Resumen de Student-teachers’ perceptionsof a proposal to develop their identities as inquirers
P. Mayoral, Eva Liesa, Lorena Becerril Balín, A. Badía
This study reports on students’ perceptions of inquiry activities conducted during their firstpracticum in primary teacher education. Encouraging student-teachers to meet the challenge ofbecoming inquiring practitioners requires integrating research activities and practice into teachereducation. Thus, teacher educational programmes should be designed and redesigned with a focuson a research-based approach if they are to successfully encourage teachers to use research in theirprofessional practice. The practicum studied here was designed based on educational design researchprincipals in order to promote the construction of student-teachers’ identities as inquirers. The proposalwas carried out during the first practicum period of a Spanish teacher education programme (secondyear). Students spent 120 hours at a school over a semester and attended four hours a week of universitysessions where a tutor guided the practicum. The practicum was divided into thirteen distinct activitiesor pedagogically meaningful situations, distributed into three phases: analysis-exploration, designconstruction,and evaluation-reflection.The study was guided by two research questions: 1. How did students assess inquiry activities?2. What were the student-teachers’ perceptions of the barriers and the facilitators they found whencarrying out the inquiry activities?Twenty-seven student-teachers participated in the study through individual written self-reports.The results show that the students assessed the overall didactic proposal positively. The activitiescarried out at the school or in collaboration with the university were rated the highest. In addition,the students reported feeling that inquiry was difficult and that they were not sufficiently preparedto conduct it well. Finally, considering the facilitators and barriers identified by the students, ideas forimproving the proposal in the future are provided.
