Participatory Action Research for Development of Prospective Teachers Professionality during Their Pedagogical Practice

Implementation of participatory action research during pedagogical practice facilitates sustainable education because its objective is to understand professional practice, enrich the capacity of involved participants and an opportunity to make inquiries for the improvement of quality. In the research of professional practice, subjects explore themselves; research is critically informative, active and action-oriented. Basing on the analysis of the prospective teachers' professional independence formation during pedagogical practice, the conditions for the individual's sustainable professional development are updated, the principles of organising pedagogical practice are determined. The experts' opinion method was applied in the evaluation of the developed practice model. Four experts from four Latvian universities were involved in the questionnaire; the content analysis of expert opinions was performed. As a result, the opportunities of the developed model to ensure sustainable education as well as its strengths and weaknesses were determined. Activation of the holistic and action approaches to develop students' independent professional activity and ensure sustainable education, cooperation context, targeted planning of the student-centred process, orientation to students' self-experience, respect of research aspects were completely appreciated.