Investigating beliefs and perceptions of autonomous learning during transition from pre-service to novice teachers: a longitudinal case study

Abstract

In the 21st century, autonomous learning ability⁠—often understood as the ability to take control over one’s learning⁠—is crucial for one’s lifelong satisfaction and self-realisation. Hence, the development of learner autonomy is seen as an important educational goal that many education programmes implement into their curricula to instruct the pre-service teachers to foster learner autonomy with their future students. However, upon graduating and becoming novice teachers, teachers often struggle to implement what they learned regarding autonomy. Therefore, there is a need for longitudinal examinations of teacher beliefs and perceptions of autonomous learning in micro contexts, during and post-teacher education. The present study responds to this need by following two pre-service teachers⁠—students of the Faculty of Education at a Catalan university—as they transitioned into in-service novice teachers. The research questions concerned the two study participants’ beliefs and perceptions of autonomous learning during their final university year as pre-service teachers, their beliefs and perceptions of autonomous learning as novice in-service teachers, and potential change of these beliefs and perceptions and their underlying factors._x000D_ A qualitative case study was employed with a multi-phase research design involving: a research synthesis pre-study to establish a conceptual framework, a pilot study, the main study entailing designing and implementation of a 9-month long Autonomous Learning Intervention (conducted fully online), and a follow-up study to elicit the in-service teaching data and validate researcher interpretation of the main study findings. The data was collected via online meetings and questionnaires, screencast video recordings, reflection sheets, and participant-produced artefacts and materials such as practicum lesson plans and self-reflection blog posts. This data was then analysed using an interpretivist paradigm, with content and thematic analysis used_x000D_ as the main tools for identifying the dynamic unfolding of the two participants’ beliefs and perceptions three-year period. The main findings are discussed under the most recurrent suprathemes at both stages: uncertainty, teacher guidance, teacher feedback, and control shift. This case study provides an in-depth account of the two pre-service teachers’ beliefs and perceptions of autonomous learning while shedding light on the reality of novice teaching in Catalonia and the complexity of investigating teacher beliefs where institutional constraints inevitably affect their enactment in practice. Some important implications for pedagogy and further research are provided, including a call to reinforce pre-service teachers’ training on autonomous learning and provide means of support to novice teachers to enable their promotion of autonomy.

Date of Award	26 Jan 2022
Original language	English
Supervisor	Melinda Dooly Owenby (Tutor)