reported from their interactions during the practicum. Such events provide information on how both groups interacted, how they experienced and shaped their roles, and which conditions were significant and beneficial against the background of to what extent and in which interaction areas egalitarian interaction was implemented. From this, implications for the further development of egalitarian concepts of mentoring in practical training were derived.

Mentoring of future teachers

Backgrounds and aims of mentoring

Teacher training programmes are different not only between countries but also within the same country (e.g. depending on legal frameworks, political interests or professional traditions). However, such differences between and within countries also affect practical training, which is characterised by a variety of organisational structures (e.g. in terms of duration, time schedule, responsibilities, and demands or tasks student teachers and mentor teachers must fulfil) (OECD 2014). In Germany, where the present study was conducted, some teacher training programmes are divided into a bachelor’s and master’s degree programme at the university level, some other programmes finish with a state examination (Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) 2020). All programmes consist of two phases: the first phase is university-based with a clear focus on a theoretical education, the second phase (18–24 months, depending on federal state regulations) starts after graduation and takes place at schools and teacher training institutes with a focus on practical training. During the first phase, future teachers have to complete a practicum (early or in the middle of the first phase), either in full-time, over several months, or over one year, with block phases and fixed days in a week (here the present study was conducted).

Although the practicum is considered to be remarkably important for teacher education and evidence for the effectiveness of practicum for student teachers’ professionalisation has increased (Cohen, Hoz, and Kaplan 2013; Lawson et al. 2015), from the scientific perspective, it is a controversial part of teacher education. In general, ‘more practice’ does not necessarily lead to increased competence, a change in attitude or a more realistic view of professional demands (Ronfeldt and Reiniger 2012) and, relating thereto, not every kind of mentoring is per se beneficial. Nevertheless, practical learning opportunities could contribute to an increase of future teachers’ educational knowledge (König et al. 2017), self-efficacy (Klassen and Durksen 2014), and support the professional (role) development, for example, by observing successful teacher-student interactions with positive feedback from mentor teachers (Morris, Usher, and Chen 2017). In this context, most studies and reviews agree that the quality of mentoring is significant for the success of the practical training and the student teachers’ professionalisation (Ellis, Alonzo, and Nguyen 2020; Lawson et al. 2015; Moulding, Stewart, and Dunmeyer 2014). Regarding mentoring, different concepts exist as depicted in the following.

Concepts of mentoring

Many overviews distinguish between bureaucratic-managerial or transmissive and participatory-involved or constructivist mentoring approaches (Richter et al. 2013; see also the review of Wang and Odell 2007). Bureaucratic-managerial or transmissive concepts, also termed as ‘master-apprentice-models’, are based on either power or expertise (Clarke, Triggs, and Nielsen 2014) and involve one-way guidance where mentor teachers hold power in a top-down relationship. Mentor teachers act as ‘masters’ or ‘experts’ and transfer merely knowledge. They model their practice and student teachers observe their acting in the lessons and are ‘expected to reproduce the practice of their mentor teachers’ (Canipe and Gunckel 2020, 80). However, observational learning must not be negative per se; student teachers value the (technical) guidance of their mentor teachers and consider them an important resource. Nevertheless, master-apprentice relationships are based on rigid roles, which are mostly hierarchical and one-sided, and teacher knowledge is treated as highly privileged according to this model (Clarke, Triggs, and Nielsen 2014; Hoffman et al. 2015). This carries the risk that the observation of traditional patterns of teaching will be uncritically adopted (Hobson and Malderez 2013; Wang and Odell 2007), especially when student teachers’ and mentor teachers’ joint reflection of observed or conducted lessons is rather short and without opportunities to critically-reflectively deal with their observations. Following Mena, Hennissen, and Loughran (2017), such mentoring concept are still present in practice.

In contrast, participatory-involved or constructivist approaches of mentoring are premised on a constructivist learning theory (Richter et al. 2013). Such concepts are built on egalitarian interaction, dissolve asymmetric roles (at least partly) or even attempt to ‘disrupt’ the master-apprentice relationship to blur boundaries between future and experienced teachers (Canipe and Gunckel 2020). ‘Egalitarian’ is associated more with collaboration and collegiality and indicates the creation of opportunities for mentor teachers and mentees to learn from and with each other; that means to construct shared understandings while working together on teaching-related activities (Canipe and Gunckel 2020; Gallo-Fox and Scantlebury 2016). This becomes visible in collaborative reflection, critical inquiry of practice, and mutual problem-solving. In contrast to master-apprentice concepts, where teacher knowledge is highly privileged, the ideas of all actors are valued. Mentoring closely resembles the co-construction model of learning where new knowledge is constructed through bringing together and explicitly sharing a range of different viewpoints, perspectives and ideas. The guiding idea is a dialogic practice (Maddamsetti 2018; Payne 2018; Talbot, Denny, and Henderson 2018).

However, ‘egalitarian’ does not suggest equality of status. Both groups have different levels of expertise: as proposed by the expert-novice theory in teacher education, mentees are novices taking academic coursework, and teachers are experienced in working in the school and possess an experience-based advantage in terms of their expertise (Berliner 2001; Hobson and Malderez 2013; Spalding et al. 2011).

Regarding the participatory-involved perspective of mentoring, a special tension arises from the fact, that mentor teachers often assess their mentees in practice or, at least, have to confirm the successful completion of the practicum. Thus, unequal power relations could never be dissolved completely. Moreover, mentor teachers are often unable to adapt their action to the mentee’s current level of competence or to encourage a deep understanding of reflection processes (Clarke, Triggs, and Nielsen 2014); this may also be related to the fact that teachers often receive little preparation in how to be effective mentor teachers (e.g. Hoffman et al. 2015; Talbot, Denny, and Henderson 2018) and are, for example, not able to implement a dialogic practice or a constructive and reciprocal feedback culture (see Bjørndal 2020).

Research questions

The participatory-involved approach is associated with positive outcomes for future teachers’ health, well-being, self-efficacy, and classroom-related confidence (Kutsyuruba, Godden, and Bosica 2019; Soini, Pietarinen, and Pyhältö 2016; Voss et al. 2017). Therefore, it needs to be investigated how, whereby and in which areas mentor teachers and mentees experience and implement ‘egalitarian’ interaction in the practicum and which conditions and resources have an influence on (enabling) participatory-involved approaches. To achieve this, the present study used the critical incident technique (Flanagan 1954; see; Viergever 2019; Watkins et al. 2022) in the framework of participatory research (Bergold and Thomas 2012; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). The revealed incidents reflected significant patterns in how and why student teachers and mentor teachers act (e.g. with respect to participatory involvement, role perceptions, and decision-making). Regarding the participatory research approach, all agents of change (mentors and mentee) were equally involved. The following research questions were investigated:

1. Which critical incidents (against the background of to what extent and whereby the interaction is ‘egalitarian’) were reported by student teachers and mentor teachers?

2. Which commonalities and differences were evident in the mentor teachers’ and mentees’ reports?

3. Which conditions and resources were significant in the reported situations and patterns?

4. Which consequences for the actors were identified?

Method

Research context and project

The present study is part of the project Mentor Teacher-Mentee Relationship in Practical Training (MeMPhIs) by the Department of Education and Rehabilitation at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich and the Internship Office of the Munich Center for Teacher Training Munich in Germany. This project is part of the ‘Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung’, a joint initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder which aims to improve the quality of teacher training. The programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. On the one hand, the project’s higher-level goal is the research-based consideration of how mentor teachers and mentees in practical phases of teacher training interact and collaborate. On the other hand, standards for new concepts and for optimising the field of practical studies should be developed and implemented.

Procedure: participatory research, critical incident technique, and focus group discussions

Participatory research can be defined as an umbrella term for research designs, methods, and frameworks that use systematic inquiry in direct collaboration with those affected by the issue being studied for the purpose of action or change (Bergold and Thomas 2012; Vaughn and Jacquez 2020). It aims at co-constructing research through researchers and stakeholders as persons with insider knowledge and lived expertise (Cargo and Mercer 2008). Both parties co-construct knowledge and strategies to meet challenges in professional contexts and in the best case, both sides benefit from the research process. Participatory approaches can help researchers to more meaningfully engage stakeholders in research, which in turn has the potential to create relevant, meaningful research findings translated to action (Vaughn and Jacquez 2020).

For this reason, to step back cognitively from familiar forms of interaction and power relations and to rethink established interpretations of situations and strategies (Bergold and Thomas 2012) we used the critical incident technique (CIT), which was first described by Flanagan (1954). The term ‘critical’ is not to be understood as meaning ‘negative’, ‘difficult’ or ‘problematic’; rather, it means that an incident relates to situations that are typical, occur often and are relevant for success within a given area. The CIT serves to analyse events, behaviours, and actions episodes in which action takes place without clear requirements, under uncertainty, and the premise of limited knowledge. It aims at investigating significant events in fields with high demands, high levels of responsibility, and a need for complex problem-solving (Watkins et al. 2022). The detailed analysis of critical incidents enables researchers to identify similarities, differences, and patterns and gain insight into how and why people engage in activities. The overall goal is to identify behaviours and mechanisms of action that either contribute to or impede success; this is done to derive implications that can be used to improve professional work. An analysis of such incidents provides detailed information about complex situations, processes, and organisational settings (Viergever 2019; Douglas et al. 2015 for education). The CIT enables to evaluate incidents systematically, to anticipate future behaviour, and avoid or reduce mistakes in the future. A critical incident comprises three elements:

1. a detailed description of the incident;

2. causes of the incident/antecedent information (i.e. what leads up to the incident/the causes of and significant conditions for the incident) and

3. a description of the outcome (consequences) of the incident.

To identify such critical incidents, focus group discussions were conducted as proposed by Flanagan (1954). Focus group discussions aim at an empirical analysis of social subsystems, collective phenomena and supra-individual behaviour (Barbour 2018; Steward 2018). Statements in focus group discussions that jointly determined a collective pattern of orientation were deemed valid; the discussions are not the origin of a collective pattern, but the discussions provided the necessary room for articulating patterns explicitly. Focus group discussions allow the study of people within a more natural conversation pattern than typically occurs in a one-on-one interview. Furthermore, as a result of mutually stimulating conversation, more opinions emerge in group discussions than in solely quantitative inquiries; a dynamic develops, and participants influence each other through their answers and ideas (Krueger and Casey 2020).

Sampling

The CIT assumes that the study’s participants are ‘subject-matter experts’ (Heine et al. 2016) with experience in their respective fields. Thus, persons from practical training were included: mentor teachers (TOR) and student teachers (TEE). The composition of the sample is depicted in Table 1.

Table 1. Composition of the sample.

	female		male
	NTOR	NTEE	NTOR	NTEE
primary education	63	38	5	0
lower secondary education	20	17	8	2

Recruitment was initiated through an announcement from the project’s leader that was first forwarded to the department responsible for the organisation of the teacher practicum at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich; the announcement was then shared with the mentor teachers and student teachers. At the time of the data collection, all future teachers had recently completed a practicum during the first university-based training phase extending over a period of one year, with block phases during the semester holidays and fixed days during the whole school year. Thereby, future teachers were instructed by mentor teachers. Mentor teachers have completed an academic degree in teacher education and have several years of professional experience until they were appointed by the responsible school authority. For this purpose, they receive (short) training with emphasis on collaborative activities, feedback processes, conflict management and the organisational framework of mentoring student teachers; moreover, they are obliged to take part in continuous annual training.

During the selection process, care was taken to include participants from different schools and regional areas to avoid regional agglomeration (Krueger and Casey 2020). The participants were divided into 21 discussion groups, 12 with mentor teachers and nine with student teachers, with 6 to 8 participants per group (Barbour 2018; Krueger and Casey 2020). To achieve broader, more diverse argumentation and information, groups comprised participants from different schools. After conducting these 21 focus group discussions, theoretical saturation was achieved as no additional themes or insights emerge from the data collection (Hennink and Kaiser 2022).

Each discussion group was led by an experienced moderator currently active in teacher education. Moderators were trained using a guideline. The focus group discussions lasted two hours. The course of the discussions was structured thematically around the elements of critical incidents characterising student teachers’ and mentor teachers’ interaction during practicum, as follows:

• What critical incidents characterise student teachers’ and mentor teachers’ interaction during practicum?

• What conditions and resources of these incidents need to be taken into account and influence critical situations?

• What are the consequences and whom or which areas do these consequences affect?

The critical incidents were documented. The focus group discussions were conducted in German. The revealed critical incidents were translated into English by a specialist translation agency and then read again by all moderators and researchers involved to verify that the translation provided is accurate.

Analysis and validation

The group discussions yielded a total of 55 critical incidents with 207 codings (119 by mentor teachers [C_TOR] and 88 by mentees [C_TEE]) that fit in the framework of the present study. All incidents include the elements characterising critical events, the events itself, influencing conditions/resources and the consequences. Few incidents could not be included because participants did not refer to the practicum or to mentoring although the moderators repeatedly asked for this during the discussion course (e.g. when an incident comprised only complains about university administration). According to Flanagan (1954), critical incidents should be analysed by creating categories and subcategories. Therefore, we used qualitative content analysis (Elo et al. 2014; Mayring 2022). The goal of content analysis is to reduce the material so that fundamental content remains and to employ abstraction to obtain a straightforward corpus that retains an image of the raw material. Thus, the displayed results are ordered as follows: the event itself, the relevant conditions and circumstances, and the consequences. Beyond these main categories, the analysis was done inductively. Categories were created with the help of the MAXQDA programme (MAXQDA 2018). To analyse the material, a list was drawn up to describe each category with explanations and examples, along with overlaps and distinctions between categories. Each category was named after the incidents, conditions and consequences contained therein. The exact procedure can be explained by the following four steps:

1. Through intensive reading, the incidents were assigned to main categories.

2. These main categories were further refined by creating subcategories.

3. Then, all categories were thematically restructured, summarised, or renamed and, finally, assigned to the categories.

4. Using the summary grid in the MAXQDA programme, thematic summaries of the coded passage and critical incidents were created to build systematic case overviews of the groups of mentor teachers and mentees (Rädiker and Kuckartz 2020). To recognise and analyse comparisons, patterns and relations between categories, frequencies and distributions of all categories were processed in tabular form using the code-matrix browser (Rädiker and Kuckartz 2020).

The procedure on analysing a critical incident is explained by the example in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Analysis example.

The category system was reviewed by a second rater. If disagreement arose between both raters, the relevant critical incidents were reconsidered, and a communicative validation process was performed (Kvale 1995). By revising these categories, a higher degree of selectivity and, thus, higher inter-rater reliability could be reached; this study was able to achieve a coefficient of .95, and a percentage coefficient of .80 is seen as satisfactory (see Belur et al. 2021 for an overview). Additionally, Cohen’s kappa coefficient κ (Brennan and Prediger 1981) was calculated. In total, for all the revealed categories, κ was .95. Following Landis and Koch (1977), coefficients > .80 are characterised as ‘almost perfect agreement’.

Results

Model of the revealed categories

The revealed categories (see Figure 2) represent the situations and patterns that characterise the interaction of student teachers and mentor teachers. Areas in which egalitarian interaction was reflected and implemented are described in more detail. Additionally, contributing conditions, resources and consequences are illustrated.

Figure 2. Model of the revealed categories.

Both mentor teachers and student teachers reported mainly positive interactions during the practicum, and they mentioned only a few negative situations. In the following sections on the revealed categories, the perspectives of mentors and mentees are interwoven to highlight and contrast commonalities and differences. The critical incidents were assigned to four different categories: Feedback Culture, Active Involvement in Teaching-Related Tasks, Collegial Working on Eye Level and Working in a Shared Experimental Room. Selected quotations from the critical incidents are used to illustrate the categories in the following.

Feedback culture

Many of the events described by both mentor teachers and mentees consistently considered Feedback Culture (11 C_TOR, 12 C_TEE) as the basis of an egalitarian mentor-mentee relationship.

During his excellent lessons, a student teacher showed a bent posture and, thus, appeared insecure. After the end of the classes, we both reflected upon his lessons and upon his appearance and posture. I gave him some small tips reflect upon. He was open to the criticism. In his following lessons, his posture was perfect. In our debrief, I extolled him for this, and he said he was acutely aware of his posture and tried to implement my advice. (SE_TOR_3_3)

As depicted in this example, technical issues and the student teachers’ appearance were often stressed as feedback content. Feedback had to meet certain criteria: it should be concrete, directly associated with the classroom activities, jointly developed through conversation and, most importantly, mutual and flexible, making mentees into feedback providers and mentor teachers into feedback recipients. Feedback was seen as ‘valuable’ (PE_TEE_4_7) when it provided the future teachers with leeway to reflect on changes and the possibility to initiate these changes autonomously (i.e. instead of being faced with rigid instructions for change).

During my lessons, my mentor teacher was sitting in the back of the classroom. She took notes without interfering with me. Thereafter, we both reflected on the lessons for a long time, and she provided both positive and critical feedback. For example, she extolled my appearance and authority in front of the class as well as my voice. Moreover, she confirmed that I was attentive and gave clear instructions. Nevertheless, she told me to be more careful about my choice of words and my expression. This feedback was very constructive and helped me a lot. (SE_TEE_3_2)

Many mentor teachers worked co-constructively with their mentees and, thus, strengthened the mentees’ roles as feedback providers, even if it felt unfamiliar to the mentor teachers.

A student teacher criticised me for using stereotyped roles during my lessons. At first, I perceived the criticism as rather disgraceful. However, it got me thinking. Although I don’t think I negatively affect my students, I looked out for this issue the next day in my lessons. (PE_TOR_12_5)

Thus, reflection on lessons was not limited to the student teachers’ teaching attempts; reflection was part of a co-constructive dialogue ‘in order to acknowledge the gaining of knowledge in both groups’ (PE_TOR_11_10).

Such a feedback culture needed time-intensive support offers as an important resource: 'My mentor teacher gave me all the time I needed. She helped me with the preparations. She supported me only to the extent that she could without the class noticing it and reflected with me every day and also during breaks.' (PE_TEE_3_9) When mentor teachers and mentees could initiate a co-constructive exchange, even unfavourable conditions (e.g. difficult classroom discipline or diverging personal prerequisites regarding collaboration) did not adversely affect the feedback culture and allowed interaction on equal footing.

A feedback culture with student teachers as active players had positive consequences: ‘In the subsequent lesson, the student teacher tried the teaching method we had reflected on before. He experienced success immediately.' (PE_TOR_8_2) Such feelings of success were followed by positive changes in the student teachers’ autonomy and self-confidence: ‘She gained enormous self-confidence and displayed assurance in dealing with the children from then on’ (PE_TOR_11_9). Allowing the participants to act as both providers and recipients of feedback also had positive effects on critical faculty, self-reflection and the development of mutual appreciation and respect: ‘Our relationship has strengthened because I felt respected’ (SE_TEE_3_2).

In contrast, from the student teachers’ perspectives, a weak and negative feedback culture was characterised as unilateral, dishonest, unmotivated or humiliating.

I felt personally attacked every time we talked to each other. She often intentionally and excessively aped my way of speaking, in particular, to ‘demonstrate’ my accent. However, this was so ridiculous that I felt that I wasn’t being taken seriously. (PE_TEE_4_3)

In the mentees’ eyes, ‘unsatisfactory feedback’ (PE_TEE_5_3) provided ‘on the fly’ (SE_TEE_2_2) was followed by missed learning opportunities:

All discussions about my lessons were positive. However, I recognised that the teacher gave only positive feedback to me. Of course, I was very pleased at first because, in one’s first lessons, one is rather insecure, and I perceived positive feedback as motivating. However, in the longer term, I think constructive feedback on things that were not going well could be effective as well. … I am sure I would have gained more if I had received honest advice to improve myself. (PE_TEE_9_10)

From the mentor teachers’ perspective, the provision of mutual feedback and the making of student teachers into active players who are involved in change was hampered by some student teachers’ resistance to receiving advice.

During silent work, my student teachers offer individualised support, which students gratefully accept. … One of the student teachers does not speak in a whispered tone but is very loud. This disturbs me and the other students’ concentration. In a debriefing, I pointed to this issue and asked the student teacher to give future support in a whispered voice. She reacted with nodding. During the next silent work, she supported several students but was again disturbingly loud. I wanted to subtly point to her to be quieter with a general admonition of the class. Unfortunately, she ignored me. (PE_TOR_4_4)

According to some mentor teachers, intervention provided in the form of increased, stricter guidance was required when student teachers felt like they were not obligated to follow the given feedback. Then, collaboration and shared instruction in the class ended: ‘The lesson got out of hand, so I terminated the lesson after 45 minutes’ (SE_TOR_10_4).

Active involvement in teaching-related tasks

Egalitarian interaction was reflected through Active Involvement in Teaching-Related Tasks (7 C_TOR, 5 C_TEE) during the practicum insofar as future teachers were actively involved in all classroom activities and tasks of the teacher’s role instead of observing from the back of the classroom. Student teachers took over responsibility for selected tasks and activities in the class: ‘During his practicum, at his own request, the student teacher took over the planning and organisation of the class’s journey to Austria’ (PE_TOR_4_3). Many mentor teachers reported involving the student teachers in all aspects of the teaching profession even if such tasks were demanding: ‘From next week, the student teacher overtakes the class leadership for three days. Thus, I need to set a stronger emphasis on basic knowledge, such as generating student exams and dealing with homework’ (SE_TOR_2_8); this is precisely what mentees regarded as important (i.e. the acquisition of practical skills to be able to act). Involving the student teachers in all parts of everyday school life required motivation and engagement on both sides, followed by many positive effects. In particular, challenging learning opportunities were perceived as leading to an active and egalitarian role because they led to feelings of success derived from autonomous action: ‘Although I am the class teacher, I was only a guest. The student teacher could practise the role as a classroom teacher and was able to achieve their first success.' (PE_TOR_5_2) The future teachers found that the opportunity to participate in decisions that were significant for the class and to ‘present’ their own decisions in front of the class were especially potent in providing the feeling of being egalitarian. In particular, acceptance from the students increased the student teachers’ self-confidence and is associated with the following category of collegial working.

Collegial working on eye level

Events assigned to the category Collegial Working on Eye Level (11 C_TEE) were only reported by the student teachers and refer to the expected or granted status as ‘working colleagues’ or ‘young teachers’ (SE_TEE_2_5).

Recently, there was a parents’ consultation day at our school, and our mentor teacher asked us to take part. … As the parents arrived, the teacher introduced us as colleagues. In all conversations, she asks us for our opinion and our suggestions. She treated us as equals—as colleagues—so that the parents also turned to us with their questions. (SE_TEE_3_4)

Student teachers described similar situations in which their technical knowledge was appreciated and demanded in the lessons: ‘My mentor teacher could not answer a child’s question in the German lesson and asked me if I could give the answer. She did this on equal footing, and she treated me as a technically competent colleague.' (SE_TEE_2_5) Being treated as a colleague meant increasing demands, but it also meant appreciation and success if one was able to meet these demands. However, Collegial Working on Eye Level went hand in hand with the student teachers’ request for the mentor teachers’ backing inside the classroom.

In my lesson, I asked the children to underline the date in their booklets with a colour that they were not used to. They normally use red, and I asked them to use blue. The children noticed this at once. Instead of correcting me, my mentor teacher said to class, ‘When the teacher says that we use a blue colour to underline the date, then we do that’. This stressed my equal role as a teacher. I believe it is important that a teacher does not compromise a student teacher in the class. (SE_TEE_3_9)

In my lesson attempt, the students could not handle the text that I had prepared, and the class became loud. I was helpless and looked immediately to my mentor teacher to get help from her. (SE_TOR_6_9)

Many student teachers described immediately seeking help and expecting support from their mentor teachers when they were faced with difficulties (e.g. with classroom discipline or individual students). Future teacher also expected a strong backing from their mentor teachers against the school leachers and the teaching staff if they have made a mistake.

Working in a shared experimental room

In particular, the way mentor teachers and mentees collaborated is reflected in Working in a Shared Experimental Room (5 C_TOR, 4 C_TEE). This experimental room was characterised and so named by the mentees’ scopes of action; it allowed them to test their own teaching ideas, transfer their theoretical knowledge into practice and broaden their professional repertoire of action: ‘My mentor teacher allowed me teach three lessons in arts education. … I was glad that I was allowed to work independently and to develop lessons on my own.' (PE_TEE_9_3)

In my practicum, I was responsible for a physical education class that got out of hand. I was totally overwhelmed, but my mentor teacher did not intervene. So, I had to handle the situation alone, to calm the children. In this moment, I would have preferred an intervention. In hindsight, I was glad that she held back, and I could successfully overcome this challenge to bring calm to the class. (SE_TEE_3_4)

Beyond testing the student teachers’ ideas, the experimental room offered learning chances and opportunities for knowledge acquisition for both student teachers and mentor teachers; this was seen when both groups of actors were using the room for experimentation and innovation: ‘A mutual gain is possible because student teachers could prove their theoretical knowledge in terms of practicability and teachers could acquire new skills’ (PE_TEE_5_3). Again, such processes were mutual and flexible by making mentees drivers of impulses for the lessons and mentor teachers to recipients. Here again, motivation and engagement on both sides and offers of support from the mentor teachers were key resources to implement the experimental room.

Discussion

Participatory-involved interaction in the practical training

In the critical situations, student teachers and mentor teachers identified in detail in which areas and how egalitarian interaction is implemented. The depicted areas mainly affected roles, status, responsibilities and tasks in the class; egalitarian interaction is seen in the fact that these areas were shaped by reciprocity of action, flexibly changing roles as ‘providers’ and ‘recipients’, shared learning on the full spectrum of teaching-related activities and dialogic practice (Canipe and Gunckel 2020; Gallo-Fox and Scantlebury 2016; Maddamsetti 2018; Payne 2018).

The mentees’ main concern makes both the egalitarian interaction and the challenges related thereto evident: from their perspectives, significant elements of egalitarian interaction are the ‘status of a colleague’ and ‘working on eye level’ (see Ellis, Alonzo, and Nguyen 2020; Hudson 2013), which encourage autonomy, leeway, authority and decision-making power, which characterise the work of experienced teachers. Mentor teachers shared this position in some way: they relied on the future teachers’ technical knowledge, introduced them as teachers to the students and the parents, and assigned important tasks to them.

However, student teachers prefer a special form of the ‘status of a colleague’: they wish to be treated as teachers and colleagues and have the option to withdraw to a ‘novice status’ to not be held responsible for mistakes in dealing with the students and the lessons. This shows why egalitarian interaction could neither suggest nor presuppose equality of status in all aspects between experienced teachers and student teachers (Hobson and Malderez 2013). Teachers have the (final) responsibility for the students and their development; they do not have the option to withdraw. Moreover, mentor teachers are responsible for the future teachers’ education during the practicum towards external parties. That means unequal power relations, which are aggravated by structural requirements, for example, that mentor teachers have to assess their mentees or confirm the successful completion of the practicum. Additionally, not only mentor teachers are often used to directive approaches in their interactions (Soslau, Gallo-Fox, and Scantlebury 2018); student teachers also tend to expect that mentor teachers will take the directive position and give direct instruction, especially in cases, where mentees expect support in dealing with mistakes and situations they are not prepared for (Hoffman et al. 2015).

However, despite these challenges, co-learning activity and egalitarian interaction is possible, for example, in the shared ‘experimental room’ and through being both a provider and recipient of feedback, which enables co-constructive knowledge creation and decision-making.

Benefits and implications

For future teachers, participatory-involved strategies give them the feeling of being involved on equal footing, increase their self-confidence, and enable them to be involved in all aspects of the teaching profession from the beginning, which is related to a realistic view of professional demands (Cohen, Hoz, and Kaplan 2013). Mentor teachers can also benefit from the exchange of their lessons and didactic practices: they can reflect upon and further develop their practice in accordance with the knowledge and methods student teachers bring from the university (Talbot, Denny, and Henderson 2018). Student teachers in turn have to navigate learning situated in both university and field contexts and mentor teachers could help them to make connections between what they learn in course work and practicum (Anderson and Stillman 2013). Therefore, a central demand of shaping practicum and mentor-mentee interaction is to negotiate and balance how egalitarian the interaction should be from the perspectives of mentor teachers and mentees. To put this into practice with the interests of all actors in mind addresses the attitude level, the action level and the resources level.

Attitude level

A shared understanding of egalitarian interaction starts with attitudes. In the present study, it seems favourable because student teachers and mentor teachers largely agree in their desire and willingness to work on eye level. However, some teachers mentioned that they are unfamiliar with receiving feedback (especially critical feedback) from professional novices (Soslau, Gallo-Fox, and Scantlebury 2018). Thus, initiating a change of attitudes is important because attitudes have a filter effect: they influence the perception and interpretation of events in educational practices (Pajares 1992). However, in general, a change of attitudes is a mentally challenging process that often gives rise to individual resistance. Nevertheless, some teachers reported benefits from accepting unusual ways, for example, a gain of new impulses for their lessons through the work in the shared experimental room. Thus, one strategy to initiate a change in attitudes could be to make mentor teachers aware of these benefits (e.g. by implementing fixed shared experimentation). Also, egalitarian interaction does not exempt future teachers from dealing with feedback; resistance to advice needs to be reflected in the same way (e.g. through individual coaching and supervision).

Action level

In collaboration, ‘colleague status’ and ‘novice status’ are to be balanced. Due to discrepancies in expertise and responsibility, student teachers could not function as full teachers, and future teachers are not used to the responsibilities associated with the teaching profession; nevertheless, egalitarian collaboration is possible. The present study revealed some ideas. Mentees desire to become involved in all classroom activities; this conveys the important sense of belonging to the class and the teaching profession (Mena, Hennissen, and Loughran 2017; Payne 2018). Ambitious tasks provide opportunities where mentees are able to learn from their mistakes (N. Ellis and Osborne 2015; Izadinia 2016). This, again, connects to feedback. Feedback should not be implemented as rigid instructions; student teachers should not have to change to conform to an implicit model and reproduce it. Feedback that serves an egalitarian orientation provides stimuli for changes that are put into practice by the future teachers themselves. This also prevents them from uncritically adopting traditional patterns of teaching (Clarke, Triggs, and Nielsen 2014; Hobson and Malderez 2013) and dissolves one-sided learning processes.

Resource level

Enabling egalitarian interaction and shared learning requires resources that reach the administrative level. It is time-consuming to negotiate leeway, decision-making, and autonomy and to implement mutual feedback and shared reflection. As depicted in the incidents, feedback provided on the fly or undifferentiated feedback can be misunderstood or ignored by the recipient (Hoffman et al. 2015; Wisniewski, Zierer, and Hattie 2020). Thus, to maintain both mentoring quality and engagement, a formal framework for mentoring is needed, which entails, for example, a temporal discharge of teachers who guide future teachers.

Limitations

Using the CIT raises questions about the extent to which such reported situations can be generalised (Gremler 2015); this is because the description of a critical incident reflects the subjective perspective (i.e. each person’s individual appraisal). Meta-analyses, such as those by Dierdorff and Wilson (2003), demonstrated the high mean IRR and high quality of the CIT in practice. Following Sharoff (2008), the validity of collected data was (partially) ensured by having all participants focus on the same issue. In our study, we supported the process through thematically structured group discussions and a guideline for training moderators.

As mentor teachers and student teachers reported mainly positive incidents both the sampling and the structure of the focus groups need to considered critically. The sampling through self-selection could have attracted in particularly those participants who had positive and enriching experiences during their practicum and want to disclose them to others. Mentors and mentees who did not perceive their interaction as successful might be frustrated and disappointed and, therefore, not willing to take part in the study. Moreover, questions and moderation could have been contributed to report mainly positive experiences. Additionally, well-known difficulties related to group discussions could have been influenced the course of the discussions. Some participants could have avoided openly describing events that were unusual or easy to misunderstand or may have omitted (negative) details that they do not dare report (Krueger and Casey 2020). Thus, the groups intentionally comprised teachers from different schools to counteract fears of exposure to one’s own colleagues. To verify and further differentiate the revealed categories, in-depth interviews with individual teachers are possible.

Conclusion

In contrast to master-apprentice relationships, participatory-involved strategies give future teachers the feeling of being involved on equal footing, increase their self-confidence, and enable them a realistic view of professional demands. Mentor teachers can also benefit from interaction on equal footing as they can reflect upon and further develop their practice in accordance with the student teachers’ knowledge and methods. Flexibly changing roles in providing and receiving feedback and the use of an ‘experimental room’ where both student teachers and mentor teachers could reflect on and develop their teaching practice are the cornerstones of implementing egalitarian interaction. Thus, the present study contributed to develop measures and ideas to put egalitarian interaction into practice. This requires action on different levels, such as to reflect on (rigid) attitudes, to deal jointly with ambitious tasks, and to work on a formal framework for mentoring.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung, a joint initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder. The programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany.

Notes on contributors

Sabine Weiss

Sabine Weiss is professor for education at the Department of Education and Rehabilitation at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich in Germany. Her main research interests include classroom heterogeneity, inclusion, practical school training, counselling and teachers’ health.

Langenohl Susanne

Susanne Langenohl was a research associate at the Department of Education and Rehabilitation at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich in Germany. Her main research interests include classroom heterogeneity and practical school training.

Annika Braun

Annika Braun is a trainee secondary school teacher in Munich, Germany. Her main research and teaching interests include teachers’ health and prevention, inclusion, practical school training and teacher professionalisation.

Clemens M. Schlegel

Clemens M. Schlegel is the leader of the Internship Office of the Munich Center for Teacher Training and a lecturer for school education at Ludwig Maximilians University Munich in Germany. His main research interests include practical school training, development of teaching quality and teaching materials for music lessons.

Ewald Kiel

Ewald Kiel is chair for school education at the Department of Education and Rehabilitation at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich in Germany. His main research interests include teacher professionalisation, inclusion, intercultural education and empirical teaching research.