Abstract

James Awuni Azure (Ph.D)

The current study investigated student teachers’, mentors’ and university supervisors’ perceptions of the purpose and experiences of teaching practice. The data for the study were collected from 65 student teachers, (44 males, 21 females), 55 school mentors and 15 university supervisors. Questionnaires both structured and non-structured were used to collect data. The study found that the both mentor and the university supervisor were well committed to their duties and provided useful feedback to the student teachers. Further findings revealed that student teachers had positive perceptions of the teaching practice exercise, teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, and the supervisor-student feedback provision style. The mentor and university supervisor perceived strongly that the student teacher became more serious when she/he had wind (knowledge) that their university supervisor was on visit; most of them also tried to wind up their practice after they had been supervised by the university supervisor. The study found significant difference in perceptions between the student teacher and the university supervisor of the purpose of teaching practice. There was also observed significant differences in perceptions of the purpose of teaching practice between the mentor and the university supervisor. The study revealed that the main purpose of teaching practice was for improvement of student teachers’ skills and craft of teaching before they leave for the actual work. It was also discovered that demographic variables such as qualification and professional background had a slight influence on participants’ perception on essence of teaching practice programme. It was recommended that, there is a need to strengthen the collaboration between university teaching practice office and the teaching practice-host institutions so as to minimize the challenges emanating from miscommunication during the teaching practice exercise. There was also the need to extend the duration of the teaching practice period from the current one term to two terms of the SHS academic or teaching calendar.