Teacher Educators' Role as Researchers: Results From a Large-Scale International Comparative Study

• In Event: Teacher Educators’ Role as Researcher: International Comparative Explorations

Abstract

Objectives
The goal of this poster presentation is to advance insight into teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. To tackle this goal, results of the first large-scale international comparative survey study (with 765 teacher educators from five different countries) on teacher educators’ role as a researcher are presented.

Perspectives
Most studies on teacher educators’ professional development emphasize that teacher educators’ engagement in research is a key component in their career (Lunenberg et al., 2014). To highlight the fact that becoming research active is a fundamental aspect of a teacher educators’ learning trajectory, Loughran (2014, p.2) even describes teacher educators’ career as a ‘research journey’. Similarly, Authors (2014, p.301) conceptualise teacher educators’ professional development as the development of a ‘researcherly disposition’ or ‘the habit of mind to engage with research – as both consumers and producers – to improve their own practice and to contribute to the knowledge base on teacher education’. They further distinguish three different but inter-related dimensions of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition: (1) an affective dimension, (2) a cognitive dimension, and (3) a behavioural dimension.

This poster presentation aims to advance empirical insight in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition and its three inter-related dimensions. This poster session approaches this goal in two steps. First, a state of the art is provided of teacher educators’ self-reported researcherly disposition. Second, differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition across subgroups of teacher educators working in different countries are explored.

Methods
The survey study was initiated by Authors (2017) The participants were 765 higher education-based teacher educators, from six countries: Ireland (n=54), the Netherlands (n=358), Belgium (n=176), Norway (n=76), and Israel (n=101).

The survey contained questions about (1) teacher educators’ background (i.e. age, gender, institution, work context, and research experience), (2) teacher educators’ professional development needs and factors influencing their participation in professional development activities (based on Czerniawski et al., 2017) and (3) teacher educators’ researcherly disposition (based on Authors, 2016).

Results
The results of this study indicate that – overall – teacher educators have moderate to high scores on all dimensions of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. However, a large variation should be noted, indicating differences between teacher educators’ self-reported researcherly disposition. These differences seem to be related to (1) the country in which one is working (and the extent to which teacher educators’ research engagement and opportunities are empowered by policy decisions); (2) the work context (research-intensive vs. non-research intensive), and (3) participants’ individual backgrounds (for instance, academic qualification and research experience).

Scientific significance
This study adds to the body of literature by presenting the results of the first large-scale international comparative survey study on teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. In this respect, this paper tackles important empirical (Lunenberg et al., 2014) and methodological (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) challenges in the field of research on teacher educators’ professional development related to research. Moreover, this study is a first important step in giving voice to an occupational group who has too often been neglected in teacher education policy and research.

Authors

• Ruben Vanderlinde, Ghent University

• Hanne Tack, Ghent University