University-school partnership and boundary-crossing collaboration involving various stakeholder groups such as researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and students have received increasing attention in teacher education (Lillejord & Børte, 2016) for improving the “theory-practice link” between academic expertise and professional practice (Villiger, 2015). Potential advantages of such collaborations have been identified: (1) generating innovations for teaching and learning (Gräsel, 2011), (2) professional development of (prospective) teachers and teacher educators (Postholm, 2016) as well as collective capacity building (Fullan, 2016) within the context of career-long professional learning. 

Therefore, in the project of the Quality Initiative Teacher Training, "ZZL-Netzwerk" (Future Center for Teacher Education - Network) of the Leuphana University Lüneburg, nine cross-institutional so called „development teams“ have been established since 2016, in which representatives from university, school, extracurricular institutions as well as teacher students (altogether n=105) are to further develop university teaching and improve school teaching practice in co-constructive cooperation, for example by designing learning modules or developing teaching materials. In this way, they are to contribute to a successful interlinking of theory and practice in teacher training (Ehmke et al., 2022). The research on these development teams is part of the investigations on research-practice partnerships (Straub & Dollereder, 2019).

A quantitative online survey of all development team members in May/June 2021 (response rate 74%; n=78) aimed to 1) uncover commonalities and differences between the respective actor groups with regard to motivational aspects, co-constructive collaboration, perceived competence enhancement and individual returns, 2) identify possible existing modes of co-constructive collaboration as well as 3) identify conditions of success for winning research-practice partnerships, specifically with reference to subjective perceived personal competence enhancement as well as satisfaction.

First results:

Regarding reseach question one:

Single factor analysis of variance and t-tests point out differences between the actor groups regarding the motivation to participate as well as the modes of co-construction with small and medium effect sizes. Additionally, across all actor groups, the motivation to participate in the teams stems more from motives of personal development and professional contacts rather than from a motivation that´s "externally" conditioned or stems from motives of professional advancement. But despite individual actor group-specific differences, there is a fundamental consensus on satisfaction with the work in the development teams.

Regarding reseach question two:

High levels of agreement with the practice-based mode of co-construction (compared to the research-informed and research-based mode of co-construction), additional highly significant correlations as well as highly significant standardized regression coefficients, suggest the practice-based mode of co-construction as the predominant one.

Regarding research question three:

Multiple linear regression analyses point out that satisfaction with the work in the development teams and the practice-based as well as the research-based mode of co-construction significantly influence the perception of an enhancement of competencies in the competency category "Innovating" (category based on the KMK standards of teacher education KMK, 2019). This influence is to a large extent also given with reference to the competence category "Assessing", while the competence category "Teaching" does not point out any significances with these characteristics. Satisfaction, in contrast, is directly influenced by the characteristics „Trust“ and „Appreciation“, as well as by a motivation to participate in the development teams which, on the one hand, stems from a personal interest and, on the other, is not strongly oriented toward financial incentives. These and other results on the „drivers for success“ are currently being transferred into a path model.

An initial quantitative survey of development team members on epistemic, social and organisational integration in 2017 (n=62) was followed by a new online questionnaire in May/June 2021 with n=105 participants (full survey) of the following actor groups: teachers, teachers in pre-service, teacher students, teacher trainers (from a study seminar), employees of extracurricular educational institutions, and scientists from university (professors as well as research assistants). The survey consisted of the following subsections: a) motivation to participate (scale derived, among others, from Kao et al., 2011) b) collaboration (scale derived, among others, from Galle & Kreis, 2020) c) modes of co-construction (self-developed, derived from van Schaik et al., 2019) d) subjective competence enhancement (self-developed, derived among others from KMK, 2019) e) satisfaction (self-developed, derived from van den Bossche et al., 2011) f) further benefits and g) open feedback (both scales were self-developed). A 4-point Likert scale was used, partially supplemented by open response options. The response rate was 74% (n=78), composed as follows: 35.9% teacher students (n=28), 41% school representatives (n=32), 21.8% university representatives (n=17), and 1.3% representatives of extracurricular institutions (n=1). Cronbach's α ranged from .63 to .92 for all scales with only three values below .7. To answer the first research question, single factorial anova including post hoc tests (Scheffé & Bonferroni) were calculated on all possible characteristics. Additionally, we calculated t-tests on the characteristics where only two groups of actors had the same scales. Cohen's f & Cohen's d were then calculated to identify the effect sizes. Due to the low response rate from the extracurricular institutions, this group of actors had to be disregarded for research question 1. To answer the second and third research question, Pearson's correlation coefficients were determined for all characteristics of interest. Then we calculated multiple regressions with each of the competency categories and satisfaction as dependent variables. To answer research question two, results of the anova and t-tests were also partially included. The conception of a path model concludes the current results.

First conclusions for science: a) The results indicate that participants of the development teams as a form of a research-practice partnership do – although not exclusively - act differently depending on their actor group affiliation, e.g., in how they are motivated and how they acquire knowledge co-constructively. An analysis of these differences through further research could enable a precise improvement of collaboration and benefits for the participants. b) The differentiation by the KMK competency categories "Teaching, Assessing, Innovating" for an investigation of the added values of reseach-practice partnerships and its conditions for success has proven itself. Especially the predominant importance of certain modes of co-construction for two of the competence categories points out further research perspectives with these constructs. It is surprising that these modes seem to have such a significant influence on subjective competence enhancement, while other investigated characteristics seem to play a minor role, at least in the context of this evaluation. Further research on "drivers for success" could identify additive characteristics. First conclusions for practice: a) Our results indicate that the importance of practical experience for the work in research-practice partnerships should be emphasized. A contribution and exchange about practical experiences seem to be of particular importance for that. Nevertheless school representatives should be more involved in the research contexts and be informed about the associated added values, so that they benefit more from the research environment in the co-constructive collaboration within research-practice partnerships (keyword: research-based learning). b) For recruiting new members for the teams, the results recommend to emphazise the personal enrichment and further development as a special value of the collaboration. Financial motives cannot be negated on the basis of the present investigation, but they seem to play a subordinate role.

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