A study of the perceptions of secondary teachers regarding apprenticeship on an employment-led teacher preparation route

Abstract

This study examines the learning of teachers on one English employment-led secondary teacher preparation route. An interpretivist perspective is taken using a teacher self-efficacy survey with a larger sample of teachers following a range of routes and semi-structured interviews with 13 secondary schoolteachers who had previously qualified through an employment-led route. The literature base identified teacher preparation as workplace learning as an under-researched field, and employment-led routes as under-researched generally. Hence this study contributes to developing knowledge in these fields. It also gives voice to those learning in schools who are under represented in the existing research on workplace learning.
The findings of the survey are cautious and indicate similar levels of selfefficacy for those who had followed school-led (including employment-led) and university-led teacher preparation routes. It also finds greater variation in selfefficacy for those who had followed a school-led route compared with those who had followed a university-led route. These findings contribute additional findings to the very limited published research regarding the self-efficacy of English teachers.
Participants identified a number of meaningful experiences from their employment-led secondary teacher preparation including practising and belonging in a school. The interview data identified transformation, identity development, relational development through reflexivity and recontextualisation as key processes impacting on their learning. The study proposes an adaptation of Fuller & Unwin’s (2008) expansive/restrictive framework for apprenticeship to suit the learning experiences in school of those on employment-led teacher preparation routes. Use of this framework,and analysis against key features of situated learning and apprenticeship,found that aspects of these modes of learning were present through experiences where secondary pre-service teachers were both learners and employees, through being part of communities within a school, and through extensive opportunities to practice teaching.

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ORCID for Rosalyn Hyde: orcid.org/0000-0001-8208-2983

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