DOI: 10.25233/ijlel.1766396 ISSN: 2458-911X

Impact of Host Teachers' Misconduct on Pre-Service Teachers' Ethics and Professional Attitudes

Jimmy Ezekiel Kıhwele, Joyce Kiwara
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This study investigates how observed professional misconduct by host teachers during teaching practice influences pre-service teachers' attitudes towards the teaching profession. Using Bandura's Social Learning Theory (SLT) and Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) as theoretical frameworks, the research examines how unethical behaviours impact pre-service teachers' ethical standards and attitudes as future educators. The study employed an exploratory sequential design, involving 348 respondents from one university, with 22 purposively selected key informants in phase one and 326 randomly selected respondents for phase two. The analysis involved content analysis and the Relative Importance Index (RII). Researchers adhered to ethical research conduct throughout the study. Findings reveal that misconduct among host teachers shapes pre-service teachers' professional beliefs, reinforcing ethical values or promoting unethical practices, conforming with SLT and CDT assumptions. The study highlights the critical role of mentorship in fostering professional integrity and calls for stricter accountability measures to ensure effective mentorship programs under ethical frameworks. The study recommends that there should be collective efforts between teacher training institutions and leadership from the host schools to enforce the code of conduct through mentorship programs aimed at shaping student teachers' professional ethics, standards, and integrity. This empirical study is based on practical experience in which pre-service teachers attend an extended teaching practice period in schools. In these schools, they observe various behaviours as part of school culture that shape or misshape their professional behaviour

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