The impact of specialised content courses on student teaching in a Norwegian teacher education programme

Abstract

In recent decades, most Nordic countries have seen reforms in their teacher education programme, giving rise to an ongoing debate on these programmes’ content, structure, and quality. As part of a recent reform of teacher education in Norway, new Master’s-level programme have been introduced to educate teachers for grades 5–10, whereby pre-service teachers (PSTs) take specialised content courses and undergo field placements twice a year. The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of the specialised content courses on student teaching. In this study, we used a survey design to collect quantitative data from PSTs and qualitative data from mentor teachers. PSTs teaching subjects they specialised in had a more positive teaching experience related to perceived learning outcomes in subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. The data from mentor teachers reinforce this finding; they reported that PSTs who taught subjects they specialised in showed faster learning progressions, were better at using different instructional strategies, and reflected more during guidance. The link between the specialised content courses and student teaching increases the coherence of the programme.