Student-teachers’ concerns: Predictors of pre-internship results among Level 300 physical education student- teachers of University of Education, Winneba, Ghana

ABSTRACT
Pre-internship is a crucial component of teacher education programmes, which significantly contributes to the professional development of student-teachers. It is the first formal practical micro-teaching student-teacher experience under the supervision of their lecturers as a means of preparing them for a semester internship. However, student-teachers leave for internship with different levels of concerns that need to be resolved by the stakeholders during pre-internship for effective career development. This study aimed to determine which student-teacher concerns (self, task and impact) predict level 300 Physical Education (PE) student-teacher pre-internship results at the University of Education, Winneba-Ghana. A quantitative cross-sectional descriptive survey employing a census sampling technique was used to include all the 243 students who participated in the 2022/2023 academic year pre-internship in this study. The Teacher Concerns Questionnaire (TCQ) was adapted and used for data collection. Data was analyzed using an independent sample t-test and multiple linear regression. The findings revealed that participants who were untrained teachers showed a higher self-concern (M = 19.47, SD = 5.31), task concern (M = 18.26, SD = 4.28) and a higher impact concern (M = 26.91, SD = 6.55), than their trained colleagues (M = 17.18, SD = 4.87), (M = 16.67, SD = 4.05), (M = 24.51, SD = 6.22) respectively. However, it was also found that self-concern, task concern and impact concern did not statistically predict pre-internship final scores (F (3,234) = .77, p > .05, R = .099, R2 = .010). Additionally, an R2 of .010 indicates that the overall effect of self, task and impact concerns on pre-internship final score is only 1%. Also, zooming into the individual contribution of each concern variable, such as self-concern (t (234) = -.248, p = .804), task concern (t (234) = -1.222, p = .223) and impact concern (t (234) = .808, p = .420) explains why collectively they did not statistically predict pre-internship seminar final scores. This result demonstrates that during the pre-internship seminars, student teachers received constructive feedback and good mentoring from their university supervisors, which helped them address the majority of their concerns and enhanced their teaching experience. It is therefore concluded that student-teachers had most of their concerns resolved due to a good feedback system and effective monitoring by their university supervisors. However, since pre-internship teaching was purely peer teaching, the student-teachers might have been very conversant with their colleagues and would not see them as real students, hence showed no concern at all. It is recommended that a follow-up study on the same participants be carried out during their internship programme to find out if these concerns will surface.
Keywords: Concerns, Student teachers, Predictors, Pre-internship, Physical Education,