Student Teachers on Pedagogical Practice: A Third-Party Perspective

Abstract

The aim of the study is to analyze the opinions of mentor teachers on the evaluation of professional competencies and specific skills of student teachers at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. A self-developed scaled questionnaire was used for data collection. Its validation through exploratory factor analysis demonstrated the existence of four factors (didactic-methodological, developmental, diagnostic, and evaluation competence). The research sample consisted of 105 mentor teachers cooperating with the Department of Pedagogy at UPJŠ. A statistically significant difference was found in the evaluation of students' didactic-methodological and diagnostic competence during teaching practice by mentors in terms of location, as well as in the evaluation of students' diagnostic competence by mentors in terms of age (due to the application of multiple comparisons—where the significance level was made more stringent—effect size was given greater emphasis). In addition, although no statistically significant differences were found, substantive differences were observed in mentors’ evaluation of students’ didactic-methodological competence in terms of the method of acquiring teaching qualifications, and in mentors’ evaluation of students’ developmental competence in terms of performing the role of school leader. Within didactic-methodological competence, mentor teachers gave lower ratings to students' skills related to working with the curriculum content. Within developmental competence, lower ratings were given to students' skills related to performing professional reflection. Within diagnostic competence, mentor teachers rated students' skills in inclusive education lower. Finally, within evaluation competence, lower ratings were given to students' skills in applying multiple student assessment procedures.