Page 139 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

The third limitation is that the significant, positive relationship between pre-service teacher inquiry and teaching found in Chapter 4 is small and based on assessment scores from just one university of applied sciences. Repeating this method in other institutes of teacher education or using a proper experimental setup (as described previously) would increase the reliability of the findings.
This research examined a changing system, meaning that we gained insights
into existing processes and correlations, while realising that the programmes and implementation of pre-service teacher inquiry are not carved in stone. Since the
introduction of pre-service teacher inquiry, universities of applied sciences have
evaluated and adapted their teacher education programmes regarding pre-service
teacher inquiry. However, although teacher educators have professionalised and
obtained more experience with the supervision of pre-service teacher inquiry,
teachers with any experience in research or inquiry are still a minority in primary
schools. Van den Bergh et al. (2017) nonetheless show that such teachers contribute
to a culture of inquiry by their inquiry habit of mind and intention to use literature. 6 Because of a growing number of teachers with pre-service teacher inquiry experience,
we expect a change in research culture in primary schools, and possibly an increase of
teachers who work in an inquiry-based manner. Perceptions of teachers and teacher
educators in primary schools regarding pre-service teacher inquiry and the impact
of these perceptions on the professional development of pre-service teachers would
be worthwhile to examine as a follow-up study. School leaders and teachers can use
several approaches to stimulate inquiry-based working in their schools to influence a
research culture (Uiterwijk-Luijk et al., 2019). Continued research related to the impact
of pre-service teacher inquiry on inquiry-based work of teachers and the research
culture in primary schools should be longitudinal. We recommend future research
on the inquiry stance of early career teachers, demonstrated by the application and
development of inquiry competences over time.
The question of how to develop an inquiry stance of future professionals is important for not just teacher education but also for other professional bachelor’s degree programmes in the Netherlands, such as nursing education, hotel management or physiotherapy, that are struggling to implement inquiry competences in a meaningful way. Therefore, we also recommend research into curriculum development and implementation of teaching and learning activities regarding an inquiry stance in other institutes of universities of applied sciences.
General conclusion and discussion
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