The building principal and the professional knowledge of student teachers.

Abstract

Current research on student teaching indicates a need to go beyond student teacher beliefs and expectations and relationships with supervisors to investigate the contexts and contents of student teacher socialization. This study used an interpretive paradigm to examine the influence of the principal on the knowledge about being a teacher that a student teacher acquired. Interviews with 24 student teachers across their student teaching semester were subjected to content analysis procedures in order to identify what student teachers reported about the professional and organizational facets of teaching which occur outside of classrooms and the influence of the principal on the acquisition of that knowledge. Contrasts were drawn between student teachers working in buildings with principals who had been sensitized to their needs and student teachers working in buildings where no special effort was made to influence the student teaching experience. Data were reordered and reanalyzed on the basis of student teachers' reports of their relationships with the principal. Results indicated that the group of student teachers who reported the greatest amount of knowledge was that group which also reported the most positive involvement with the principal. If the principal was actively involved with the student teachers, the student teachers were more knowledgeable about the professional and organizational facets of teaching and the school as a workplace than those student teachers who were placed in schools in which the principals were not actively involved. Merely providing information about student teachers was not enough to change the behavior of the principals; principals must be actively committed to assisting student teachers make the transition from student to teacher.