An Examination of University Supervision in a Physical Education Teacher Education Program

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive study was to analyze university supervision from the perspective of student teachers (STs), and to examine postlesson conference discourse between STs and university supervisors (USs) to determine if STs perspectives on supervisory models aligned with what actually occurred. Determining STs expectations and desires regarding supervisory model preferences and then providing a forum for STs to comment on the actual university supervision that they experienced fills a void in the literature, as student voice pertaining to this area of university supervision is missing. Data were collected via ST opportunities to answer written questions before and after their capstone experience. A total of 80 postobservation conferences were audio-recorded, transcribed and inductively analyzed to determine conference discourse. Results determined that the 28 STs overwhelmingly (96%) expressed a preference for a collaborative supervision approach, which ultimately they declared they experienced. Word counts revealed that for all postobservation conferences, STs (58%) spoke more often than USs (42%), which suggests that a collaborative model of supervision did actually occur. Analysis of idea units demonstrated that USs asked a lot of questions (31% of all their idea units) and a majority of them (73%) were categorized as higher order—such as reflective or evaluative questions versus lower order questions such as informational questions. This led to a great deal of ST reflection on their lessons during the postobservation conferences.