How Do Prospective Teachers Address Pupils’ Ideas during School Practices?

Abstract

This paper assesses the coherence between the conceptions of prospective teachers about pupils’ ideas and how these are used in their educational proposals for primary school classrooms. For this purpose, three dimensions were analysed: The nature, utilisation, and change of ideas. In addition, two instruments were used: A questionnaire, to find out what prospective teachers think about pupils’ ideas, and the educational proposals they designed during their school practices. For the latter, qualitative content analysis was used to establish four levels according to the didactic approach on which they base the consideration of pupils’ ideas: Transmissive or the construction of ideas. The results show that, in all three dimensions, the conception of pupils’ ideas consistent with the construction of ideas orientation dominates. Nevertheless, their educational proposals do not show this orientation since the majority designed traditional educational proposals (Levels 1 and 2). Thus, there is no correlation between their conceptions about pupils’ ideas and how these are considered in their proposals. Besides, this analysis shows that an inadequate interpretation of the nature of pupils’ ideas could strongly condition how these ideas are considered in the teaching and learning process. The educational implications of these results in initial teacher training are discussed.