Page 120 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Chapter 5
with the other profiles. Figure 5.3 shows a bar chart of the mean scores on the scales divided over the four pre-service teacher profiles.
6 5 4 3 2 1 0
scales
value affective value cognitive self-efficacy future
good practitioners
average students
high achievers
low achievers
Profile 1: Good practitioners, n = 69; Profile 2: Average students, n = 42; Profile 3: High achievers, n = 49; Profile 4: Low achievers, n = 31
Figure 5.3 Mean scores of the different scales from the questionnaire perceptions of pre-service teacher inquiry, by pre-service teacher profiles
We observed no significant differences across the profiles in gender, age, cohort or previous education. However, the profiles showed different patterns of their perceptions of the most important learning outcomes (Figure 5.4).
The high achievers, pre-service teachers who achieved high scores on their inquiry project as well as on their teaching assessment, indicated development of the inquiry habit of mind as the most important learning outcome. This perceived learning outcome was mentioned less frequently in all other profiles. The average students (profile 2) indicated conducting research/inquiry as the most important learning outcome. The good practitioners (profile 1) also indicated relatively often that conducting research/inquiry was the most important learning outcome, but they indicated increased knowledge of the studied subject just as frequently. The low achievers (profile 4) indicated that they mainly learned to apply research findings in practice. Overall, we found significant and remarkable differences across the four profiles of pre-service teachers.
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