Purpose: This study aims to examine customs officers' perception of the role as supervisor before and after completing formal training in practice supervision. Owing to changes in the education of customs officers, their role as supervisors has changed, necessitating formal training. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire with three…

Little is known about the role of teachers in fostering wellbeing in the everyday context of school life. This paper explores the phenomenon among a sample of Norwegian teachers. Focus groups with 23 teachers in four schools (grades 1-10) in Norway were conducted. In the analysis of the findings three themes were developed: 1) fostering student…

Teacher educators are an occupational group who appear to suffer from an identity crisis. They do not seem to be able to agree on what their role or professional learning needs are. This situation has dire consequences for the next generation of teacher educators who enter the field in the same rather haphazard and ad hoc way as the ones before.…

Purpose: The study explored how PSTs perceived a learning design, using a decision simulator, a self-reflection guide and a peer mentoring guide as tools to mediate reflections on approaches to the teacher's role. The individual characteristics of PSTs were also considered, including role clarity, self-efficacy and affective commitment, as…

Department heads are increasingly responsible for instructional leadership. Therefore, it is important to understand the antecedents of self-efficacy in their work, which can motivate them to increase their leadership efforts. Our theoretical model depends on principals' feedback for department heads, department heads' trust in their principals,…

Writing as a tool for learning and reflection is acknowledged as important in education. This article discusses how writing and subsequent dialogue can support midwife supervisors in enhancing their supervisory skills. The aim of this article is to discuss the significance of reflective journals as a tool for reflection, dialogue and cooperation…

This article studies differences in teachers' and teacher specialists' perspectives of a newly introduced teacher specialist role in Norway. It is known that the emergence of specialised teachers challenges the egalitarian norms of the profession. However, there is a lack of insight into teachers' perspectives of these roles and the nuances of…

This study presents Norwegian ECEC staff members' thinking on "quality of interaction." Open-ended interviews were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis based on the Caregiver Interaction Profile scales. Findings are that ECEC staff members include both basic "care" aspects of interaction and "educational"…

Over the past decades, principals have experienced an increased pressure emanating from the responsibility for managing change and building organisations, whilst striving to improve students' learning outcomes (Abrahamsen, Aas, & Hellekjaer, 2015; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006). Leadership learning programmes appear to emphasise the requirements…

Although childcare workers have the second-worst occupation for work-related health problems and the number of professional day-care centers is growing throughout Europe, few studies have examined these workers' emotional well-being. This study investigates the effect of position, competence, work role, role clarity, and work tasks on emotional…

This article compares the division of labour between kindergarten teachers and assistants in Norwegian kindergartens and discusses the two groups' perceptions of what kind of knowledge is important in order to carry out their tasks. This study is based on a survey representing kindergartens from all over Norway, and is part of a national research…

Education is described as a moral enterprise and many of the professional dilemmas teachers encounter have an ethical aspect. Research on ethical situations that novice teachers experience, however, seems to be limited, and we know little about how teacher education can prepare student-teachers for dealing with ethical issues. In this article a…

This paper examines the place of reflexivity in the "philosophies" and practices of physical education (PE) teacher educators in Norway. Using a case study approach to one quite typical institution delivering physical education teacher education (PETE) in Norway, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 teacher educators.…

This article reports on a case study of learning and academic achievement in engineering education. Two sets of oral exams were used as a source of information in relation to students' learning and needs in the learning situation. Through ensuing interviews, patterns of learning strategies were discerned. Academically successful students utilised…

This qualitative case study reports and interprets school principals' perceptions of their role in implementing and sustaining Second Step, a social skills development programme. The study compares schools that implemented the programme as a formalised strategy for all teachers and those that did not. The results suggest that the key features of…