Pre-service teachers’ future professional self-understanding: a reception study through teachers’ digital stories

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate pre-service teachers’ reception of digital stories created by teachers in teacher education. Furthermore, it investigates how their professional self-understanding is developed based on the meanings they infer from the digital stories. This study is based on qualitative research, using the reception methodology. Accordingly, 15 pre-service teachers watched 27 digital stories. Data were collected through semi-structured focus group interviews and participants’ observation notes, which were analysed through content analysis. The results showed that the pre-service teachers developed professional self-understandings about self-image, self-esteem, task perception, and job motivation for their future careers. The reception process using digital stories helped them develop their future professional self-understanding by examining their own teaching experiences, teachers’ education, and teachers’ professional experiences as well as by making connections and gaining insights into the incidents of in the digital stories. Also, the reception process allowed reflection, the transfer of practical knowledge, and narrative learning development in pre-service teachers’ professional self-understanding. Thus, this reception process contributed to the professional development of the pre-service teachers.