Dissemination of educational research to classroom is view as problematic. Hargreaves (1996) claimed that medical practitioners make greater use of research finding than teachers. Teaching is not an evidence-based profession, whereas medicine is. Teachers look for immediate payoffs on their practice. A research result is attractive as long as it can be translated into procedures that are successful in classroom (Hemsley-Brown & Sharp, 2003, Mc Intyre, 2005). Moreover, educational research is scattered in multiple-research objects which don’t mirror the realities of classroom teaching and learning as they are experienced by teachers. As a consequence, educational research is perceived as irrelevant, unhelpful and too theoretical, more academic-oriented than practitioner-oriented (Hemsley-Brown & Sharp, 2003 ; Johansson, 2006 ; Tardif & Zouhral, 2005). The aim of the paper is to present results of a survey concerning pre-service teachers’ perception of research-based knowledge and its importance in teaching. This is a part of a larger survey investigating the pre-service teachers representations of the main teacher competences and their perception of competences development at the end of the one-year training.

The total sample comprised 900 pre-service teachers, 496 primary-school teachers and 404 secondary-school teachers, of two teachers training institutes, Rouen and Caen (Normandy, France). Twenty-eight competences were presented and respondents indicated for each competence, on a 6-point Likert scale, its importance and to what extent this competence is being acquired at the end of their one-year practice. In addition, subjects were asked to indicate, for each competence, with whom this competence is being acquired or, if not, will be acquired : peers (other pre-service teachers), mentors (classroom teachers), training institute teachers, colleagues (other teachers in school), by oneself (alone in classroom), with family or friends. Three items investigated research-based knowledge : - to get informed of didactics advances in one's academic discipline, - to take into account psychological and sociological research-based knowledge to design appropriate learning situation, - to get informed of advances in educational research. A multiple regression was run along with a statistical implicative analysis (Couturier, Gras & Guillet, 2004) to highlight association rules between answers. Implicative analysis looks for « If-then » relationships in order to identify paths and profile of answers.

Six conclusions can be drawn from the results 1) Didactics knowledge is perceived as more important and easier to acquire. 2) Training institute teachers are one source among others to be connected with research results. Two reasons may be posited to explain this result . Firstly, few teachers are university-based researchers ; secondly, suggested by the multiple regression results, the emphasis on research in the training scheme is likely to change according to the teacher training institute. 3) Regarding research-based knowledge as important involves regarding as important group climate, learning strategies, pupils psychological growth, didactics and assessment, pupils with special needs. These implications indicate expectancies and possible use of research-based knowledge on various cognitive and affective issues. 4) Two variables have a major impact on the perceived importance of psychological sociological and educational knowledge : age and prior studies. Pre-service teachers over 30 years judge these competences more crucial than younger teachers. The profiles highlighted by statistical implicative analysis showed that prior studies in psychology and in education help to be interested in research. A pessimistic view of these results leads to the conclusion that high expectancies about research come from pre-service teachers who are already convinced by research before entering teacher training. 5) There is a perfect correlation between these studies and teaching in elementary school. None of the secondary school teacher of the sample was trained in psychology or in education. As a consequence, interest for psychology, sociology and educational research would be a characteristic of some (not all) elementary school teachers. Secondary school teachers would only be interested and developed competence in didactics area. 6) However, an intriguing profile is to be explained. French teachers, in secondary schools, are more sensitive to research-based knowledge than other teachers. No satisfying explanation is readily available. This finding suggests the hypothesis that there are major differences about perceptions of teaching profession among secondary-school teachers according to the academic discipline to be teached. Further research and comparisons with other countries are needed to address this issue.