Teacher educators from the preservice programs in the Teacher Education and Learning to Teach Study were interviewed about the purposes of their methods courses, using an interview schedule constructed around individual course syllabi. The respondents seem to have complex, hazy, and perhaps unconscious purposes for these courses. Many of the courses include many diverse activities that go beyond the purpose teacher educators described in the interviews. Subject matter figures prominently in these purposes, but little attention is given to these subject matters as active fields of inquiry. The interview generated informative responses about specific purposes for course content but was not successful in providing information about the prior influences on those purposes. (Author)