Development of an Inquiry Stance? Perceptions of Preservice Teachers and Teacher Educators Toward Preservice Teacher Inquiry in Dutch Primary Teacher Education

Abstract

This study aims to gain insight into the perceived purpose and value of preservice teacher inquiry in Dutch primary teacher education by teacher educators and preservice teachers at the undergraduate level; it also assesses the implementation of teaching and learning activities, and learning outcomes associated with teacher inquiry. In the Netherlands, inquiry competence in primary teacher education develops over a 4-year period, resulting in students’ completion of capstone projects using practitioner inquiry. The authors combine a survey with focus groups of teacher educators and preservice teachers from eight institutes. They find differences between preservice teachers’ perceptions of the implementation of inquiry competence and teacher educators’ visions and perceptions of such implementation. All participants, students and educators, believe inquiry to be valuable and perceive learning outcomes of inquiry to be enriching, yet about half of the preservice teachers do not to expect to undertake inquiry in their future teaching jobs.

Research competence in initial teacher education: Perceptions, orientations, and suggestions

“…It has been acknowledged that teacher learning is a lifelong process, and inquiry is an indispensable part of a teacher's job involving questioning and reflecting on practice to improve student learning. Teaching is a profession that requires adaptation to different contexts (van Katwijk et al, 2021) and finding solutions to complex and unprecedented educational issues (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). For this, rather than having externally produced knowledge, teachers themselves should directly become both producers and consumers of research (Rust, 2009).…”

“…For this, rather than having externally produced knowledge, teachers themselves should directly become both producers and consumers of research (Rust, 2009). To accomplish this, studies (Cochran-Smith et al, 2009;van Katwijk et al, 2021) emphasize that STs adopt inquiry as a stance, and they point out the need for raising STs as researchers (Bullock, 2016) during ITE. Adopting or developing an inquiry stance as a professional value could be possible by integrating research into the teacher education curriculum.…”

“…Overall, studies conducted with student teachers generally indicate that research is a fruitful professional activity to adopt in teacher education and integrating educational research course help STs to be proficient in research literacy (Groß Ophoff et al, 2015); they feel empowered, and research leads to quality teaching (van Katwijk et al, 2021). It allows STs to test theories and make their own decisions in their practice and see it as a transformative experience (Crawford-Garrett et al, 2015).…”

“…Recently, there are many studies exploring the second direction, namely STs conducting research in practicum, mostly in the form of action research (Akyel, 2015;Crawford-Garrett et al, 2015;Ulvik & Riese, 2016). After Munthe and Rogne (2015)'s finding that "there is little knowledge about how ITE programs address research for students" (p. 17), a few studies have emerged to investigate this scholarly perspective across the program (van Katwijk et al, 2021;White et al, 2016) mostly focusing on STs' perspectives and perceived competence.…”

Toward Inquiry and Problem Posing in Teacher Education

“…What is lacking in teacher education is the requisite for preservice and inservice teachers to engage in healthy skepticism about the art of teaching and learning so they can question certain taken-for-granted teaching practices (Craig et al, 2022). In teacher education programs, preservice teachers (PSTs), for example, are typically expected to assume a passive role when learning about the best teaching methods and techniques (van Katwijk et al, 2022). Pedagogical procedures and content knowledge are delivered to them via a one-way conduit (Clandinin & Connelly, 1995; Craig, 2002) for which the exchange of knowledge and ideas is not the expectation or solicited.…”