Abstract
The process of becoming a teacher is complex and involves enormous challenges for student teachers. Without a doubt, among the most decisive ones is the initiation into professional practice during the practicum. This qualitative interpretive study analyses the practicum reports (narratives) of 15 primary education students from the Dialogical Self Theory. The study seeks to identify the voices that nourish their professional identity, the I-positions (I-p) that arise when coping with critical incidents (CI) experienced during the practicum, and analyse how the different I-ps contribute to an agential transition of the identity from student to teacher. The results point out that the significant voices that nourish the identity of the students in training come from teachers and family members. When confronting CIs, the I-p of I-student predominated, and difficulties are experienced in deploying other professional I-ps. These also highlight the contribution of different I-ps towards the development of the students’ identity-agency, particularly of the I-p of I-future-teacher (possible self). The study offers relevant information for understanding how the student–teacher transition occurs and for reorienting practices towards identity development.
The process of becoming a teacher is complex and involves enormous challenges for student teachers. Without a doubt, one of the most decisive ones is the start of one’s professional practice during the practicum (Edwards & Edwards, 2017; Körkkö et al., 2016).
The practicum is the place where community is built, relationships with educational actors and the environment are understood and developed, and a sense of self is acquired (Giralt-Romeu et al., 2020; Vanegas & Fuentealba, 2019). It is likely the training space of greatest impact on future teachers (Monereo & Hermans, 2023) since it allows for contrasting practical knowledge with academic knowledge, integrating knowledge of the thematic area, and is a key moment where decision-making takes place from various positions. During these experiences the students in training experiment feelings, conceptions and beliefs about teaching, face their first disappointments and develop visions about the future exercise of the profession, depending on their sensations of success or failure (González & Fuentes, 2011).
The practicum, therefore, is a realm in which basic reflective processes occur for transitioning from the student identity to the teacher identity as the professional identity emerges, at least partially, as of the spaces and activities of the initial teacher training (Giralt-Romeu et al., 2020; Sutherland et al., 2010).
For this reason, many authors (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Monereo, 2022; Silva et al., 2023) agree in pointing out the limitations of the predominant instrumental approaches in the current training of future teachers and propose prioritizing identity development during teacher training.
These studies carried out with both novice teachers and teachers in training highlight the difficulties of transferring knowledge in contexts as complex and changing as educational institutions, the impossibility of bridging the gap between theory and practice (Allas et al., 2017), the role of emotions or the constant internal contradictions that teachers deal with in handling diverse situations in the classroom (Liesa et al., 2022).
In short, they maintain that their teaching performance depends to a greater extent on their experiences during their academic trajectory as a whole, the related emotions, self-perception and assessment of the specific situations they face, and not on the instrumental training received or their academic knowledge (Beijaard, 2019; Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011). That is, the personal stories of future teachers of occurrences in the educational contexts in which they participate shape how they will organize and carry out their activity in the future (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Beijaard et al., 2004).
Given its relevance, the practicum’s meaning and orientation is a sphere that arouses widespread interest for research in teacher training. However, in most universities, priority has been given to training practices aimed at the transfer of academic knowledge and little attention has been paid to studies on their impact on identity development (Liesa et al., 2022; Meijer, 2017).
Authors such as Izadinia (2018), Mena et al. (2017) and Van Rijswijk et al. (2018) have explored in depth the types of knowledge that are generated during the practicum, the role of support and mentoring in this process (Heikkilä et al., 2012; Mena et al., 2017) and the impact of difficulties or tensions experienced during the practicum on identity development (Leijen et al., 2018).
While these studies have contributed to an understanding of the role of the practicum on identity development, little is known about how the identity transition from student in training to feeling like a teacher occurs, what voices and what I-ps contribute to this and, therefore, how they contribute to the development of identity-agency.
To address the development of identity, we use the Dialogical Self Theory (DST; Hermans, 2003) as the basis because it provides essential keys for explaining the formation of identity and its emergence in situations of tension, such as the practicum. DST allows for accessing the internal dynamics of the self-system and for identifying connections between the self and the society that configures it (Liesa et al., 2022; Monereo & Hermans, 2023). Thus, DST offers a dynamic, multidimensional and highly contextualized vision of identity that requires the negotiation of meanings, dialogue, feedback and active reflection (Monereo et al., 2013; Sachs, 2005).
From that perspective, we do not have a unique and permanent identity. The self is comprised of a wide range of existing and possible I-positions (I-p) (Hamman et al., 2010) which are activated in specific situations and expressed through a voice. The I-ps of the self establish internal dialogues, sometimes concordant and other times discordant, promoting the emergence of new I-ps resulting from coalitions between the already existing ones, called new positions, in a constant movement of integration and disintegration of the self (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Monereo & Hermans, 2023).
Voices are the product of the internalization of cultural and political influences (external voices) and the messages and mandates of significant others, based on which a subject constructs one’s own narrative and gives meaning to one’s own actions (external and internal voices, respectively) (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 2004).
Teachers negotiate meanings about their professional identity in collaborative exchanges; therefore, learning is understood as the ability to adjust or create new I-ps that adapt to new contexts as the teachers participate in shared activities (Silva et al., 2023).
In this regard, Liesa et al. (2022) point out that the experiences that take place in the social contexts of the practicum promote meaningful experiences, including coping with atypical teaching episodes or critical incidents (CI) which prompt the emergence of new I-ps in the teachers, and are shaped when the future teacher integrates the voices that are emotionally significant for them and those that are relevant in this new social context. Thus, it is understood that the appearance of a new teaching I-p is triggered by a CI and is configured by the multiplicity of voices existing in the educational system (Badia et al., 2021).
CIs are unforeseen, destabilizing events, limited in time and space, that call into question the teachers’ beliefs, conceptions and emotions and force them to change their courses of action (Monereo et al., 2013).
Many studies have already pointed out the value of analysing the CIs to promote reflective learning and professional development (Chien, 2018; Yu, 2018) and, more specifically, to favour the development of identity and agency (Badia et al., 2021; Griffin, 2010; Hurst & Brantlinger, 2022; Sisson, 2016) in both professional teachers and student teachers during the practicum.
In coherence with this, we consider it fundamental to understand the development of identity as intrinsically linked to professional agency. The professional identity of teachers in training cannot be developed without agentic action (Beijaard et al., 2004) — that is to say, intentional, autonomous and responsible actions (Moate, 2014; Moate & Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2014). Thus, professional agency is understood as the ability to influence, make decisions and adopt positions regarding one’s own action and, particularly, the ability to positively use experiences and participation in the environment for the development of professional identity, which Eteläpelto et al. (2013) refer to as identity-agency. Therefore, in this study we use the term identity-agency to specifically highlight that agentic action in the construction of identity.
In the case of our study’s students in training, we are interested in exploring how the transition towards the construction of a professional identity is produced and favoured, and which emerging I-ps contribute most to the development of identity-agency.
Thereby, our study aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the I-ps deployed when coping with CIs that take place in the classroom and of the process of configuring the professional identity in students in training through: (a) the analysis of the voices that nourish their professional identity; (b) the identification of the I-ps that emerge when coping with CIs; and (c) the analysis of how different I-ps contribute to an agentic transition of the identity from student to teacher.
Methodology
In this qualitative-interpretive study, the final reports of 15 students (see Table 1) who completed the practicum at a Catalan public university were analysed, presented in detail below.
Characteristics of the participants.
Context and participants
The study took place within the context of the practicum IV (PIV), which is carried out during the fourth year of university studies to obtain the primary school teacher certification, 1 of a general nature. During one semester, students carry out their practicum at a school for two initial and final intensive one-month periods during which they attend daily and for an extensive period during which they attend once a week.
The students have weekly tutoring sessions with their university supervisor and are supervised by the classroom mentor while at the schools.
In addition to immersion in the context, one of the fundamental objectives of the PIV is design and intervention in the classroom. To this end, in addition to the regular tasks inherent to teaching that they carry out under supervision, the student teachers are responsible for the design, on their own, of a didactic sequence of six to eight sessions.
During their tutoring sessions, the students present their progress and reflect on their experiences at the school and collect them in a final report (see Supplemental Material 1), which comprises this study’s data source. The format of the report is standard for the PIV and was not modified for research purposes. Educational biographies (15) and CIs reported during the practicum (20) were analysed (see Supplemental Material 1, sections 2.2 and 4, for details).
Purposive sampling was used. The 15 students were invited directly by their university internship supervisor and main researcher of this study: their participation was voluntary and they signed written informed consent. The students belong to three successive cohorts, and none refused to participate.
All information was processed in compliance with ethical and confidentiality standards approved by the university ethics committee, names were replaced with aliases and all personal references were eliminated. The data were managed on secure university servers with access granted exclusively to researchers.
Procedure
In the educational autobiographies, the students were asked to write a free narrative about their academic trajectory and the most significant experiences that influenced their decision to study teaching. Likewise, they were asked to report between one and two CIs that they experienced during their practicum, using the Critical Incident Analysis Guideline (PANIC) (Monereo et al., 2013) (see Supplemental Material 2 for details).
PANIC is a tool created and tested in previous research to promote such analysis and reflection (Bilbao & Monereo, 2011; Contreras et al., 2010; Monereo, 2010). It includes a description of the CI, an analysis of the intervening conceptions, strategies and emotions, the perceptions attributed to other participants during the CI and a redescription of the same, evaluating different solution alternatives.
PANIC was discussed in the tutorials and reflections were added to a section on acquired learning once the practicums were concluded (see Supplemental Material 1, section 4.1).
Data analysis
These sections were analysed by identifying three previously defined dimensions: types of CIs, I-ps and internal and external voices that emerged from the students in training.
Each I-p was classified based on emerging categories in line with the principles of content analysis (Krippendorff, 2018; Neuendorf, 2017). Internal and external voices were categorized according to the recommendations of Aveling et al. (2015). Inner voices were identified with self-referential linguistic markers such as first-person personal and possessive pronouns. For external voices, references to third parties such as ‘My older sister was…’ or ‘The teacher who inspired me…’ were used. The categorization proposed by Monereo et al. (2013) was adapted to identify the types of CIs (see Supplemental Material 3).
Using ATLAS.ti 22, 30% of the students’ stories were categorized together, and subsequently blind coding was done between the two researchers until reaching approximately 85% coincidence in the assignment of quotes, guaranteeing the category system’s reliability.
Findings
Voices that nourish the I-ps of students in training
Our first objective was to analyse the voices that nourish the professional identity of the students in training through their autobiographies.
According to their narratives, the internal voices that impacted their orientation towards teaching and exerted an important influence on their decision to become teachers revolved around four basic themes: (a) opposition to or identification with negative life experiences; (b) internal convictions about the function of helping, projected in the future exercise of teaching; (c) internal convictions of social commitment, connected with notions of education as a driving force for change; and (d) identification with the figure of the teacher as an ideal, without any specific personal reference. The table below (see Table 2) provides representative examples of each of these voices and how they influenced the students’ decision to become a teacher.
Internal voices of the students.
Regarding external voices, two central contents were identified: (a) voices of my teachers/educators; and (b) voices of my family members. The participants shared how the voices of their teachers/educators had been decisive in their decision to study teaching, either because of the support or direct recommendation received or as inspiration and example. In both cases, the testimonies refer to the importance of the emotional bond. Regarding the voices of my family members, the central motivation is to follow the steps of relatives who have been considered educational references (see Table 3).
External voices of the students.
As shown below, these voices support the construction of their new I-ps as future teachers.
I-positions in critical incidents
In relation to the I-ps that emerge when coping with the CI, the participants’ narratives revealed that, of the 20 CIs reported, 18 referred to interpersonal relationships between teacher–student, teacher–teacher or student–student, and the two remaining referred to classroom planning and management (didactic CIs), wherefore we will focus on the former.
When coping with CIs, four I-p were identified: I-student, I-monitor, I-teacher and I-caregiver. For strictly operational purposes, we will call these I-ps primary positions; they are the ones that the students deploy when coping with ICs.
In the teacher–student ICs, the I-p of I-student predominated. The participants reported difficulties in acting from another position. They felt that they confronted an ambiguous situation in which it was difficult for them to make their own decisions and cope with the events, ceding leadership to the tutor, avoiding taking action or directly approaching the tutor to handle the situation. Most of the participants mentioned their lack of tools and the difficulties of acting from a position of authority in front of the group, as Ale explains:
I only asked what had happened and then limited myself to telling the second tutor what had occurred and told her that one child had insulted another and how the situation came about. She immediately called all of the children into the classroom, displayed her anger and pointed out that there would be consequences on the playground the next day. (Ale)
In these CIs, the I-p of I-caregiver was also identified, characterized by the predominance of a surveillance role, without intervening directly in the solution. As we see in Ana’s narrative, even though the children demonstrate inappropriate behaviour, she limits herself to suggesting that they stop and to supervising them.
The conversation started well, but suddenly, N repeatedly locked himself in the bathroom and decided to invite B into his game. So, we ended up playing for a long time. My goal was to convince them to get out of the toilets and not get hurt, and theirs to have a good time playing by jumping from toilet to toilet, with the door locked so I couldn’t get to them. (Ana)
In the CI analysis, at no time did Ana identify that her intervention could have been different, and she emphasized her exclusive concern for the children’s caretaking.
In relation to CIs that occurred among teachers, the I-p of I-student also prevailed. The most relevant for the students in training were those that occurred with their tutors, since, according to their narratives, they had a high emotional impact, as the example demonstrates.
The teacher turned to my tutor in my absence and said, ‘The activity didn’t go very well, it wasn’t well thought out… but, well, poor thing, she’s still learning.’ I felt terrible. (Ale)
In the incidents mentioned in the narratives, the participants’ difficulty in expressing their ideas and establishing a dialogue on an equal level with the other teachers stands out. For this reason, they assume an I-p of I-student, remaining silent or accepting the situation despite their disagreement, for example, with the strategies applied or the solutions attempted by the teacher, thereby acknowledging power differences, as Txell comments:
Perhaps I would have asked them to be silent, but it is still the teacher’s classroom and my role as a student teacher is to adapt to that teacher’s dynamics. But when analysing the incident, I realize that I could have talked to her anyway and expressed my point of view, but I don’t have all the freedom that I would have if it were my classroom. (Txell)
Txell recognizes that her action during the incident was inappropriate, due to her lack of authority as a student in training, highlighting her difficulties in taking the initiative. These frequent contradictions in the narratives between what the participants believe they should do from an I-teacher position that they cannot deploy and their real performance as I-student generated discontent, as Laura also expresses.
At the time I felt helpless because I could neither intervene nor tell the teacher that it wasn’t necessary to ridicule the student; there are other ways to keep him quiet and not bother his classmates. I also felt this way because she intruded in the problem when it had not yet gone out of my control, without giving me the chance to solve it on my own. It made me feel very uneasy. (Laura)
It is an illustrative example of how poor management and communication with the tutor limits the emergence of the I-teacher but at the same time questions the participants’ identity.
Regarding the student–student CIs, we see that, although the I-p of I-student also predominates, they can move more quickly towards I-teacher and I-monitor or other intermediate positions.
A clear example is the case of Ale when coping with a CI, in which she initially puts her I-p of I-student into play, since she initially transfers the responsibility for the solution to the teacher, but, as expressed in her story, during the CI itself was able to regain control and assume a leading role, developing more adapted strategies from her I-teacher position. Feeling more confident, she retakes the initiative and gets her students to collaborate.
Marcel reports something similar in his narrative, where he puts his I-p of I-monitor into play when he acknowledges having resorted to his previous, related experience to cope with a CI:
I have witnessed several fights in the world of leisure. However, when I dealt with the incident, I did not have a specific case in mind, yet in the end I was able to handle it, and from there move towards an I-p of I-teacher, taking direct action to resolve what happened between the students. (Marcel)
In the different CIs, the I-ps of I-teacher were also deployed, although much less frequently. The I-ps of I-teacher were associated with well-being and self-confidence: it is when the student assumes a leading role in resolving a CI and can exert the full scope of one’s professional role, putting one’s own strategies into play. Luisa narrates, for example, how she alone assumes responsibility in a situation of violence and resolves it efficiently.
I grabbed him firmly from behind and began to tell him, ‘Calm down… Relax, if you relax and prove it to me, I’ll let you go.’ Then when he calmed down a little bit, without letting go and to distract him, I suggested that he guess what letter I was writing on his back, and he gradually came around and wanted me to also guess the ones he wrote on my arm. (Luisa)
As we see below, the I-ps activated when coping with a CI generate new positions that contribute to the identity development of the students in training.
Emerging I-positions in the practicum
The information shows that the practicum enabled the development of new positions based on active reflection and the dialogue that was generated between the I-ps of I-student and I-teacher. The following example clearly illustrates this type of dialogue.
I think that, despite everything, I haven’t done too badly, since I was able to remain calm. I also think that my role is not taken as seriously as the role of the tutor (I-p of I-student). I think that to be able to implement the strategies that I considered most appropriate (I-teacher), I should have a well-acquired role and make sure that the students are clear about my authority (I-future-teacher). (Mireya)
Thus, when the confrontation occurs, the space of the self expands, giving rise to new positions that we will refer to as secondary I-ps. They are those that are not linked to a specific situation but rather result from a meta-reflection on what was experienced and integrated during the practicum. The secondary positions we identified were I-self-critical, I-critical, I-reflective, I-strategic, I-future-teacher.
The I-p of I-critical is identified by the voices present in the academic trajectories that, upon completion of the practicum, question the conceptions and methodologies of their former teachers, considering them inadequate, in the direct criticism of the tutors’ resolution of the CIs or the university education received and the difficulty of transferring the lessons learned, as Nuria explains.
I am critical as a student; the position of some of my teachers has lessened my motivation to attend class. The contents are unrealistic and preach an example that is not put into practice. Yet, in the end, I have considered that it is a means to an end: to obtain a degree to be a teacher. (Nuria)
In contrast, the I-p of I-self-critical emerges when the student is able to identify difficulties or improvements in relation to one’s own performance, as exemplified in Mónica.
The origin of the problem is that I believe that I am not competent enough to handle a situation like that (I-self-critical) since, despite having received a lot of training and reading many articles on the matter, I feel that sometimes there are contradictions and that handling these situations is really delicate, so one must be very careful (I-critical). Therefore, when a similar situation arises, I feel overwhelmed, since I am never sure if I am doing the right thing (I-student). (Mónica)
We found the emergence of these I-p in 11 students, and the majority specifically point out the difficulty of positioning themselves most effectively from an I-p of I-teacher, mentioning a lack of tools and skills.
Although this I-p contributes to reevaluating the actions, if said reevaluation is unaccompanied, it can result in discouraged students, even leading them to question their continuity in teaching.
It is worth mentioning that six of the 11 students experienced incidents that, according to their narratives, led them to question their continuity, as a result of poor coping with the CI, or poor analysis, reflection and subsequent support during its resolution. In all these cases, as the following example shows, they deployed the I-p of I-student or I-critical.
As a student in training, I felt undervalued, misunderstood and alone, since the director and the music teacher worsened the incident with their attitudes, the director judged me with her eyes for what happened, and the music teacher did not want to speak with me about the occurrence. I felt like I couldn’t continue, and it made me reflect about whether or not teaching is for me. (Martha)
Another of the I-ps that emerged during the practicum was that of I-reflective. From this I-p, the students were able to transcend the specific CI and expand their field of vision regarding the meaning of their task and the general context in which they operate, as we see in Cristi.
I had never thought about how teachers organize the content, methodology and time to teach everything in one year. At the start of the practicum, I was amazed and surprised by the difficulties that teachers face: conflicts within the classroom, content to be taught, values, classroom management, how to get all of the students to participate, how to get their attention, taking into account the different characteristics of each student, to help them improve and grow. (Cristi)
As we see in Ana’s example, the I-p of I-reflective results from the dialogue of different I-ps and enables her evaluation of the lessons learned and her projection of a vision of herself as a future teacher.
Although I was initially unable to resolve it (I-critical), it has been an enriching incident, since in addition to reflecting on my personality (I-reflective), it has led me to reflect and debate about how to handle silence or the permission to speak in the classroom (I-future-teacher). (Ana)
All the participants, at some point in their narrative, put this I-p into play.
Finally, in the information analysed, we also found the I-p of I-strategic, which emerges in the participants when they position themselves as active learners, interpret the context with clarity and choose appropriate strategies to cope with the situation efficiently, as in the case of Nuria.
As a student in training, first I weigh up my tutor and observe what I will be able and unable to do. I figure out why she asked to have a student teacher and adapt to her instructions. When I understand the desire and objective behind my tutor’s request for a student teacher, I become as proactive as possible. (Nuria)
We uphold the view that this I-p facilitates the transition, allows for situating oneself in the context and enables the conscious exercise of various strategies in response to demands (not only of the specific situation but also from a recognition of one’s position, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn and adjust one’s participation).
The emergence of the I-p of I-future-teacher stands out in the information analysed in at least five students. This I-p is characterized by the configuration of a possible or potential self, that students see themselves capable of deploying in the future and with which they associate a series of conceptions, beliefs, emotions and strategies, as we see in this example:
I believe that I will be capable of responding to my students’ needs, achieving their learning, but more importantly making them have a good time at school, enjoying their day there and creating healthy and pleasant relationships. I see myself worrying about each of them, maybe going a little crazy to make sure they are all okay and progressing and taking advantage of their schooltime. (Noe)
From the information, it is clear that when the student is able to deploy her I-reflective, I-strategic or I-teacher I-ps, the future teacher I-p is favoured. In other words, there is a more adjusted and personal vision of the meaning of being a teacher, and of the type of decisions that she will make in the future and, consequently, a consolidation of her identity-agency as such.
In the data analysis (see Table 4), it was confirmed that the students who put the three I-ps of I-self-critical, I-reflective and I-strategic into play also displayed positions of I-future-teacher.
Secondary I-positions per student.
*The shaded cells represents the I-p deployed by the students
Although this did not occur in all cases, the data suggest that the alliance between these positions contributes more directly to the emergence of the I-p of I-future-teacher.
Discussion
In relation to the voices that nourish professional identity, our results indicate that they are mostly external, from emotionally close personal and educational models, such as former teachers or family members, who served as models of interpretation of the experiences during the practicum (Beijaard et al., 2004).
In addition, we witnessed how these voices were incarnated in different I-ps, (e.g., Marcel’s experience with his monitor influences his decision to be a teacher and later emerges as an I-p of I-monitor; or Nuria’s helping voice, which reveals an I-p of I-caregiver, although we observed that it does not occur automatically since, in many cases, these initial voices did not emerge with clarity). We consider it necessary for future studies to explore more deeply the connections between pre-existing voices and the motivations for teaching, with the emergence of I-ps that favour the identity development of student teachers.
Likewise, our data confirm the value of biographies and personal narratives in future teaching (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Meijer, 2017); furthermore, they also refer to the ongoing transformation of identity, which occurs in the confrontation of voices during key learning experiences (Meijer et al., 2011; Monereo et al., 2013).
Thus, the multidimensional, complex and dynamic nature of the ongoing construction of teacher identity is emphasized (Liesa et al., 2022; Meijer, 2017), as well as the importance of incorporating a trajectories approach into the initial teacher training.
In line with Monereo and Hermans (2023) and Liesa et al. (2022), it was evident that the internal dialogue that occurred in the CIs during the practicum significantly reconfigured the participants’ self. Unlike previous studies of students in training that identify classroom teaching, management, attention to diversity or didactic aspects as the most frequent concerns (Giralt-Romeu et al., 2020; Lamote & Engels, 2010), in our study the CIs had a greater impact on interpersonal relationships in the classroom. This indicates that at least an important part of the construction of the participants’ identity is closely linked to a relational and affective vision of teaching and lacks significant references such as context, content or specific tasks of planning and classroom management (Liesa et al., 2022).
Regarding the primary I-ps, we saw that the participants’ repertoires were limited and that it was easier for them to deploy I-teacher positions in CIs that occurred between students. This possibly occurred because they did not need to compete with the tutor’s authority, since it was difficult for them when the ICs appealed directly to imposing authority from their I-p of I-teacher, such as the ICs of teacher–student or teacher–teacher. The aforementioned draws attention to power relations and the negotiation of authority as central aspects in the construction of identity-agency in novice teachers, aspects that subsequent studies should explore in depth.
It is notable that the most shocking and poorly resolved CIs occurred with the school tutors. This made the deployment of the I-p of I-teacher difficult and reinforced the dominance of an I-p of I-student, hindering the transition.
Similarly to previous studies (Flores, 2014), the data draw attention to the tutors’ role and show the invisibility of this transitional period, critical for the students’ training. The tutors do not acknowledge their own role in shaping identity, although they are significant references for the students (Liesa et al., 2022).
All of this refers to the need for future research to develop a mentoring model for the practicum (Izadinia, 2018; Van Rijswijk et al., 2018) which specifies the type of experiences and interactions that promote identity development in the supervision.
Turning to the primary I-ps, our participants, despite being final-year university students, positioned themselves mainly as I-student (dominant I-p) and to a lesser extent as I-teacher (subaltern I-p), contrary to other studies that identify more professional positionings in advanced training periods (Leijen et al., 2018). This reaffirms the need for improving the current practicum, from an ecological approach that considers the inclusion of an identity-agency pedagogy in its design (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2010).
Regarding the reconfiguration of the repertoires of the I-ps during the transition, our results uncover the practicum’s impact on identity. Non-hegemonic voices emerged and new I-ps were integrated into their repertoire, which favoured the transition and its reconfiguration (Monereo & Hermans, 2023). To the primary I-ps of I-student and I-teacher, already recognized by Giralt-Romeu et al. (2020), were added the secondary I-ps of I-critical and I-self-critical, I-strategic, I-reflective and I-future-teacher.
The I-ps of I-critical and I-self-critical fulfilled a counter-positioning function and generated two types of movements according to the coalitions that arose and the resolution of the CI: a positive disintegration (see the case of Ana) that would clearly imply agential action in identity development, increasing awareness, intentionality and integration of learning (e.g., Ana) or a regressive movement in increasing, for example, insecurity (e.g., Mónica) (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010).
These results highlight the importance of the internal dialogue to generate coalitions between I-ps and reinforce the idea that this agential action where learning occurs is facilitated if the CIs are accompanied by dialogic reflection (Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002; Monereo et al., 2013).
In the configuration of our participants’ identity-agency, we also found other types of relevant I-ps. We highlight those of I-monitor, or another similar one that could arise from previous experience and the I-p of I-strategic that fulfills a communicating function of the I-student and the I-teacher, facilitating the transition. Unlike Giralt-Romeu et al. (2020), we do not find hybrid positions, but rather the alternation between I-student and I-teacher and intermediate I-ps, as aforementioned.
Last of all, the emergence of the I-p of I-future-teacher stands out, which we consider useful for identity-agency development, since it offers the possibility of shaping a future identity acting as an integrator of the self. Since it is constructed through real experiences and from an ongoing adjustment and negotiation of one’s own competencies interwoven with the contexts of intervention, this I-p generates a sense of being a teacher not only based on one’s purpose (ideal self) (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2010) but rather on the feeling of possibility (possible selves) (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011; Hamman et al., 2010). Future research should expand on this interesting role of possible selves, that is, of the construction of future visions along professional trajectories and in the construction of identity.
Consequently, meaningful experiences should not be left to chance; they must respond to a careful selection, guaranteeing diversity of contexts that enable the deployment of the students’ range of I-ps and their putting into practice of their I-p of I-teacher in its different versions within a safe setting and with accompaniment. To this end, it is essential to facilitate spaces for dialogic reflection and the emergence of possible selves (Sutherland et al., 2010).
Likewise, it is desirable to provide specific support so that students evoke transitional I-ps based on their biographies and act from the I-p of I-strategic in a more conscious and intentional way. For this to happen, it is necessary that the educational actors involved reorient the practicum as a community of identity-agency development, incorporating specific methods and strategies (Akkerman & Meijer, 2011).
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that the results obtained refer to a particular group and could vary depending on the context. Our study does not consider the influence of the school’s characteristics, the supervisory relationship or the practicum model; future research should address these aspects.
Conclusions
The study highlights the influence of internal and external voices in the construction of professional identity during the practicum. Understanding the connection between these pre-existing voices and identity configuration provides valuable information for improving initial teacher training programmes, highlighting the need to consider and enhance in the training programme the positive influence of these voices and the trajectory approach.
The study also shows that the CIs that occur during the practicum play a crucial role in the reconfiguration of identity. The special sensitivity of the participants stands out regarding the impact of CIs on interpersonal relationships rather than didactic aspects such as classroom teaching or management, which indicates the need for the training to give particular attention to socio-affective aspects.
Likewise, the difficulty in deploying more professional I-ps when coping with a CI with tutors suggests the need for a more mentoring-centred approach during this transitional period. The emergence and activation of I-ps is conditioned by power relations and the negotiation of authority, highlighting the importance of addressing these aspects in initial teacher training.
The study identifies the emergence of new I-ps during the practicum which consistently contribute to the transition. The I-p of I-future-teacher stands out, fundamental for the development of the teaching identity-agency. The expansion of the self, incorporating emerging I-ps, indicates the importance of designing academic practicums that allow future teachers to explore and experience various I-ps, projecting possible selves, and highlights the need for enriching the students’ repertoires of the I-ps to facilitate a more effective and agential transition.
The inclusion of spaces for dialogic reflection and the promotion of an identity-agency pedagogy in the practicum is an essential aspect to promote the conscious and intentional construction of professional identities, integrating specific dialogic methods that enrich the training experience.
Footnotes
Notes
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