Professional education programs in higher education are typically characterised by ambitions of combining practical skills and competences with research-based knowledge. Over the past decades, many professional education programs have undergone processes of “academisation”, through which the emphasis on research-based knowledge has been significantly strengthened (Råde, 2014). In this paper, we focus on teacher education, which in several European countries has been developed into more academically informed, specialized and research-based programs, often resulting in a master’s degree (Ellis & McNicholl, 2015; Råde, 2019).

A typical characteristic of such academisation processes is that students are required to complete a piece of independent research, in the form of a bachelor or master’s thesis. The thesis is argued to be an educational tool capturing a number of the professional capabilities in which future teachers are intended to have, e.g. analytical thinking, reflection and the ability of linking theory and practice (Ahlstrand & Bergqvist, 2005; Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al., 2020; Maaranen, 2010). Additionally, the final thesis is argued to be important for enhancing students’ abilities to use research findings in professional practice, especially in countries providing ‘research based teacher education’ (Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al., 2020).

However, existing research has to a limited extent examined how universities organise their teacher education programs to support these objectives. Previous studies have primarily focused on students’ and educators’ individual experiences with and perceptions of the BA and MA theses (e.g. Jakhelln, Bjørndal & Stølen, 2016; de Kleijn et al., 2013;). In this paper, we adopt an organisational, social practice-based approach (Nicolini, Gehardi & Yanow, 2003) to investigate how teacher education programs form students’ preparation and work with BA/MA thesis. More specifically, we understand teacher students’ work of the BA/MA thesis as a form of practice shaped by the surrounding conditions. The notion of practice architecture (Kemmis et al., 2013) highlights that a practice never unfolds in a vacuum, but always is enabled and constrained by local and more general arrangements, i.e. the practice architecture. These arrangements exist along three dimensions, that is, cultural-discursive arrangements (e.g. policy discourses), material-economic arrangements (e.g. the universities’ physical set-up and formal guidelines) and social-political arrangements (e.g. student-supervisor relationships). The theory of practice architectures thus allows for investigations of the students’ preparation and completion of their final thesis, and how discursive, material and relational aspects of the teacher education programs form this practice.

Against this backdrop, the paper is based on the following research question: What characterisesstudents’ work with BA/MA thesis, and how is this practice enabled and constrained by the teacher education program?  

The study is conducted on behalf of the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training and is part of an ongoing national evaluation of bachelor’s and master’s thesis in Norwegian teacher education programs. The data is based on a survey to teacher educators in all teacher education programs in Norway (N=185). The participants have a central role in the work with the BA/MA thesis. The survey consists of both open-ended and closed-ended questions, with emphasis on the former, addressing how the school sector are engaged in the students’ work of the thesis, students’ involvement in existing research projects, supervision and organisational structures. Data will also be gathered from interviews with students, educators and supervisors from selected education programs. The interviews allow for in-depth investigations of the students’ experiences and how actors working in teacher education programs facilitate BA/MA thesis work.

The data collection is still in progress and will be completed during the spring. In the analysis, the data will be examined in relation to the theoretical dimensions mentioned above. The results will thus contribute to the existing literature on the ongoing academic orientation of teacher education (Råde, 2019) and how these education programs facilitate and support students’ in their work with BA/MA thesis.

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