Teacher training through dual education programmes: An analysis of the perceptions of agents through an integrative learning experience

Abstract

In dual higher-education systems, learners tend to experience stress and strain due to the different scenarios and differentiated goals they have in their double role as students and workers. One of the most important pedagogical challenges of universities is to transform such tension into a learning process through a series of strategies whereby the students’ professional and academic activities acquire a formative meaning.
In the 2012-2013 academic year, the University of Lleida implemented a Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education with an alternating internship programme involving 65 students. Although the short lifespan of the programme does not enable studying its efficiency and innovation, an evaluative approach allows for the observation of its learning mechanisms. This paper presents an experience carried out in the framework of the “Integration” course during the first year of its implementation through the viewpoint of its agents: the students as recipients of the programme, the schools’ and university faculty as its developers, and the institutions that have promoted it.
The opinions of the agents highlight the positive effect that the course has had for the development of students’ initial professional skills, as well as their contribution to the primary schools that have participated in the programme. Due to the pedagogical complexity of this degree programme, a series of adjustments are required to achieve a more efficient training programme, ranging from enhancing the dynamics of teacher competencies in the primary school classroom to analysing activities in the university classroom.