The connection between theoretical knowledge and professional practice is essential for teachers (Dewey, 1904 Sætra, 2018). This connection is no less essential when student teachers work with their master’s research projects. As of 2021, all student teachers in Norway are required to write a master’s thesis as part of their teacher education. This means that many students need to develop master’s research projects that are relevant to actual challenges in the field of practice as well as to their teaching subjects. To do so, many of them wish to collect and work on data from classrooms. A study by Jakhelln, Bjørndal & Stølen (2016) shows that it is important to students that the work on their thesis is anchored in the field of practice, and collaboration skills are seen as relevant to their future work as teachers. It is therefore likely that master’s students will benefit from a close collaboration with the field of practice in addition to university professors to identify and solve research questions that are relevant to the field of practice as well as the didactics disciplines. As Jakhelln, Bjørndal & Stølen (2016) note, a systematic development work is needed to enhance the potential of the master’s work to develop the students as professional teachers.

This poster presentation reports on the PRANO-project (‘Practice-based master’s projects in Norwegian language and literature’). PRANO has the following main objectives: a) strengthening the integration of research-based and practice-based knowledge and competence within the students’ work on their master’s theses, and b) develop a new model for collaboration between the university and the field of practice. The project is moreover an arena for university professors and schoolteachers to learn from each other and update each other on the current challenges in their respective spheres.

PRANO is a three-year research and development project with funding from the Directorate for Higher Education and Competence in Norway. 24 students, 10 university professors and six teachers from primary and lower secondary schools are involved each year. The schoolteachers and the university professors collaborate on the supervision of the students’ projects. The schoolteachers supervise the development of the research questions and the data collection in cooperation with the university professors. In this way, the PRANO-project explores a model where research-based and practiced-based knowledge complement each other. Moreover, the model breaks down the dichotomy between the two (cf. Ertsås, 2017) by allowing teachers and university professors to work together on supervising research projects that a relevant to the field of practice. In the fall of 2021, the first class of master’s students who are writing their theses within the PRANO-project, started on their project design phase. The students work together in groups of four, and each group is supervised by a teacher and two university professors.

The focus of the poster is on how the students, the supervising teachers and the university professors experience the opportunities for interaction between research and practice within this collaborative master’s supervision project. More specifically, we discuss the following two research questions: RQ1: How do the participating students, teachers and university professors experience the interaction between research and the field of practice during the project? RQ2: Which aspects of the project need improvement to further develop the integration of practice-based and research-based knowledge?

By examining the research questions, we hope to shed light on whether and how the contributions of practice-based and research-based knowledge is manifested in the supervision of the student projects, and to gain a better understanding of how students, teachers and university professors may learn from each other in a collaborative project like PRANO.

To shed light on our research questions, we analyze qualitative data from various sources collected throughout the first execution of the PRANO-supervision model in the fall of 2021 and the spring of 2022. The data material consists of a) group interviews and personal interviews with students, teachers and university professors, b) students’ reflection logs and c) observations of group-supervision sessions, and d) observations of discussions between participating teachers and university professors about the development of the project. The interview data and reflection logs will give insights into the participants’ perspectives on the interaction between practice-based and research-based knowledge within the project. The observation data will allow us to see how the participants utilize each other’s competencies. We analyze findings that shed light on each individual research question and use the results to discuss PRANO’s overall potential for integrating research-based and practice-based competences in student research projects. The teachers and the university professors are involved in the development aspect of the PRANO-project: As supervisors and co-supervisors we are part of the execution, testing and development of the PRANO-supervision model. Thus, we contribute to the co-construction of the data material through our participation in the observed discussions and interviews. At the same time, we analyze data from the various sources generated within the project, and in that sense, we are all participating researchers. The research method thereby has elements of participatory observation because we take part in the supervision of the student projects, we observe the project activities, and we discuss and reflect upon our experiences together with other participating supervisors and co-supervisors. As participants and researchers, we thereby have a unique insider perspective on the project as well as a researcher’s perspective when we perform systematic analyses of each other’s roles and reflections. The methodology also has elements of action research (see Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2018, chap. 22) because we design and carry out the supervision model, reflect upon our observations and experiences, and use those insights for ongoing adjustments within this year’s execution of the PRANO-model as well as development of next year’s execution.

The PRANO-model is designed to be an arena for complex cooperation between students, schoolteachers, and university professors. The activities and the structures of collaboration are designed to provide an opportunity for the students to work on carefully selected research questions that are relevant to the field of practice. The close collaboration with schoolteachers and the act of collecting data in actual classrooms is intended to develop the students’ practical teaching skills as well as their competence in analyzing their own and other’s teaching practice. The very design of PRANO’s activities and collaboration platforms thereby offer a supervision model that may enhance the potential of the work with the master’s thesis to develop the students as professional teachers (cf. Jakhelln, Bjørndal & Stølen, 2016). Because the model involves collaboration between teachers and university professors, it also provides an arena where educators from schools and universities can learn from each other and enhance their understanding of how practice-based and research-based knowledge may be integrated into their own work. The PRANO model aims at student-projects that depend on the complex interplay between research-based and practiced-based knowledge to an extend where it may be hard – and irrelevant – to determine which aspect of the project is associated with which source of knowledge. PRANO thereby meets Ertsås’ (2017) call for breaking down the dichotomy between research-based and practiced-based knowledge. The findings from the data collected this spring will offer a perspective from this first generation of PRANO-participants on whether and how the model provides a genuine arena for the integration of research and practice in master’s projects. Moreover, the results may be of interest to any teachers, university professors and master’s students who want to use the master’s project work as an opportunity to develop the students as professional teachers.

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