Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and systematically describe the essence of the relationship and learning experiences between student teachers and their cooperating teacher during their clinical fieldwork in two school districts in southern California. Methodology. A phenomenological design was used to explore student teachers' relationship and learning experiences with their cooperating teacher during their clinical fieldwork. The researcher used a purposeful sampling of five early career teachers working in kindergarten through grade twelve settings whom had experienced student teaching in the preceding twenty-four months. Creswell's (2013) steps in phenomenological data analysis, which are founded upon the approaches of both Moustakas (1994) and Polkinghorne (1989) were used, including: bracketing, phenomenological reduction, identification of significant statements, creation of formulated meanings, development of a textural representation of themes, resulting finally in a structural description of the essence of the experience. Validity and reliability were established through the use of Guba's (1985) constructs of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Findings. Transcripts were reviewed multiple times to surface over 168 significant statements from the interviews. Eighteen formulated meanings were constructed from the significant statements and five themes emerged. The five themes were explained and supported with significant statements from the interviews. Ultimately, the essence of the relationship and learning experience between the student teachers and their cooperating teachers was described. Conclusions. The results of the study support the five key themes as important areas of learning how to be a teacher through the relationship the student teachers had with their cooperating teachers during the clinical fieldwork portion of teacher training. The key themes included, that student teachers view their experience as positive regardless of the quality of the relationship with their cooperating teacher and they also learn from other contributors; student teachers highly value learning how to interact with students in the affective domain; student teachers want to learn more about non-instructional issues; student teachers' understanding of the value of the student teaching experience increases upon employment in the profession; and cooperating teachers are not adequately prepared for their role. Recommendations. Novice teachers place great value on their student teaching experiences and rate it as the most important facet of their teacher preparation. Future research should be conducted to include a larger number of participants and to add the perspective of the cooperating teacher as well as the university supervisor. Additionally, a quantitative study could be conducted to determine the relationship between the qualities of the cooperating teacher and the effectiveness of the novice teacher.