Page 107 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Relationship among quality of inquiry, quality of teaching and perceptions toward inquiry
1 Introduction
In recent decades, attention to various forms of pre-service teacher research in teacher
education has grown internationally. The assumption is that knowing about research
and conducting research by oneself strengthens the quality of teaching. Using
practitioner inquiry as a professional learning strategy can help pre-service teachers,
teachers and teacher educators become more aware of setting and achieving goals
and substantiate their efforts by relying on scientific knowledge produced by others (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Livingston & Flores, 2017; Menter, Peters & Cowie, 2017).
However, research shows that many pre-service teachers have a negative attitude
toward conducting research (e.g., Joram, 2007; Ponte, Beijaard & Ax, 2004; Puustinen,
Säntti, Koski, & Tammi, 2018; Ulvik, 2014) and offer several reasons for their negative 5 attitudes: (1) pre-service teachers would rather spend time practising teaching than
conducting research; (2) pre-service teacher research demands too much cognitively and therefore causes stress; and (3) it is a compulsory exercise that involves assessment. Moreover, Grossman’s (2005) review study referring mainly to studies situated in the United States revealed 15 years ago that little empirical evidence suggests that doing research, as is taught in teacher education, leads to more effective (prospective) teachers.
More recently, studies about pre-service teacher research in various countries (e.g., Finland, Norway, Sweden, Romania, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States) have shown value in pre-service teacher research (e.g., Aspfors & Eklund, 2017; Cochran-Smith, Barnatt, Friedman & Pine,. 2009; Flores, 2018; Gray, 2013; Ion & Iucu, 2016; Råde, 2019; Ulvik, Riese & Roness, 2017). However, these studies focus on master’s degree programmes; less is known about pre-service teacher research or inquiry in bachelor programmes (cf. Baan, Gaikhorst, van‘t Noordende & Volman, 2019; Munthe & Rogne, 2015). Furthermore, most studies use self-reported data from questionnaires and interviews, and empirical studies about pre-service teacher or inquiry contribution to the teaching practice remain scarce.
The present study focuses on Dutch teacher education for primary schools, for which pre-service teacher research, in the form of inquiry, became compulsory ten years ago. Previous research shows that teacher education can encourage the development of research skills among pre-service teachers, as well as influence their perceptions and attitudes toward teacher research (e.g., Aspfors & Eklund, 2017; Maaranen, 2009; Munthe & Rogne, 2015; Van der Linden et al.,2012; Van Katwijk, Berry, Jansen, & Van Veen, 2019a). However, as mentioned previously, few studies explore the relationship
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