Page 83 - Empowering pre-service teachers through inquiry - Lidewij van Katwijk

Pre-service teacher inquiry; an international comparison
persist (Munthe & Rogne, 2015; Puustinen et al., 2018; Rinke & Stebick, 2013). Many
reports rely on existing assumptions about the purpose and value of pre-service
teacher research; few empirical studies explicitly investigate what teacher educators
and pre-service teachers perceive as the purpose, value, and learning outcomes of
such research requirements in teacher education programmes. Therefore, the aim
of this study is to investigate the contributions of pre-service teacher research to the
professional learning and development of pre-service teachers, by gathering insights
into their perceptions and those of teacher educators of the purposes, learning
outcomes, and value of pre-service teacher research. 4
Specifically, this comparative study analyses key stakeholders’ views of pre- service teacher research, required in teacher education programmes in four institutes across two countries (the Netherlands and Australia). This work responds to Darling- Hammond’s (2017) call for educators from various countries, with their different contexts, to learn from one another about what matters and what works to meet the high expectations of learning for pre-service teachers and their students. Accordingly, two educators, one from Australia and one from the Netherlands, worked together to build a deeper understanding of the value of pre-service teacher research by comparing the perceptions of both educators and pre-service teachers in different contexts, using both focus groups and questionnaires.
2 Nature of pre-service teacher research
To obtain a clear definition of pre-service teacher research, we first outline its purpose, as described in prior literature. Then we integrate practitioner research and inquiry as examples of teacher research, which are generally consistent with the expectations of pre-service teacher research (Cochran-Smith, Barnatt, Friedman, & Pine, 2009).
A rich body of research that describes the nature and meaning of teacher research (e.g., Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009; Elliott, 2004; Kemmis, 2009, 2010; Smith et al., 2009; West, 2011; Zeichner, 2003) distinguishes three major goals: (1) innovation, with a focus on one’s own teaching practice or school issues; (2) contribution to the content knowledge of educational research, by filling gaps between research and teaching and transferring and integrating research into complex problems and one’s own practice (Hammerness, 2006); and (3) professional development. Teacher research also might contribute to lifelong learning efforts, because it implies continuous
81