Page 131 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

teachers noted that they learned how to conduct practitioner inquiry. Teacher educators suggest that the pride, which pre-service teachers express after completing the inquiry project, is partly caused by the difficulties they experienced during the inquiry process. “No friction, no shine!” Despite the positive attitude towards pre- service teacher inquiry, at least one-third of the pre-service teachers do not intend, or expect, to conduct practitioner inquiry in their future jobs as teachers.
Pre-service teachers perceive that the programme focuses on research skills,
whereas teacher educators tend to believe it encompasses a broader inquiry habit of
mind. Few pre-service teachers in our study were able to identify teaching activities
that had stimulated their inquiry habit of mind, though teacher educators mentioned
various examples from their own teaching practices. The pre-service teachers indicated
some key factors for successful implementation of pre-service teacher inquiry in the
programme, such as a clear teaching-learning trajectory and good supervisors. The
link to practice and the opportunity to focus on a self-chosen topic during the inquiry
project are important motivators. 6
Perceived and actual learning outcomes of pre-service teacher inquiry
The last study from this thesis (Chapter 5) focuses on the relationship among perceptions, teaching quality and the quality of pre-service teacher inquiry. We used the assessment scores on the final internship and the scores on the inquiry project of 650 pre-service teachers as indicators for the quality of teaching and inquiry. Our finding of a significant positive correlation between scores on pre-service teacher practice and scores on pre-service teacher inquiry prompted us to further explore this relationship. To gain deeper insight into the perceived and actual learning outcomes, the attained curriculum, we examined pre-service teacher profiles defined by teaching quality and inquiry quality.
The learning outcomes of pre-service teacher inquiry perceived to be the most important differ for various pre-service teacher profiles (we categorised students in four such profiles): the high achievers report characteristics of an inquiry habit of mind to be the most important learning outcome, the good practitioners mention knowledge of specific subjects, the average students report research skills, and the low achievers mention application of findings in practice. The high achievers understand the purpose and value of pre-service teacher inquiry that is intended in the curriculum. Students in other profiles show less understanding of the recursive nature of the inquiry process—that teaching is a process driven by questions and continuously responsive to the data of practice.
General conclusion and discussion
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