Page 110 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Chapter 5
(2019a) and Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al. (2019) also mention the application or use of research to improve practice, a concept closely related to the development of teaching competences such as improved support for student learning and introductions of innovative teaching strategies (e.g., Ion & Iucu, 2016; Niemi & Nevgi, 2014; Råde, 2014; Taylor, 2017).
However, Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al. (2019) and Volk (2010) find little evidence that practicing teachers use learned research skills and knowledge after completing their teacher education. In summary, though teacher educators endorse a considerable number of highly ambitious purposes for pre-service teacher research and inquiry, pre-service teachers’ perceptions and actual learning outcomes regarding the quality of teaching are unclear.
Teaching quality of pre-service teachers
The quality of teaching is assumed to be a core tenet in teacher education programmes; pre-service teacher research also has come to represent a substantial part of those programmes. However, the exact relationship between these two learning outcomes is complicated, and empirical data on the relationship are lacking. Teacher quality and teaching quality are closely related; teaching quality is the most important indicator of teacher quality (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2017). A highly qualified teacher can manage groups of pupils and knows what and how to teach—all observable indicators of teaching quality. However, highly qualified teachers also know about learning and make decisions informed not only by their own classroom and school evidence but also by theory and research (Cochran-Smith et al., 2009). Similarly, in the framework for effective teaching, Stronge (2018) emphasizes six behaviours of effective teachers from the perspective of twenty-first-century teaching: professional knowledge, skills for instructional planning (including classroom management), skills for instructional delivery (including cognitive activation, differentiation and learning strategies), assessment for learning, creation of an adequate learning environment and professionalism. These behaviours are driven by key characteristics reflecting the teacher’s dispositions, goals and beliefs, which directly affect teaching effectiveness.
Research questions
Against this background, the current study aims to shed light on the perceived and actual value of pre-service teacher inquiry for becoming a teacher by exploring the relationships among perceptions, teaching quality and pre-service teacher inquiry. Because the general idea is that pre-service students are more enthusiastic about
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