Beginning teacher and tutor feedback. A case study

Abstract

This article analyzes the nature of the feedback that mentors give to beginning teachers throughout a mentoring and professional knowledge construction programme for Secondary Education and Vocational Education new teachers. All the situations of feedback from mentors to new teachers were analyzed at two levels: A clearly descriptive (macroanalysis) level (Van Looy&Vrijsen, 1998) and another more interpretational (microanalysis) one, distinguishing two types of feedback, with one being more affective and another being more cognitive (Barrios Espinosa, 2008). The main results from the macroanalysis show that the three most frequent issues refer to content treatment, classroom and space management, and interaction with students; almost more than half of comments are specific and tutors clearly opt for judgments. Results concerning microanalysis show that cognitive feedback is the most used in the three pairs, concerning emotional support and promotion of security and self-confidence.