Fragmentary partnership in student teachers’ R&D mentoring: A study of the experiences of students and teacher educators

Abstract

In teacher education, it is widely understood that there should be a strong partnership between the universities and the schools involved in order to strengthen the overall quality of the education provided. However, this partnership has historically been weak and various interventions have been attempted in recent decades to rectify the problem. One such is the Norwegian “FoU-oppgaven” (“R&D assignment”) scheme, in which mentoring is offered to student teachers by teacher educators from both contexts. Knowledge is needed about how the interaction between these parties works in this mentoring situation, and the goal of this study is to contribute to this.

 Through this study into initial teacher education in Norway, we have investigated student teachers`, school-based mentors` and university lectures` experience of the interaction with each other in R&D mentoring. Focus groups were carried out with each of the parties, and this provided sufficient data to complete a thematic analysis. The study shows that the parties experience fragmented partnerships with varied, distanced, limited, absent, random and artificial interaction.

The study provides specific knowledge about the challenges of triadic R&D mentoring that includes parties from both the educational contexts. More generally, the study illustrates the need for a common understanding in co-operational measures and highlights the relationship between ambitious partnership intentions and limited resources in the teacher education system.