This paper addresses how emotionally challenging experiences during work-based education may influence the professional becoming of student teachers and medical students. We conducted a qualitative analysis of eight focus group interviews with undergraduates from two universities in Sweden who studied to become either physicians or teachers, and interpreted their experiences through Wenger’s theory of communities of practice. The findings show that students’ ideal view of how to be caring in their aspiring professional role as physician or teacher collided with existing practices, which affected them emotionally. In particular, the students found it challenging when norms and practices differed from their values of professionalism and when the professional culture within practices reflected hardness (physicians) or resignation (teachers). Both medical students and student teachers experienced that professional decision making and legitimacy challenged them emotionally, however in different ways and for different reasons. This study makes visible both general and specific aspects of how students view their future role in the welfare sector and challenging dimensions of professional practice. The findings bring into focus the question of how professional education can support students’ professional becoming in relation to their emotional challenges.

Beginning to teach after teacher education is commonly depicted as an emotionally challenging period. Beginning teachers deploy strategies to cope with the emotionally challenging transition from teacher education and starting a position as a teacher. One way of coping is trying change the origin of the challenges. The aim of the study was to investigate how teachers in their last year as student teachers and their first year as teachers make meaning of a change advocacy strategy to cope with challenging situations as teachers. A qualitative interview study was performed. Twenty-five participants were interviewed while studying in their last year of teacher education, and 20 were interviewed again after having worked as a teacher for a year. In between, 68 self-reports were collected. The material was analysed using constructivist grounded theory tools. The findings show that as student teachers the participants identified two prerequisites to be able to use the change advocacy strategy as beginning teachers: (1) establishing teacher ambiguity and (2) challenging the perceived negative mindset. When utilising a change advocacy strategy as beginning teachers, the participants tried to reform teaching practices and attain a position of competence.

BACKGROUND For prospective teachers, the school-based learning component of their teacher education programme is a crucial, and often demanding, part of becoming a teacher. During this time, mentor-teachers work in close collaboration with student teachers, who are often teaching in an actual school setting for the first time. As the relationship between mentor-teacher and student teacher is pivotal to the quality of work-based learning and to supporting the professional development of prospective teachers, more needs to be understood about this complex dynamic.

PURPOSE Our study aimed to contribute to this area by investigating, from the viewpoint of mentor-teachers, how student teachers respond to the demands of work-based learning. It had a particular focus on mentor-teachers’ perceptions of student teachers’ emotional challenges associated with teaching and engagement.

METHODS Data consisted of interviews with 22 experienced mentor -teachers from five different municipalities. Data were analysed qualitatively, using tools aligned with a constructivist grounded theory approach.

FINDINGS Describing teaching as a complex practice, the mentor-teachers regarded proactive engagement in developing professionalism, and ability to make appropriately differentiated adjustments to their teaching as important criteria in their evaluation of student teacher progression. The mentor-teachers described student teachers’ emotional challenges in relation to these and discussed support strategies.

CONCLUSIONS The findings of the study highlight the complex dynamic of work-based learning and the key role that mentor-teachers can play in supporting the development of prospective teachers entering the profession, including the navigation of emotionally challenging situations.

Student teachers recurrently and spontaneously talk about burnout when considering challenges of teaching. The following paper aims to address burnout from the perspectives of student teachers, as well as how they prepare to deal with the threat of burnout. There is a lack of research from a student teacher’s perspective concerning burnout. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews were analysed using constructivist grounded theory. The findings reveal that student teachers engaged in a learning process related to (a) making sense of the perceived causes of burnout, and (b) constructing proactive strategies. The perceived causes of burnout were understood as individual work ethics, systemic reasons, collegial negativity and personal deficits. These perceived causes were related to strategies to protect against burnout.

Research on the transition from teacher education to beginning to teach have focused on the ability to teach, as well as on classroom practices, and how complicated socialisation processes impede developing skills when starting to teach. The aim of the study was to investigate emotionally challenging situations during teacher education and when starting to teach, with a focus on how the participants’ perspectives and coping strategies changed over time. In this study, 20 participants were followed during their final year of teacher education and into their first year of teaching. Data was collected through interviews and written self-reports. A constructivist grounded theory methodology was adopted. We found that new teachers experience three main emotional phases as they move from teacher education and into teaching, namely (1) opposite positions, (2) enthusiasm mingled with fear, and (3) a rollercoaster of emotions. Emotions and coping strategies linked with the phases are illustrated, and practical implications are discussed.

In their interactions with patients and health care professionals during work-based learning, medical students are known to experience emotionally challenging situations that can evoke negative feelings. Students have to manage these emotions. Students learn and develop their professional identity formation through interactions with patients and members of the healthcare teams. Earlier studies have highlighted the issues involved with processing emotionally challenging situations, although studies concerning learning and professional identity formation in response to these experiences are rare. In this study, we explored medical students’ experiences of emotionally challenging situations in work-based learning, and the impact these experiences had on forming medical students’ professional identities. We conducted an analysis of narrative data (n = 85), using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The narratives were made up of medical students’ reflective essays at the end of their education (tenth term). The analysis showed that students’ main concern when facing emotionally challenging situations during their work-based education was the struggle to achieve and maintain a professional approach. They reported different strategies for managing their feelings and how these strategies led to diverse consequences. In the process, students also described arriving at insights into their own personal needs and shortcomings. We consider this development of self-awareness and resulting self-knowledge to be an important part of the continuously ongoing socialization process of forming a professional identity. Thus, experiencing emotionally challenging situations can be considered a unique and invaluable opportunity, as well as a catalyst for students’ development. We believe that highlighting the impact of emotions in medical education can constitute an important contribution to knowledge about the process of professional identity formation. This knowledge can enable faculty to provide students with more effective and sufficient support, facilitating their journey in becoming physicians.

This work in progress research reports on an ongoing study with the aim to explore engineering teachers' approaches of teaching and learning online. Digitalization of higher education is a fact and raises new challenges for academics when creating education of high quality. Adopting phenomenography as a qualitative research approach, the preliminary findings suggest that teachers from the technical and engineering sciences experience teaching and learning online in four qualitative different ways. Teachers experience teaching and learning online as: A) knowledge-building units, B) isolated learning, C) pathway for learning and D) enabling changes of teaching and learning activities.

In this phenomenographic study, we contribute with a critical view on teachers’ understanding of the use of digital technology in education is at the core. By analysing engineering teachers in Sweden’s qualitative different ways of experiencing teaching-learning in virtual learning environments (VLEs) pre-COVID-19 pandemic, we found three different approaches: (A) increased transmission possibilities, (B) outlined trail and (C) forced compromises. Based on our findings, the tensions between the possibilities in the virtual learning environment and teachers’ teaching-learning intentions are discussed, and teachers’ decreased room for action to design for learning is problematised. Notably, teachers with an increased breadth of awareness of teaching-learning appear to experience the greatest tensions, forcing them to compromise their student-centred intentions.

The current study examined whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers. A sample of 517 Swedish student teachers completed a questionnaire. According to the findings from multivariate regression analysis, student teachers who scored higher in intrinsic and altruistic motives and cognitive restructuring, and lower in self-criticism, tended to show greater teacher efficacy.

This full research paper reports on a study of social dimensions when students learn to program. The aim of this study is to investigate students' experiences of social dimensions in learning to program as novices in a pair-programming lab setting. Data was collected by means of individual interviews with seven students mid-way through the course. A questionnaire to 77 students gave a background of the class as a whole and was used to select students for the interviews. The interview data were analyzed using an inductive content analysis method and interpreted theoretically from a pragmatist and transactional perspective on learning. Our results show different ways that the social dynamic between the students in a pair affected 1) the emotions experienced, 2) the extent to which students actively wrote code and interacted with the computer environment, and 3) how students perceived their competence. Interviewed students report that failure and success in a programming task result in an emotional roller coaster, and that in this turbulence, the social context is of utmost importance and weighs in when students consider if they are going to pursue a programming profession.

Management of uncertainty and failure are key health professional education competencies. To enable them Weurlander argues we need safe space and deliberate reflection on the realities of practice.

This full research paper reports on a study where we investigated engineering students' learning to program. In particular, we explored differences in students' strategies, how they work in the computer lab, and if this is related to their motivation, gender and overall tendency to engage in thinking. We gathered survey data from first year engineering students in an introductory, compulsory programming course. The survey consisted of established instruments and items constructed by us. 67 students answered the survey (response rate of 43 %). 18 % of the students that answered the survey did not have previous experiences of programming, and 43% were female. An exploratory factor analysis of the items relating to how students learn programming revealed three factors: 1) the individual thinker, 2) the social reader, and 3) the interactive problem-solver. We found gender differences relating to the second factor; female students reported more frequent use of the social reader strategy. There were also differences in reported used strategies and how students worked in the lab, previous experiences, need for cognition and motivation. These differences indicate that the factors individual thinker and interactive problem-solver were privileged in this programming course. Further research is needed to explore these findings in different educational contexts.