Student teachers’ metaphorical conceptualisations of the experience of watching themselves and their peers on video

ABSTRACT

Student teachers (STs) were asked to reflect on their experiences of watching videos of their own and their peers’ teaching and to generate and share metaphors of the experience. Qualitative analysis of their metaphorical explanations revealed the cognitive, emotional and motivational responses associated with the STs’ video-viewing experiences. The STs reported a tendency to focus on the teacher-in-the-video in both types of video. They were more evaluative in their comments and experienced more negative emotions when watching videos of themselves. Some said they had adopted an overly critical and fault-finding attitude when watching themselves. Conversely, viewing videos of their peers was more likely to elicit positive emotions, greater involvement and more engagement. The implications of using metaphor to understand and foster reflection on STs’ video-viewing experiences with different types of video are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Videos
• metaphors
• novice teachers
• qualitative research
• teacher education

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Esther Chan (University of Melbourne) for her helpful comments on the earlier draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. By “distinct”, we mean metaphors that are unique. The participants’ explanations of the metaphors may be different.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The University of Hong Kong [Faculty Research Fund].

Notes on contributors

Jessica Shuk Ching Leung

Jessica Shuk Ching Leung is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. Her research interests focus on science education and initial teacher education.

Kennedy Kam Ho Chan

Kennedy Kam Ho Chan is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. His research interest includes Pedagogical Content Knowledge, teacher noticing and use of video in teacher education.

Tracy Cuiling He

Tracy Cuiling He is a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong. Her research interest includes science education and teacher noticing.