Page 74 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Chapter 3
Third, pre-service teachers in both our survey and the focus group sessions stressed the importance—and shortage—of good supervisors. Although all participating institutes have invested in research and research-supervision professionalization (Geerdink et al., 2016), research-related teaching is rarely based on teachers’ own research, which could be stimulating for students (Aspfors & Eklund, 2017; Munthe & Rogne, 2015; Toom et al., 2010). Moreover, teacher educators identified few primary school teachers with research knowledge, which may be causing a lack of coherence in programs (Canrinus et al., 2017).
Our analysis of learning outcomes (i.e., RQ3) shows that both pre-service teachers and teacher educators believe pre-service teachers have learned how to inquire. However, pre-service teachers identify research skills and content knowledge as the most important learning outcomes, whereas teacher educators mention inquiry habit of mind as most important. These findings are in line with the findings of previous investigations of the description of inquiry competence in the Dutch primary teacher education programs, which show that research skills are well described in intended learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessments, whereas inquiry habit of mind, despite being identified as an important learning outcome, is rarely mentioned in teaching activities or assessment (Van Katwijk et al., 2019b). Both teacher educators and pre-service teachers identify the link to theory and practice as a learning outcome. Aspfors and Eklund (2017), as well as Puustinen et al. (2018) report that pre-service teachers in master programs often have difficulties connecting theory and practice, despite laudable ambitions to establish such connections. The positive perceptions of the bachelor students in this study could be related to the fact that being taught in teacher inquiry is often their first introduction to educational research in the context of a teacher education program that is strongly practice-oriented. This in contrast to university-based teacher education master programs, where students already have a master in a discipline and are familiar with scientific research.
Limitations
Although our study yields interesting and relevant outcomes, it has several limitations. First, all study participants were engaged in primary pre-service teacher education in the Netherlands at the undergraduate level at universities of applied sciences. Therefore, the educational context is specific, and generalizations require caution. Second, our findings arise from self-reports and perceptions of pre-service teachers and teacher educators (e.g., Schwartz, 1999). Survey data related to the Value
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