gms | German Medical Science

This qualitative study investigates the trajectories of change in pre-service teachers' perceptions of student misbehaviors that they plan to address in their classroom management plan. The research question is as follows: How do pre-service teachers' perceptions of student classroom misbehavior change as a result of an inquiry-based classroom management course that they take? Data were collected from twenty-four pre-service teachers enrolled in a Classroom Management Course at an international university in Northern Cyprus in Spring 2016. A writing prompt was administered at the beginning and end of the classroom management course to collect data from the participants. Data were exposed to content analyses. The results of qualitative data analyses indicated that the pre-service teachers' perceptions of student classroom misbehaviors that they planned to address as part of their classroom management plan changed as a result of the new knowledge, skills, and experiences they gained in the inquiry based classroom management course. The findings indicated that although the pre-service teachers mostly had a tendency to plan to address either too serious and thorny misbehaviors (e.g., plagiarism, cheating), or too specific misbehaviors (e.g., use of cell phone) before they took the course, their conceptualization and definition of student misbehaviors went through alteration at the end of the course. Their responses became more sophisticated and they started to elaborate more on student misbehavior according to (a) the context in which it would appear, (b) its frequency of happening, (c) severity, and (d) its possible effects on students, wider audience, and teaching and learning processes. In line with this, the results further indicated that although trajectories of change for pre-service teachers showed variation, the classroom management course based on inquiry based learning provided the pre-service teachers with knowledge, skills, and competencies of effective classroom management.