Coaching Quick-Launch Teacher Candidates During Simulated Caregiver Conversations

Background: Teachers often enter the profession feeling underprepared to build relationships with caregivers, despite the importance of home–school partnerships for students. Simulations may offer opportunities for candidates to practice caregiver conversations, but little is known about how best to support candidates’ development of productive approaches during practice. Research Question: This study examines whether coaching improves teacher candidates’ approaches to simulated caregiver conversations relative to independent self-reflection. It also explores how coaching may shape candidates’ understandings of caregiver conversations and their purposes. Research Design: This study uses a sequential explanatory mixed methods design and a sample of 79 teacher candidates enrolled in a quick-launch teacher preparation program. Candidates completed two rounds of a simulated caregiver conversation with a randomly assigned support (coaching or self-reflection) between rounds. We estimated coaching effects and conducted additional analyses to investigate potential mechanisms underlying observed improvements. Conclusions: Coaching improved candidates’ approaches to caregiver conversations relative to independent self-reflection. Candidates who received coaching tended to ask more questions, more frequently acknowledged the caregiver’s perspective, and were more likely to take up the caregiver’s ideas. Qualitative analyses suggest these changes may have been driven by shifts in candidates’ understandings of the purposes of caregiver conversations and teachers’ roles within them. Findings indicate that practice opportunities paired with targeted feedback may help candidates develop stronger partnership-oriented approaches to caregiver conversations.