Page 100 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Chapter 4
participating pre-service teachers is not to become innovators or researchers but rather to use the research project as a learning strategy, in the context of becoming a teacher (cf. Cochran-Smith et al., 2009).
The perceived learning outcomes identified by pre-service teachers in both countries are in line with the perceived purposes of research as we described earlier. The most important outcomes they mentioned included various characteristics of an inquiry habit of mind (Van der Rijst, 2009), that is, to be open-minded and critical, wanting to share, trying to improve and innovate, and how to be a reflective teacher. Pre-service teachers reported that they are able to apply and conduct research after finishing their pre-service teacher research projects, have gained more knowledge about research (i.e., a broad understanding of a body of knowledge about education and research, and theoretical concepts), and are able to connect this research knowledge with practice. This outcome was also reported by the teacher educators in both countries. Interestingly though, across the multiple institutes, the participating pre-service teachers did not expect to conduct research in their future teaching jobs.
This study reveals similarities in the perceived value of pre-service teacher research among educators and pre-service teachers in four teacher education institutes across Australia and the Netherlands. All participants stated a belief that performing research is important, or even very important, in the process of becoming a teacher, even though one-third of the pre-service teachers indicated that they did not enjoy the research, and some cited negative feelings, such as frustration and stress. These feelings might have influenced their learning processes as well, congruent with findings in research about inquiry-based learning (Kuhn, Black, Keselman, & Kaplan, 2000). If pre-service teachers lack the necessary research skills, conducting a research project could be counterproductive, leading to frustration and a sense that educational practice is too hard or not worth trying to understand. But if pre-service teachers overcome these frustrations and are able to learn these skills, they “come to understand that they are able to acquire knowledge they desire, in virtually any content domain, in ways that they can initiate, manage, and execute on their own, and that such knowledge is empowering” (Kuhn et al., 2000, p. 497). This outcome corresponds with “wanting to achieve” as one of the characteristics of an inquiry habit of mind (Van der Rijst, 2009).
Although in the questionnaires, the pre-service teachers were generally positive about the effects of conducting pre-service teacher research on their future jobs and indicated that they would prefer to work in school contexts where other colleagues share an inquiry habit of mind, in the focus groups, they admitted that they did not
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