The aim of this experiment was to examine the effect of different instructional strategies on student teachers' confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to the selectivity in finding and using evidence that fits one's own beliefs or hypotheses while neglecting evidence that is opposite to one's own beliefs or hypotheses (Nickerson, 1998). Dutch student teachers (n = 141) took a confirmation bias pre-test and were then randomly assigned to three conditions; teaching on video (TOV), preparing to teach (PTT) and re-study (CC). All participants received text-based instruction on confirmation bias and how it can be mitigated. They also practised with confirmation bias tasks and they received feedback on their answers. Subsequently, participants in the TOV and PTT conditions prepared a lesson about the instructional content and in the TOV condition they taught this lesson on video. After the learning phase, TOV and PTT participants completed a social presence questionnaire. All participants completed an arousal questionnaire and a confirmation bias post-test and a transfer test. The results showed that confirmation bias was reduced to a similar extent in all conditions. Results also showed that the quality of the prepared lesson was highest for TOV participants suggesting they had gained better understanding of the confirmation bias than PTT participants. Furthermore, in contrast to our expectations, PTT participants reported highest social presence scores. TOV participants experienced higher arousal levels compared to CC participants. Transfer scores did not differ between conditions. We discuss theoretical explanations of the findings from the present study.
Over the last decade, in both the Netherlands and England, there have been national policydriven changes to establish school-based teacher education where the focus is on increased responsibility for schools in initial teacher education. In this research stories were gathered of challenges experienced 'on the ground' by teacher educators in these school-university partnerships. The aim was to explore the reality of working within partnerships for schoolbased teacher education rather than a comparative study between the two countries.Challenges were identified in guiding and assessing student-teachers; professionalism, growth and well-being of student-teachers and teacher educators; collaborative working in partnerships; and in assuring quality of practice. The stories revealed complexities of working in school-university partnerships across institutional borders and with multiple stakeholders involved. Many teacher educators sought their own solution to the challenges rather than discussing them with others in the partnership. Resolution of challenges was sometimes beyond their control and needed to be dealt with on a different level within the schooluniversity partnership. The stories provide authentic teacher educator voices for use as a professional learning tool in developing collaborative practices in initial teacher education partnerships.
This research investigated the experiences of teacher educators working in school-based practice within partnerships between schools and higher education institutions. A narrative approach was used to collect stories about challenges or dilemmas in practice from schoolbased teacher educators and institute-based teacher educators in the Netherlands and England.These stories about practice were developed into 'tools' that can be used for the professional learning and development of teacher educators, to foster reflection on practice, provoke discussion and enhance collaboration within and between partnerships. The tools were used with teacher educators in workshops in England and the Netherlands and at international conferences, in order to consider ways in which they can enable boundary crossing, and to evaluate their usefulness for professional learning and development. Early observations of the impact of using these tools revealed that teacher educators found them especially helpful when used in mixed groups of school-and institute-based teacher educators. This researchbased initiative designed to improve the work of teacher educators and the collaboration between institute-and school-based teacher educators will be further developed to provide
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