"Work is different than school" : pre-service teachers' beliefs, preconceptions and concerns about teachers' work

This study aims to capture pre-service teachers’ beliefs, pre-conceptions and concerns about teachers’ work. In addition, it presents some explanations to teachers’ attitude change during first in-service year and bring out pre-service teachers` opinion of good and bad teacher characteristics. While working in an elementary school in Tallinn, I witnessed new teachers entering the teaching profession right after graduation. At first, their attitude was positive and they were full of motivation, but somehow, by the end of their first year, their attitude had changed. They were not so happy and enthusiastic anymore. Where was this change coming from? Is teacher education really preparing them for the real work at school? To start from the roots, I decided to conduct a study targeting pre-service teachers. I wanted to know how their personal beliefs, pre-conceptions and concerns compared with the primary school teachers study programs objectives and learning outcomes and see if there were any points in which the two over-lapped. This is a qualitative research. I collected my research material from May to September 2015. I conducted semi-structured interviews with six pre-service primary school teachers of the Tallinn University teacher training program. Interview material was analysed by using thematic analysis method.