Concepts of inquiry-based learning in teacher education at university level can be connected through three different requirements (Weyland, 2019; Spronken-Smith & Walker, 2010). First, teachers should be extensively prepared for their future profession by engagement with schools and opportunities for teaching. This aim was strengthened within recent years by establishing longer school internships in study programs in many countries or school-embedded university units involving supervised teaching and research. By doing so, general competencies that could be achieved by inquiry-based learning are addressed, such as the competence to collaborate or reflect on teaching practice. Second, university courses should foster academic competencies, like reflecting critically on scientific studies and using research methods. By analyzing teaching practice from a scientific perspective, inquiry-based learning might offer opportunities to reduce the gap between practice and theory, between routines of teaching and research about teaching. Third, at least in some countries, inquiry-based learning is embedded in the discussion about ‘Bildung’ encompassing notions of ‘plurality and diversity’ (Gogolin et al., 1998) or associated concepts of ‘transformative learning’ characterized by ongoing processes of reflection (Mezirow & Taylor, 2009). Going beyond the preparation for teaching practice processes, processes of ‘Bildung’ might be provoked by perplexities and irritations happening within research processes.

Against this background, it is crucial for research about inquiry-based learning to consider the concepts as well as the didactic models underlying the courses. Because of the large variety of concepts and didactic models, general statements about inquiry-based learning seem hardly to be possible. Whereas the core of inquiry-based learning seems to be quite clear – students actually do research and not just get information about research methods (e.g. Healey, 2005; Huber & Reinmann, 2019), numerous differences exist concerning the name of the concept (e.g. inquiry-based learning, research-based learning, learning through inquiry), the aim of research (inquiry for learning vs. knowledge building), the role of the lecturers (little vs. huge amount of structure) and forms of engagement in inquiry (atomistic vs. wholistic) (e.g. Levy & Petrulis, 2012; Spronken-Smith & Walker, 2010; Brew & Mantai, 2017).

For all these reasons, research on inquiry-based learning in teacher education going beyond the evaluation of single courses is rare (for Australia e.g. Cloonan, 2019; for Austria e.g. Feyerer, Hirschenhauser & Soukup-Altrichter, 2014; for Germany e.g. Paseka & Hinzke, 2018).

The symposium aims to start an international discussion about inquiry-based learning in teacher education at university level by comparing concepts, didactic models and (national) research in three countries. The following questions will be addressed in the presentations:

• Which understanding (name, aim, concept, model) of inquiry-based learning is used in each of the three presentations?
• In which way can specific concepts and models of inquiry-based learning contribute to teacher education at university level?

To answer these questions, each of the three papers focuses two perspectives:

1. Conceptual perspective by presenting the current and former discourses on inquiry-based learning in each country.
2. Research perspective by presenting research findings to get an insight into the research field in each country and by presenting own studies.

By comparing these perspectives, commonalities and differences will become evident that might become the starting point of an international discussion. This discussion should help to answer the question under which conditions inquiry-based learning can be a fruitful concept in teacher education and in which way the three requirements connected to inquiry-based learning could be fulfilled.

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