Professional Assessment Or Fault-Finding? Attitudes of Student Teachers On Teaching Practice Towards Supervision In Masvingo Province.

The main thrust of this research study was to scrutinise the attitudes of student teachers towards the quality of the supervision which they received while on teaching practice in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. The humanistic theories of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow informed the study. The phenomenological research design was employed with interviews and open-ended questionnaires as data gathering instruments. A sample of 80 student teachers on teaching practice comprising 50 females and 30 males was selected using the purposive sampling method. The research participants were selected from three primary teachers’ colleges in Masvingo Province. Amid other findings, it was established that a significant number of student teachers at least had something to complain about in connection with the way they were supervised while on teaching practice. They generally expressed the sincere wish to be treated more kindly and more professionally by all those who assessed them. The researchers recommended that seminars and workshops involving student teachers, external assessors, lecturers and mentors be conducted so as to foster relatively healthy relationships among all the parties.