Page 64 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Chapter 3
Table 3.3 Scales of the survey on pre-service teacher inquiry and Cronbach’s alpha
1. Perceived value of pre-service teacher inquiry (n = 7) .89
2. Expectation of using inquiry competence in one’s future profession (n=11) (n = 11) .92
3. Perceived ability of inquiry competence (n = 6) .84
4. Perceived ease of undertaking pre-service teacher inquiry (n = 4) .70
In all analyses, we compared pre-service teachers with teacher educators. For the first research question, we analyzed the average scores on the Value and Future scales. The Value scale consisted of items related to cognitive attitudes (e.g., research is deepening) and affective attitudes (e.g., research is nice) toward pre-service teacher inquiry. The Future scale indicates use of inquiry competence in the future and perceptions of the role of research/inquiry in the profession. For the second research question, we analyzed two open questions about the strongest and weakest points of the program; we clustered the answers inductively and calculated the percentages of how often the answers appeared. A total of 80 pre-service teachers and 99 teacher educators answered these questions. To answer the third research question about learning outcomes, we compared their average scores and frequencies on the Inquiry competence and Ease scales. The former indicated a respondent’s ability to undertake pre-service teacher inquiry, and the latter related to a respondent’s perception of the ease of pre-service teacher inquiry. To analyze the open question on the most important personal learning outcomes, we used the five inquiry competencies in our theoretical framework. A total of 299 pre-service-teachers and 83 teacher educators answered this question.
Focus groups
During the semi-structured focus group sessions, we used an interview scheme, guided by our research questions and questionnaire items. After we transcribed the focus group recordings verbatim, we conducted a qualitative content analysis in ATLAS.ti, using a coding scheme based on the theoretical framework and the main findings of the survey (Friese, 2014). For example, to analyze perceived purpose and value of pre-service teacher inquiry in the curriculum, we studied the first responses to the question “Why do you think research is in the primary teacher education curriculum?” We analyzed responses according to the inquiry competencies of research knowledge, knowledge about current research, research skills, application of research, and inquiry habit of mind.
Cronbach’s ‒ alpha
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