Within the scientific and Higher Education-policy discussion in Europe, research and the concept of inquiry-based-learning and -teaching occupy a central role in teacher education and in the educational practice of teachers (Menter et al 2010; Temp 2013; BERA/RSA 2014b; Bolte et al 2014; Huber 2014). This role is justified with reference to high performing education systems, such as Finland or Singapore, whose sustainable educational success is strongly linked to the successful implementation of research-based educational structures in teacher education and in the school system in general (Tatto 2014).

To set up and stabilize such excellent systems, educational structures which provide student teachers with sufficient research literacy are required. That means students should be familiar with basic theoretical foundations of science and research. They should know how to interpret and deal appropriately with research results and should be able to align their educational practice and their professional approach with it. Additionally, such programmes should enable teachers to reflect their professional identity and current academic developments in the field of educational science and research. At best, they also acquire the knowledge and skills to carry out their own research-projects, with self-chosen research-questions which can be (practically) important for their daily pedagogical routines in school or dealing with general (academic) subjects (Roters et al 2009; Cordingly 2014).

But from a scientific point of view as well as from a practical perspective, as a lecturer in the field of inquiry-based learning and teaching methods in teacher education, I argue that the discussion has developed some idealistic bias or is in parts relying on unproven assumptions and solely 'viewed from the end' respectively. From a systemic point of view, a leading discourse can be identified, demanding well-educated, flexible and research-capable teachers, sufficiently and successfully trained in academic IBL courses (BERA/RSA 2014a). In contrast, it often remains vague how these objectives can be achieved within current organizational structures in teacher education and without discussing existing problems faced by students and teacher educators. Moreover, the academic and methodological dispute over inquiry-based learning and teaching methods is barely linked to social-theoretical (gesellschaftstheoretische) questions (see Horkheimer 1992; Adorno 1993).

In the context of these theoretical frames, this paper examines the specific requirements and challenges in inquiry-based teaching and learning processes in academic teacher education with an empirical focus on the educators. Inquiry-based learning is herein defined as a teaching and learning method where students in autonomous peer to peer research groups, under the supervision of a tutor, carry out research projects on self-selected topics and issues (Healey/Jenkins 2009; Huber 2009; Levy/Petrulis 2011). The fundamental objective of this study is to detect the specific interaction dynamics between teachers and students and especially to systematize and analyze ambivalences and confounding variables as well as specific requirements for teachers that arise in this process. This is, in particular, recourse to my own teaching experiences and research results (Toom et al 2008), which show that inquiry-based learning processes within teacher education, on the part of the students, can also go along with large learning resistors. In addition, they can be accompanied by general challenges in teacher education such as dealing with students diverse disciplines, heterogeneous learning groups, low methodological knowledge, hardly any research experience, etc., which can cause serious didactic and conceptual problems. Essentially, this contribution wants to determine empirically which confounding variables occur when and why in IBL processes. This paper asks how educators deal with those factors in their teaching practice, what kind of prevention and mitigation strategies do they generate and how these results can fed back to the general theoretical discussion about inquiry-based learning and teaching approaches.

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