Practical pedagogical training of students (PPT) presents the period spent in school under the guidance of mentors. After observing the teachers, students are gradually taking over the teaching process, they progressively gain experience in independent work, gain self-confidence and start developing an autonomous teacher's personality.
The research included students of the second year of the masters degree study program Physical Education at the Faculty of Sport (N = 179), who conducted the PPT in the years 2013-2018 at secondary schools throughout Slovenia, and also their mentors. First, we considered four areas in which only the mentors gave the grades of students' work; we compared the grades according to the gender of students and mentors, the title of the mentors, the year of implementation of the PPT and the secondary school program. Then we analyzed student competence assessments provided by students and mentors after two weeks of inclusion in the PPT and at the end of the PPT on a five-point scale. We were interested in whether there are differences between mentors’ assessment and student (self)assessments, and whether the gender of students or mentors influences the assessment of competences and the program of the school where the students performed the PPT.
We used Microsoft Excel 2013 and IBM SPSS 22 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois USA) to process and graphically present the data. In order to check the differences between the assessments of the mentors in the four areas of assessment, we used a variance analysis, and we used the independent samples t- test for to check the differences between the competence assessments provided by the mentors and self-assessments of students. We used the independent samples t- test also to check the progress in competences during the PPT.
We found that the mentors evaluated the professional approach of the students with the highest grades of the four areas. There were no statistically significant differences in respect of the year in which the PPT was conducted, gender of students, or gender and the title of mentors are available, but there were differences in the preparation of materials according to the program of the school, where the students performed the practice. We also found that there were discrepancies between student self-assessments and mentors’ estimates, who gave higher grades to the students. The initial and final assessment of students’ competencies was not influenced by the gender of students and the type of secondary school where students practice. According to mentors and students, the students improved their competence in all areas of observation. The greatest progress was observed in the field of didactic knowledge of planning, while the highest initial and final grade was observed in the field of didactic knowledge of evaluation.
The master’s thesis gives insight into the progress of students at the PPT, and thus indirectly on the effectiveness and efficiency of the PPT. There are areas where students have greatly improved their competences during the PPT, as well as those that gain a lot of attention through the study. There are also possibilities for changes and improvements, especially in those areas that were poorly assessed or those where in which there were no significant differences in the time of the PPT.
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