Abstract:

Student teachers start their studies with specific ideas about the desired profession, in which their experiences with teachers, their knowledge and assumptions about teaching and learning processes, and social discourses on the teaching profession combine to form a complex image of the profession and their vision of a 'good teacher'. This image, and the subjective perspectives of prospective teachers and the profession are likely to be crucial for the motivation to study and throughout the course of the education. Nevertheless, the current state of research still lacks a comprehensive and integrative understanding of such visions and their meaning. In this study, the teacher image of student teachers at the beginning of their studies is multimethodogically worked out based on longitudinal quantitative (n=2,504) and qualitative data (n=55). Significant discrepancies between the output-oriented perspective of current research on the teaching profession and an input-oriented perspective of the students, for which good teachers are impactful social actors, become apparent. A better understanding of this vision, the associated subjective perspectives and resulting processes in the context of the study or career decision can help to better accompany students during their studies and prepare them for the teaching profession, e.g. in terms of health, well-being and resilience.

Keywords:

Teacher image, subjective perspectives, teacher students, teacher training.