Critical incidents through narrative inquiry: Stories of pre-service teachers’ teaching practicum

This paper aims to present the value of two methodologies, narrative inquiry and critical incidents, as determined by an analysis of qualitative data to gain insight into Thai EFL pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy during teaching practicum. Saliency of the data was identified through critical incidents and narrative enquiry was employed to explain the saliency. The study was conducted during a 16-week period of teaching practicum, in the first semester of the academic year, at different practice schools in a province near Bangkok. The participants of the study were six Thai EFL pre-service teachers who enrolled in the teaching practicum course in the final year of their study. The qualitative data were collected by using teaching diaries, semi-structured interviews, and monthly seminars. Then, narrative inquiry and critical incidents were employed to analyse the data. Details of the incidents in the forms of narratives provided meaningful insights into factors that influenced the participants’ self-efficacy. The combination of two methodologies allowed the researchers had more insight into what the participants thought and felt.