Understanding student teachers’ strengths and areas of need in a simulated consultation evening

ABSTRACTConsultation evenings, also known as parent-teacher conferences, are important opportunities for teachers to strengthen their relationships with caregivers. Many teachers, however, are unprepared, having had few opportunities to build skills and participate in real consultations during teacher training. To provide student teachers with more practice opportunities, some teacher educators have begun supplementing students teachers’ real-world consultations with simulations. Our goal in this study was to use findings on students’ strengths and challenges in a simulated consultation to inform the design of future practice opportunities. Using factor analysis and descriptive statistics, we analysed 206 transcripts from 106 student teachers’ simulations to uncover patterns in their consultations. We found that students were consistently good at sharing positive information about the pupil. Student teachers had more challenges finding the balance between facilitating a productive meeting and a collaborative one. Students also varied in how well they created and maintained a welcoming meeting environment when challenged by the caregiver or presented with a personal disclosure. Based on these findings, we propose designing targeted approximations of practice for consultations, in addition to more holistic ones, so that students can build skills in areas such as finding the balance between productivity and collaboration in a meeting.KEYWORDS: Parent–teacher communicationsimulation design and trainingpreservice teacher educationparent-teacher conferenceshome-school partnerships Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Bankard Trust; Spencer Foundation; University of Virginia.