Collaborative learning (CL) refers to an instructional strategy in which pupils work actively and purposefully together in small groups to enhance both their own and their teammates’ learning (Ishler, Johnson & Johnson, 1998). In bringing together pupils with different capacities and characteristics, collaborative structures enable each child to learn at his/her own ‘zone of proximal development’ (Vygotsky, 1969). Research on collaborative learning revealed positive effects of the use of this instructional method on pupils’ cognitive performance as well as on social development in primary school (Slavin, 1996; Veenman, van Benthum, Bootsma, van Dieren & van der Kemp, 2002). The effects of collaborative learning activities are particularly significant for the contemporary multicultural society, in which the diversity among pupils is high (Shachar & Shmuelevitz, 1997). The notion of peer-based instruction has major implications for teachers’ instructional behaviour. When new generations of teachers are becoming familiar with new didactic methods, education has the chance to innovate aligned with scientific research results. It requires therefore an effort of teacher education to make student teachers familiar with this method in order to ensure enduring implementation in schools. Both student teachers and their teacher educators, however, may face the problem of ‘familiarity’ (Geddis & Wood, 1997). They have spent many years in schools themselves as students. In this period, they have built a certain conception of teaching through observation. That general teaching conception is mostly individual-oriented, with little engagement among pupils in learning from one another, and often focused on knowledge transmission (Lunenberg & Korthagen, 2005). As a result of this observational learning experiences, innovative didactic methods are hardly implemented in contemporary education. Moreover, teacher educators seldom model the use of innovative strategies like collaborative learning, not to mention explicating and legitimising their didactical choices (Swennen et al., 2004). They focus most of the time on the theoretical aspects of innovations and didactical strategies, rather than on the way they teach these contents themselves (Loughran, 2006) or the way student teachers can implement these methods. Consequently, student teachers may face the problem of using the theoretical information of their schooling in practice (Tigchelaar et al., 2001), because they are not familiar with the way these strategies can be used in practice. It seems that their objective competence in using innovative methods, e.g. collaborative learning, will we meagre. Beliefs and attitudes towards the proposed innovations seem to be a differentiating factor in the extent of innovative behaviour as well (Abrami, Poulsen & Chambers, 2004). It seems that the more familiar and competent teachers become and feel in the use of instructional methods, the more positive their attitudes are towards it, and the more likely they will implement it in practice (Veenman et al., 2002). Taken into account the substantial body of research indicating the positive effects of collaborative instructional strategies, the following question presents itself: “What is the place of collaborative learning in teacher education?”. Therefore, a state of the art study has been set up to investigate the presence of collaborative learning in teacher education. The study more particularly focuses on learning variables such as cognitions, competences and emotions (Collins et al., 2004). General conceptions of learning and teaching in relation to attitudes towards collaborative learning is investigated on the one hand. On the other hand, the familiarity and competences of both student teachers and teacher educators with the instructional use of collaborative learning, is questioned. The relation between these learning variables and the integration of this instructional method in teacher training institutes is also explored.

In the present quantitative study a sample of 16 teacher education institutes in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium were involved. 140 teacher educators and 367 students in the professional bachelor course to become a elementary school teacher, participated in the study during the months september-november 2007. Two survey instruments were used to gather information concerning general conceptions of teaching and attitudes towards and familiarity with collaborative learning: one questionnaire for teacher educators and one online questionnaire for student teachers. Both instruments deal with conceptions of teaching, based on the work of Hermans et al. (2007) who distinguish a developmental and transmissive dimension, and on the mental models from the Inventory Learning Scale (ILS) by Vermunt and Van Rijswijk (1997). Teacher educators were also asked respectively to indicate their competency development in relation to the instructional use of collaborative learning, to indicate to what extent they use collaborative learning as a method in teacher education, and to give their opinion on the value, expectancy, and cost of collaborative learning (Abrami et al., 2004). The student teachers’ questionnaire contained, next to the items concerning conceptions of teaching, questions about the occurrence of collaborative learning activities in teacher education, and questions about their experiences with collaborative learning during elementary, secondary, and higher education. In the last part of the questionnaire, student teachers were asked to indicate to what extent they had the opportunity to become competent in the instructional use of collaborative learning since they started teacher education.

Both student teachers and their teacher educators seem to have more developmental conceptions of teaching than transmissive conceptions. The transmissive conceptions of student teachers diminish when they get further in teacher training (p = .000). This is in contraction with findings of Lunenberg and Korthagen (2005). Student teachers value knowledge transmission however in relation to their own learning process (especially when their study in secondary education had a vocational or technical orientation, rather then a general focus; p = .021), but find it less relevant to their future pupils. Teacher educators as well as their students attach also great importance to the practicability of knowledge and less importance to learning together with peers. Teacher educators with more experience in teacher education make much more of this (p = .015). The conceptions concerning collaborative learning more specific are nevertheless positive (especially for student teachers who approach the moment of graduating (p = .000)), although the costs of the implementation of this instructional method are considered rather high. Student teachers who value collaboration with peers in relation to their own learning process, have significantly more positive attitudes towards collaborative learning for their pupils (p = .000). The theoretical background of teacher educators accounts for significant differences (p = .019) in expectations: masters in modern languages, in psychology or educational sciences and bachelors in education have the highest expectations of collaborative learning. The expectations of teacher educators towards collaborative learning can also predict the use of collaborative learning (p = .000). The implementation of collaborative learning in teacher education is different in several teacher training institutes. In general, knowledge transmission is still dominant in current teacher education: lectures are the most used instructional method. Group work is also integrated regularly, especially by male teacher educators (p = .038), but student teachers are not made very familiar with the implementation of collaborative learning in their future primary school classes. More than half of the questioned student teacher was not familiar with the theoretical principles of collaborative learning, and they practice it to a rather limited degree.