Choy, Doris

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions that student teachers hold of the level of their knowledge and skills in the areas of pedagogy and classroom management. A sample of 596 student teachers completed the survey on their perceptions at the beginning and at the end of their initial teacher preparation programme. The results of the study indicated that student teachers' perceptions of their knowledge and skills in the areas of facilitation, lesson preparation, classroom management, feedback and evaluation increased significantly upon completion of their teacher preparation programme. However, their perceived skill level in the area of care and concern remained unchanged by the end of the programme. The findings also showed that although the student teachers perceived their knowledge and skills at about the same level at the beginning of the programme, they perceived their knowledge level to be significantly higher than their skills level by the end of the programme.

This study followed a cohort of student teachers from the beginning of their teacher education program to the end of the third year of teaching, looking at their perceived changes in pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching in Singapore. The PKST survey comprising 37 items with six factors were used to collect data. In the cohort of over 1300 student teachers, 353 participated in all five survey data collections. The results showed that the participants’ overall pedagogical knowledge and skills in teaching increased significantly. The largest increases were found in knowledge in lesson planning and skills in classroom management. The skills in showing care and concern did not show significant increases until the end of third year of teaching.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there were differences in the levels of pedagogical knowledge and skills as perceived by the student teachers who were enrolled in the Primary and the Secondary Post Graduate Diploma in Education programme at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. 170 Primary and 426 Secondary student teachers participated in the study. The results showed that there were no significant differences at the beginning of the programme between the two cohorts. However, there were significant differences between the two groups at the end of programme, with the Primary student teachers tending to perceive themselves as gaining more pedagogical knowledge and skills by the end of their initial teacher preparation programme than the Secondary student teachers.