Page 121 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Relationship among quality of inquiry, quality of teaching and perceptions toward inquiry
40 35 30 25 20 15 10
5 0
profiles
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 5.4 Perceived most important learning outcomes of pre-service teacher inquiry, by four pre-service teach- er profiles
5 Conclusion and discussion
The aim of this study was to gain insights into the perceived and actual value of pre-service teacher inquiry for becoming a teacher by exploring the relationship among perceptions, teaching quality and pre-service teacher inquiry. Focusing on the relationship between the quality of the capstone inquiry projects and the quality of teaching of pre-service teachers, we identify four profiles with distinctive perceptions of the most important learning outcomes earned through pre-service teacher inquiry.
The perception of graduating pre-service primary education teachers toward pre-service teacher inquiry is positive, regardless of their assessment scores. First, pre-service teachers indicate a positive cognitive attitude toward inquiry and regard it as important and a good way to become more professional. Second, they express a positive affective attitude and indicate that the pre-service teacher inquiry project was interesting to do. These positive attitudes are important for their continuing professional development as a teacher (e.g., Cochran-Smith et al., 2009; Van der Linden
119
5
%