Student Teacher Literacy Practices: A Cross-Country Examination of Writing and Attitudes

This study aims to explore the literacy practices and attitudes of student teachers in their first semester of teacher education. The research seeks to understand how student teachers approach writing or broader literacy tasks, and how their attitudes toward these practices might differ across educational contexts. A questionnaire-based method was employed, using the WASP (Writing Attitude Survey for Teachers and Pupils) alongside additional items designed to capture attitudes toward reading and writing. The sample includes participants from multiple universities, with potential cross-country collaboration, including institutions in Sweden, Belgium, and Türkiye, ensuring a diverse representation of student teacher profiles.

Factor analysis will be conducted to identify underlying patterns and profiles of literacy attitudes and practices, aiming to create a nuanced understanding of student teachers’ approaches. By keeping the methodological scope focused, this study will initially concentrate on writing, with the option to expand into broader literacy practices (including reading) in subsequent stages of the research. It is anticipated that the factor analysis will reveal distinct profiles of student teachers based on their literacy attitudes and practices in each country. These profiles may indicate varying levels of confidence, engagement, and self-efficacy in writing, with some student teachers displaying more positive attitudes toward literacy practices than others.

This study offers valuable insights that can inform teacher education programs in diverse contexts in Europe. By investigating the literacy attitudes and practices of student teachers, the findings provide a framework that could be adapted and applied to similar programs in universities worldwide, contributing to the broader discussion of literacy education in diverse educational contexts. This study is a first step toward building a comparative framework for understanding the literacy development of student teachers in various educational systems.