Practicums and student teachers identity formation: A study using the explanatory sequential design

It has been noted that practicums enhance the cognitive and the emotional aspects of teacher identity construction. Regarding the former, research has highlighted that during practicums, the student teachers’ sense of preparedness is related to how capable they are when it comes to their ability to apply theoretical knowledge to the various requirements of the learning contexts such as the diversity of the pupils’ cultural and social backgrounds. In addition, student teachers’ reflexivity has been emphasized as a core component of initial teacher education. However, the details of how the emotional aspect of teacher identity interacts with their motives for becoming teachers, their sense of preparedness, and their reflexivity have not yet been given special emphasis. For that purpose, in this article, we investigate the reasons why, during practicums, student teachers have the opportunity to craft their identification with teaching as a social role. By implementing an explanatory sequential research design, our aim in this article is to highlight that practicums is the space in which three specific dimensions of student teachers’ identification with the role of teacher – self-realization, voluntarism, and social self – make them rethink their motives for wanting to become teachers, frame their sense of preparedness, and affect classroom reflexivity.