Influence of the mentor’s feedback on student-teachers’
lesson-planning skills and instructional strategies
The poor academic performance of students is associated with low teacher self‐efficacy, which indicates that teacher self‐efficacy is very important for good teacher performance (Bandura, 1982; Pajares, 1996). Teacher self‐ ef‐
ficacy (TSE) has been investigated in order to understand teachers’ beliefs about their capabilities and subsequent decisions about practice. According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1986), self‐efficacy is developed over time based on the interaction between person, behaviour, and outcome;
learners obtain information to appraise their self‐efficacy from their actual performances, their vicarious experiences, the persuasions they receive from others, and their physiological reactions. Students differ in their self‐
efficacy for learning as a function of their prior experiences, personal quali‐
ties, and social supports. (Schunk & Pajares, 2002).
Social support, such as feedback, is a crucial aspect of the environmental factors affecting teaching self‐efficacy beliefs, as it may impact behaviour, and, accordingly, teaching performance (Bruning, Schraw, Norby, & Ron‐
ning, 2010). Feedback in the context of teacher education has been defined as information that is presented to an individual following a performance that reflects upon the adequacy, quantity, or quality of the teaching perfor‐
mance (Tower, 1999).
According to Chung (2002), quality feedback and dialogue appear to im‐
prove in: depth of knowledge of their subject area, dealing with complex‐
ity and contradictions in the knowledge‐base, justifying and evaluating the approach(es), method(s), or technique(s) they use, the capacity to develop new approach(es), method(s), or technique(s) in new situations. Quality feedback involves helping student‐teachers or teachers to think globally of the theory and to act locally in specific classroom situations. (Chung, 2002) Feedback provides information that helps learners confirm, refine, or re‐
structure various kinds of knowledge, strategies, and beliefs that are related to the learning objectives (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). The studies related to feedback underscore the importance of providing feedback that is instruc‐
tive, timely, referenced to the actual task, and focused on what is correct and what to do next (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). According to Shute (2008), the timing of feedback depends to some extent on the nature of the task and on whether students are high performing or low performing.
If the mentor provides immediate feedback, this could encourage students to practice, but also to improve the performance for the next lesson. Delay‐
ing feedback may encourage the development of cognitive and metacogni‐
tive processing for high‐performing students, yet it may cause frustration for struggling and less‐motivated students (Clariana & Koul, 2006; Shute, 2008).
However, feedback can influence student‐teachers’ performance differ‐
ently, depending on their personality. Young (2000) reports that there is a tendency for students who are identified as having low self‐esteem to take any comment as a reflection on them personally, whereas high self‐esteem students see feedback as a reflection of their work. According to Carless (2006), students have identified time management and negative judgment as reasons to not seek feedback from tutors.
Feedback is critical because it influences students’ cognitive processes. Pro‐
fessional practice should be focused on developing student‐teachers’ capac‐
ity to judge the successful transfer of the technique to the classroom and to measure different techniques effects on student achievement. This can help in the creation of effective lesson plans.
Teachers are working with increasingly diverse populations of students in the classroom. They should adapt lessons to a variety of students. Proper planning and well‐structured lessons are essential in ensuring that all stu‐
dents achieve better results. Teaching lesson planning is ‘teaching future educators how to think about the relationship between educational theo‐
ries, lesson planning, instructional strategies, students and learning’ (Theo‐
haris, Theoharis, & Trezek, 2008). Therefore, lesson planning is one of the most difficult aspects of being a new teacher. Lesson plans are essential because they provide a structure for the session; set out important logistical issues such as who, what, where, when and how; establish the link between lesson objectives and assessment methods; give anyone having to cover a session vital information to work with; and provide anyone observing the lesson with information about the session that they may not be able to wit‐
ness as part of the observation (Bates, 2016).
The processes of lesson planning is a complex activity that requires the planning teachers 1) to design lessons for activating learning by taking into account both learners’ prior knowledge and learners’ motivation; 2) to an‐
ticipate the kind of mental activities to take place when students learn the planned lesson, 3) to plan different kinds and levels of supporting individual students in their learning, and 4) to plan how to assess the outcomes of the implemented instructional plans (Oser & Baeriswyl, 2001)
A study by Duah (2010) showed that participants (mentors) thought to pro‐
vide feedback after lesson observation, and they did not review the lesson plans of their mentees before they were taught. Because it is not clear wheth‐
er mentors are not reviewing lesson plans given to them or student‐teachers are not getting the lesson plans to the mentors for them to review, the author states that one reason may be the time factor. Moreover, the review of les‐
son plans prior to their live delivery is essential in order to avoid the negative impact that inappropriate lessons may have on pupils (Duah, 2001).
Another study by Ruys, Van Keer, and Aelterman (2012) investigates the qual‐
ity of lesson plans, focusing on collaborative learning implementation. They analysed 323 lesson plans of second‐year pre‐service teachers; the results reveal both strengths (e.g., designing appropriate learning tasks, developing adequate learning materials) and weaknesses (e.g., including social objec‐
tives, rules and agreements for collaborative work) in the lesson plans.
Ruys, Van Keer, and Aelterman (2012) focus on the analysis of lesson plans to reveal student‐teachers’ competences, because literature analysis indi‐
cates that the analysis of lesson plans is a suitable approach of gaining in‐
sight into teacher competence, instructional planning is generally perceived as an important process in the professionalisation of teachers, and that pre‐
vious studies have provided evidence for the relationship between lesson planning and teaching quality in terms of student achievement and instruc‐
tional behaviour. They cite the work of Naafs et al. (2002, in Ruys, Van Keer,
& Aelterman, 2012), who found a positive relationship between elaborate lesson plans and final student achievement, since a thorough preparation seemed to provide more time‐on‐task for the students and consequently more learning opportunities.
A good lesson plan does not automatically mean that it will be a good les‐
son, but it is an essential part of the process (Bates, 2016). Therefore, teach‐
era should have both lesson preparation skills and knowledge of instruc‐
tional strategies. In an education context, congruence between verbal and non‐verbal messages from the teacher has been implicated as influencing the effectiveness of classroom management (Brown, 2005).
In education, vocal qualities, such as the teacher’s rate of speaking, vari‐
ability in tone and pitch, and volume, have been shown to enhance teacher clarity (McCroskey, Richmond, & McCroskey, 2006). Some of the skills that are important in spoken communication are choice of words, intensity, clear articulation, employing appropriate language, and demonstrating nonver‐
bal behaviour that supports verbal behaviour. Therefore, preparation and knowledge are crucial for minimising anxiety, which can be manifested with a trembling voice, rapid breath, and loss of concentration.
Methodology
Data Collection Methods
“Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding how people inter‐
pret their experiences, how they construct their worlds and what mean‐
ing they attribute to their experiences” (Merriam, 2009, p. 5). This study employed qualitative methods of data collection as it was investigating the perceptions of the student‐teachers and school mentors related to pre‐
service teacher experience in lesson planning and instructional strategies.
Semi‐structured interviews were used to collect the data. Interviews lasted from 20 to 45 minutes and were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The interview had four questions related to opportunities for teaching lessons,
student‐teacher initiative for feedback and contribution of mentor’s feed‐
back on student‐teachers’ lesson planning skills and instructional strategies.
Participants and settings
Ten 3rd year students (aged 20‐22), who were randomly selected from around 400 students of Primary Education Programme at the Faculty of Education of the University of Prishtina initially signed the sound‐recording agreement, which informed them that the interview is confidential and will only be used for research issues with the guarantee that their identity will not be revealed in any circumstance. They are interviewed after they had completed their six weeks of pedagogical practice in primary schools. Also, five school mentors who had been teaching from 5 to 19 years in schools were involved in interviews.
Data analysis
The semi‐structured interviews were conducted with strict attention to rich data collection. Interviews were transcribed and initially read through to gain a general sense of the data. Patterns of responses were carefully coded and recorded. After coding, codes were grouped into themes to be able to draw conclusions about the data. The thematic approach to data analysis was adopted.