Action Research as Perceived by Student-Teachers in the Field Training Program at Hashemite University / Jordan

Abstract

Field Training plays a key role in narrowing the gap between theory and practice in the preparation of teachers. University professors and in-service teachers who work in cooperative schools coordinate their efforts to help student-teachers at the Hashemite University link teaching theories to practice.

Student-teachers, sometimes, find themselves isolated from theories learned at the universities and feel the gap between theory and practice. As a result, they tend to use traditional teaching methods in the same way they were taught in the past.

One of the important requirements of the Field Training Program is asking student-teachers to do action research to clarify issues they face during training. Student-teachers face different problems related to action research: selecting issues, preparing, modeling, implementing, and evaluating the results of the research. Therefore, this study attempts at investigating the student-teachers’ weakness in carrying out Action Research from the students’ own perspective.

To achieve the study objectives, the researcher administered a test on (47) student-teachers, and interviewed (6) others.

The majority of responses conveyed that student-teachers know how to design action research theoretically but they lack the ability and necessary skills to put this into practice. Based on these findings, this research concludes with some suggestions and recommendations to solve the problem.