Linking Theory to Practice: A Case-based Approach in Teacher Education

A major concern in teacher education is applying theories and principles in ways to show their relevance to classroom practice. Case study is recommended as one way to link theory to practice as this method can help to present students with some aspect of real-life scenarios whereby they can apply and integrate knowledge, skills, theories and experience. Case study should be made an important pedagogy in the training of preservice teachers as it has been proven to promote critical thinking and decision making. It may help preservice teachers to develop decision-making skills crucial for effective teaching and also help to raise awareness of the relevance of certain theories and principles that can be applied to help them understand and solve complex and conflicting issues in the classroom or schools. Hence this paper explored the preservice teachers’ application of educational theories and principles in making decisions to solve complex classroom problems through a case based approach. This study involves semester three preservice teachers from three classes and content analysis was carried out to identify the use of different theories and principles in their case analysis reports. Students’ attitude was also measured in terms of value, motivation, self confidence and enjoyable using a likert questionnaire adapted from Tappa (2002).