Remote internships: The experiences of pre-service teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Authors

School-based internships are an important learning opportunity for pre-service teachers (PSTs); they were partly or fully obstructed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to investigate how schools, PSTs, and the university succeeded in organizing and supporting school internships during the pandemic. Accordingly, 434 pre-service teachers (PSTs) were asked to complete an online survey at two time points (just before starting and just before completing the internship) about their internship experiences under pandemic conditions in 2020 (201 PSTs) and 2021 (233 PSTs). We investigated the effects of the internships on PSTs’ health, lesson planning competence, and teacher self-efficacy; we also compared these effects between the cohorts in 2020 and 2021. While PSTs had little contact with school pupils, university teacher educators quickly offered alternative supervision formats (especially in 2020). Internships contributed more to PSTs’ career choice certainty and self-efficacy in 2021, though there was no difference in self-assessed lesson planning competence. The central implications are that university teachers can create learning opportunities even without PSTs being physically present in schools; this potential should be developed in the future, despite the removal of pandemic-related restrictions. Furthermore, schools should remain aware of their educational obligations to PSTs even in challenging times.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2260679
JournalCogent Education
Volume10
Issue number2
Number of pages19
ISSN2331-186X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24.09.2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project is part of the “Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung”, a joint initiative of the Federal Government and the Länder, which aims to improve the quality of teacher training. The programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The authors are responsible for the content of this publication.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

    Research areas

  • Educational science - Covid-19, distance learning, internship, lesson planning, practicum, pre-service teachers (PSTs), self-efficacy, stress, teacher education