Abstract
The purpose of this article was to explore the perspectives of teaching practice coordinators (TPCs) regarding the adequacy of the existing codes of ethics and codes of conduct, including the associated guidelines and prescriptions governing teaching practice in South Africa.
The preceding article, “Help! My teaching practice is a dilemma: Ethics policies for teaching practice”, shed light on student teachers’ experiences of ethical dilemmas during teaching practice. Student teachers are frequently exposed to various ethical dilemmas during their teaching practice; sometimes they are the transgressors and other times, the victims. It is therefore essential to include the voice of a second stakeholder representing the university in order to determine whether current protocols for the prevention and management of ethical dilemmas in teaching practice are sufficient. TPCs serve as the link between the university and the school, and are thus able to provide a unique viewpoint ― informed by both student teachers’ and schools’ perspectives.
The data collected in this phase of the study sought to answer the research question How do teaching practice coordinators perceive the role of codes of ethics and codes of conduct for pre-service teachers?
Deontology is a subcategory of Normative ethics, which is based on the foundational principles of morality. Deontology is concerned with one’s duty and is often referred to as duty-based ethics. Other subcategories of normative ethics include virtue ethics and consequentialism. The former is concerned with the development of moral character, while the latter focuses on choosing the most favourable outcome, rather than following the letter of the law. Deontology was employed as the underlying theoretical framework for this article. This ethical theory posits that individuals have respect for laws and rules and strive to adhere to them. The assumption, therefore, is that preservice teachers and other role-players in teaching practice would try to comply with a code of ethics and code of conduct to act ethically during their teaching practice if these codes were available to them. The assumption is therefore that codes of ethics and conduct specific to teaching practice and with direct guidelines of what is expected of various role players, could enhance ethics in teaching practice.
This article reports on the third phase of the teaching practice coordinator strand of a study exploring ethics in teaching practice. In phase 1 – the online quantitative content analysis – a sample of fourteen public South African universities was identified. The sifting criteria for this phase included that the university had to offer a foundation phase education course and a functional website at the time of data collection. Twelve of these universities gave ethical clearance, allowing me to invite the TPCs of their university to the second phase, where they participated in an online survey aimed at identifying the codes, policies and procedures that the university has available. Nine TPCs volunteered to participate in the “Teaching practice coordinators’ knowledge of ethics for teaching practice survey” and signed informed consent forms. Due to the data collected from the questionnaires not yielding rich descriptions of the phenomenon, the participants were invited to phase three for follow-up interviews, attempting to gain more detailed insight into TPCs’ perspectives to create a rich description of their unique perceptions and experiences. After a reminder was sent to all possible participants two weeks later, there were still only three universities whose TPCs agreed to participate in a follow-up interview. This sample included a traditional research university, a university of technology and a distance learning university. At one university, the teaching practice coordinator was accompanied by the teaching practice lecturer, which helped to provide a bridge between the teaching practice office and the lecture hall.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with TPCs, and the qualitative data obtained were analysed through thematic analysis. The online interviews were scheduled at a time convenient to the interviewees. The participants received a copy of the interview schedule beforehand, and all the questions on the interview schedule were explained to each participant. The follow-up questions were, however, tailored to their responses in the survey of the previous phase, as well as their responses to the questions. The interviewees all provided consent for audio recordings of the interviews, which allowed verbatim transcription to be drawn up afterwards, for member checking and data analysis.
The interview transcripts were analysed in two phases. I read through the transcripts and highlighted preliminary themes. Thereafter, transcriptions were reread to identify recurrent and contrasting themes. The large number of themes identified in the data necessitated a second coding cycle, during which related themes were merged into categories. This second phase of the coding aimed to create theme trees by grouping all these subthemes into subcategories and then grouping the subcategories to form superordinate themes. These superordinate themes were in line with the themes identified in the article, “Help! My teaching practice is a dilemma: Ethics policies for teaching practice”, reporting on preservice teachers’ perception of ethics in teaching practice. The theme tree with superordinate themes, subcategories and subthemes allowed for critical discussion of the data. The data from these interviews allowed me to report on TPCs’ experiences and perceptions of the documents and processes used at the specific universities to guide ethics in teaching practice. The TPCs provided important information for consideration in the management of ethics in teaching practice at Higher Education Institutions, because they serve as the link between the lecture hall (where ethics is taught to and developed in preservice teachers) and the school personnel (where teaching practice is implemented).
Findings indicated that TPCs believe the existing codes of ethics and codes of conduct should be expanded and continuously renewed to ensure that they can effectively guide the ethical behaviour of all role-players in teaching practice. TPCs also echoed that standardised codes shared by all universities could enhance the implementation of these codes. Grounded in deontology as a theory, standardised codes could help to foster rational and consequent standards to assist teaching practice role-players in making ethical decisions and to deal with ethical dilemmas that occur. These codes should include guidelines for student teachers, mentor teachers, and procedures for reporting, as well as a memorandum of understanding among all stakeholders. The codes of conduct should include sections on personal behaviour, professional conduct, ethical relationships, co-curricular involvement, and clearly defined reporting procedures.
Furthermore, these codes should address sensitive matters such as discrimination, appearance, race, religion, and sexual misconduct, and should include clear guidelines for their fair and equitable management. There is an urgent need for improved reporting procedures to ensure that written reporting is encouraged. This can also be achieved through online reporting platforms and an option for anonymous reporting. A memorandum of understanding between the role-players in teaching practice can guide ethical relationships. To enhance the implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), follow-up studies that seek to understand the perception of school principals, mentor teachers and lecturers in education are recommended.
The codes and MoU should be approved by Faculty Boards and incorporated into official university policy documents rather than merely being incorporated into the course content. All role-players should receive training on the code of ethics, code of conduct and MoU for teaching practice. Furthermore, TPCs emphasised that all relevant role-players should sign the codes and MoUs to ensure accountability and shared responsibility. The goal of the code of ethics, code of conduct, and MoU is to promote professionalism, ethics and quality education by cultivating ethical practices, professional integrity, and healthy relationships during teaching practice.
Keywords: code of conduct; code of ethics; ethics; teaching practice; teaching practice coordinators
This article’s featured image was created by Max Fischer and obtained from Pexels.
Lees die volledige artikel in Afrikaans
Etiese riglyne in praktiese onderwys: praktiese-onderwyskoördineerders se perspektief
Kommentaar
Meeste leerlui voldoen aan voorgeskrewe etiese kodes, terwyl min geen of minder aandag daaraan gee. Sommige professies eis dat eties opgetree word ten alle tyd. Ongelukkig is dit nie die geval nie. Basiese riglyne word gedwarsboom, onbevoegde leerkrag, verontagsaming van die land se arbeidswette en onvantoepaslike gedrag is van onetiese gedragskode wat hier genoem kan word.