African Educational Research Journal - Vol. 2(1) - Full Length Research Paper - Is teaching practice for grading or improvement?

Oct 15, 2026

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Teaching practice is a core activity for evaluating classroom-acquired teaching skills and preparing professional teachers. This study examined student teachers’ perceptions and experiences at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, focusing on teaching practice supervision, supervisor treatment, pre-/post-class discussions, and overall teaching practice processes. Data from 112 student teachers used structured and non-structured questionnaires, comparing perceptions across gender, year, and background.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Need for teaching practice among teacher-trainees

African Educational Research Journal Vol. 2(1), pp. 1-11, January 2014 ISSN: 2354-2160 Full Length Research Paper Is teaching practice for grading or improvement? Examining student teachers’ perception and experience at the University of Dar es salaam, Tanzania Gissa A. Mahende and Nkuba Mabula* Faculty of Education, Dar es Salaam University College of Education, Tanzania. Accepted 24 December, 2013 | ABSTRACT
Teaching practice is the central activity in testing teaching skills gathered in classroom learning and in preparing professional teachers in any country. The current study investigated student teachers perception and experience on the teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, student supervisor pre or post classroom discussion and teaching practice processes in general. The data to inform the study were collected from 112 student teachers: 67 were males and 45 females and the tools used were questionnaires both structured and non-structured. Of these 52 were second years while 60 were third years. Majority of respondents about 95 (84 .8%) were pre service and 17 (15 .2%) were in-service. The findings revealed that student teachers had positive perception on teaching practice exercise, teaching practice supervisor’s treatment, and supervisor-student feedback provision style. It was also discovered that demographic variables such as: sex, year of study and professional background had a slight influence on student teachers perception on teaching practice exercise, supervisors treatment, and supervisor-student feedback styles. In line to that 42 (37 .5%) student-teachers acknowledged the concept that teaching practice is for improvement and the remaining percentages were given to factors associated to opposite dimension. It was therefore concluded that, there is a need for strengthening the teaching practice supervision exercise and specifically the collaboration between university teaching practice office and the teaching practice-host institutions should be improved so as to minimize the challenges emanating from miscommunication during the teaching practice exercise.
Keywords: Teaching practice, supervision, perception, feedback, assessment. | | --- | | *Corresponding author. E-mail: [nmabula@duce.ac.tz](nmabula@duce.ac.tz). | INTRODUCTION In all professionals field , training is a crucial aspect with an attempt of testing and assessing the skills attained by learners before the actual consumption in the world of work. This fact stand as vital to the teaching profession where teacher-trainees need to attend field training for the purpose of assessing their teaching skills and testing the theories learned in classrooms in actual school context. This field exercise which is responsible to orient teacher-trainees in their learning process in colleges and universities is called teaching practice. Scholars such as Kirbulut et al. (2012), Al- Mahrooqi (2011), Ngidi and Sibiya (2003) in Kiggundu (2007) emphasize that teaching practice course provide an opportunity for preservice teachers to apply the theoretical learning offered by university teaching programs in the real life of school settings. The concept of teaching According to Reed et al. (1998) , teaching is an exercising process of helping students to discover new sounds with which they can communicate. It involves creating an environment in which students can safety suspend the absoluteness of their everyday realities to enter a world which previous learned rules do not apply and everything has a new name. At the core of teaching is the sense of bringing to the students what they need to know to advance their self-examination, to that end a teacher brings written and visual materials together to provide both background content and central problem for the students and learners in the class to understand. Therefore, the facts emphasized here add value in the need for orienting teacher trainees in the practical exercise (teaching practice)

FAQs

What is the central focus of the study on teaching practice?

The study examines whether teaching practice functions as grading or as improvement, and how student teachers perceive supervision, discussions, and teaching practice processes.

How was the study conducted and what data were collected?

The study surveyed 112 student teachers using structured and non-structured questionnaires, gathering perceptions about supervision treatment and feedback styles.

What did the findings indicate about student teachers’ perceptions?

Most respondents reported positive perceptions of teaching practice, the supervisor’s treatment, and the feedback provision style, with only slight influence from demographic variables.

What conclusion did the paper reach for improving teaching practice?

It concludes that teaching practice supervision should be strengthened and that collaboration between the university teaching practice office and host institutions should be improved to reduce miscommunication challenges.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford