EFFECT OF VITAMINS C AND E INTAKE ON BLOOD ... - EuroJournals

European Journal of Social Sciences - Volume 2, Number 1 (2006)
Theoretical framework
The concept of concerns was used by Fuller (1969) to develop a model of preservice teachers’ stages of
development. The original model was later modified by Fuller and Bown (1975) to depict three stages
made up of three clusters of concerns which those learning to teach implicitly undergo in the course of
their professional development. These stages of teacher concerns are: survival concerns, teaching
situation concerns and pupil concerns. Survival concerns are those that deal with one’s adequacy as a
teacher and focus on such things as ability to control a class, acceptability by pupils, meeting
supervisors and regular teachers expectations, etc. Teaching situation concerns include the tasks to be
performed, the materials to be used, time and other situational factors. Pupil concerns focus on the
needs of pupils, their social and emotional well being, individualizing instruction, their cognitive
development and equity among others (Fuller & Bown, 1975:37). According to them, changes in these
concerns by preservice teachers imply changes in their professional development. Some researchers
have refined and confirmed this model in regard to serving teachers and refer to the above-named
categories of concerns as survival or self concerns, task concerns and impact concerns respectively
(Hall & Loucks, 1978; Katz, 1972). Others have based their work on it (See Chan & Leung, 2002;
Kagan, 1992).
It should be noted that the appropriateness of this model for explaining student teachers’ stages
of development as teachers has, however, been called into question in recent times. In a longitudinal
study of novice teachers’ concerns, for instance, Turley and Wood (2002) found that beginning
teachers were less concerned with “self” and more concerned with students than had been reported in
earlier studies. The probable reasons for this, they suggested, were recent changes in teacher
preparation programmes and intergenerational change among beginning teachers.
Methodology
The survey approach was adopted in this study in order to provide a description of things as they are at
a point in time (Denscombe, 1998).
The subjects of this study were 153, students in this programme selected by stratified random
sampling. Eighty three of them were in Part Two (or year two) while 70 were in Part Three (or year
three) of the programme. They were posted to secondary schools in and around Ile-Ife town in October
2002 for the six-week teaching practice exercise.
The instrument used for data collection was an open-ended questionnaire which was
administered to them shortly before they left for the practicum in their different schools. A
questionnaire was considered appropriate for this study as fairly straightforward and relatively brief
information from respondents who were able to read and understand the questions (Denscombe, 1998).
The questionnaire required them to list aspects of teaching practice, matters and problems or
difficulties related to it, which were of concern to them, or which made them feel uneasy about the then
forthcoming teaching practice exercise. The students were also asked to choose and rank any of the
three items listed by them and rank them in their order of importance to them, with the most worrisome
ranked first.
Data analysis
An initial step in qualitative analysis is to read through the documents that are to be analysed (Dey,
1993). The concern statements by the subjects were read a number of times and interpreted
independently by three people – the two investigators and a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education.
For purposes of classifying the concerned statements two or all must agree on the specific issue or
problem being addressed in each statement of concern by the subjects and the category of concerns –
self, task, or impact on pupils – into which it fits. All expressions of ‘no concern’ or expressions of
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