Primary Education in Ireland, North and South, is undergoing a process of considerable curriculum change and innovation. Pre-service teacher education therefore needs to be at the forefront of promoting pedagogical development appropriate to these changes. A potential barrier to this development is that the teaching pedagogies proposed in current Primary Curricula may differ from those experienced by the student teachers during their own education. This is of concern because there is much evidence to support the notion that pre-service teachers' conceptions about effective teaching and learning are influenced by their own prior experiences as learners. It is therefore imperative to elicit and understand these existing ideas if student teachers are to be encouraged to develop and even change their pedagogical views during their teaching degrees. In embracing a constructivist approach, such knowledge of students would enable teacher educators to better match teaching and learning strategies to their needs.The Irish Association for Social, Scientific and Environmental Education (IASSEE) was set up to further collaborative teaching and research initiatives in initial teacher education on an all-Ireland basis. The membership is drawn from lecturers in education who specialize in the teaching of history, geography and science. IASSEE has embarked on a substantial longitudinal study of B.Ed student teachers' pedagogical development, in relation to the subjects of science, history and geography. The research aims to track students through their degrees, mapping their progress and assessing the influence of teacher education experiences on their existing conceptual base. The paper presented at this conference will report on the first phase of this project, which involved all first year B.Ed students in teacher education colleges both North and South. This all-Ireland survey of over 1100 students was conducted to determine students' existing qualifications, school experiences, attitudes and initial conceptions about good teaching. Students in all primary teacher education institutions were given a questionnaire during their first month of college, which aimed to gather information in both quantitative and qualitative formats. The paper will summarise and discuss emerging data from the questionnaires, reflecting on the implications for future teacher education practice in primary science, history and geography. It is intended that the paper will focus on the inter-relationship between students' experiences as learners at first and second level and their current models of good teaching in the three disciplines. Where relevant, similarities and differences between subjects and between student cohorts from Northern and Southern institutions will be examined.