The context for the study that we would like present as a paper presentation is Norwegian mathematics teacher education students’ preparation for the, for some students, quite overwhelming endeavour of writing a master thesis of 45 ETCS during the final year of their five year long teacher education. In the fourth year of the teacher education programme a 15 ETCS course on scientific theory and research methods are mandatory, and within this course emphasis on qualitative method is one of the themes encountered. Given the opportunity to direct the choices of both content and approach while having the responsibility for this theme for the first time in the fall of 2022, we wanted to give the qualitative method theme a more participatory learning approach, inspired by Dewey’s theories on active and passive experience (e.g. Dewey, 1916; 1938). Our alternative was to organize the attention to content in accordance with what we have experienced to be kind of a template for how the method chapter is built in Norwegian master theses within mathematic education, and with a participatory learning approach. We therefore asked: How can participatory learning be emphasised in teaching of qualitative method in a master level course on scientific theory and method, and in what way does such an approach contribute to the student’s development of experiencing oneself as a researcher?

In short, our goal was to prepare these students to be able to conduct a qualitative study in their up-coming master thesis, and it is our opinion that involving the students in their own learning may be a prosperous way to do this. We found this to be in accordance with Dewey’s theories of learning through active and passive experience, and a way to emphasise all three of Biesta’s (2010; 2015) goals of education, described as qualification, socialisation, and subjectification. We chose this approach not merely in order to continue the facilitation for the students’ development as teachers, but rather to facilitate for their tuning in on a position as researchers.

As mentioned above, we organized the emphasis on the qualitative method to follow the experienced template for the methods chapter in Norwegian master theses within mathematic education, and alongside this we introduced a caricatured project, called Project BEST. This was kind of a bogus project on what chewing gum is the best. We provided the students with lots of gum from various brands and the ridiculous research question “What gum is best?” Teaching in accordance with template we introduced new elements of a qualitative approach, like for instance qualitative design, modify the original research question into a qualitative, delimited research question, data collection tools like observation, interview and qualitative questionnaire, informant criteria, recruiting of informants, and collection of data. The students then in groups carried out these parts of a qualitative project in speed fashion within the student group and within the teaching lessons we had together. Then, one step behind Project BEST the students had a work requirement in the course that focused on qualitative method. The students were, in groups, supposed to develop a qualitative study regarding the dice and card game Borel, in order to contribute to make grounds for deciding if this game would be attractive to use in teaching of probability in compulsory school. The work requirement attended all elements introduced by us, apart from data analysis, since this was introduced after the work requirement was delivered for evaluation.

Towards the end of the described emphasis on qualitative method we were curious about the students’ experiences during the weeks with qualitative method content and a participatory learning approach, and invited the students in the final lesson we had with them to answer a qualitative questionnaire with the following three questions (presented to the students in Norwegian): 1. What is your impression of content, organising and approach of the lessons? 2. What do you think about the work requirement, regarding content, organising and useful value? 3. What can be done in another way, and why do you think so? The questionnaire was handed out and answered by the students with pen within ten minutes towards the end of the final lesson. The student had to tick off in a small square at the questionnaire in order to consent to our use of the filled in questionnaire as data. We received 16 filled in questionnaires which constitute the data for our study. In addition, we plan to conduct a group interview with 3-5 of the students who filled in the questionnaire. We intend to conduct a thematic analysis where we will structure our analyses with focus on identifying and describing relations between the students’ learning and their recognising of facilitation for their development at researchers. In other words, we will conduct a deductive based, thematic analysis with attention to an analytic framework stemming from Dewey and Biesta. For now, we have only made some temporary readings and discussions based on the process of transferring, collecting all the completed questionnaire forms to one file on a computer, and structuring the data. We have both each student’s complete questionnaire, and we have collected all answers structured by each question in the questionnaire. The analyses will be most likely be finished during the spring of 2023.

Although we are in a quite early phase of our work with data in this study, and for that we of course apologise, we would already at this stage like to be bold enough to share what we reckon to be some promising, preliminary results. The very preliminary stage of analyses shows prospects of results regarding: 1. The students’ experience of useful value 2. The students’ acknowledgement of the organising of the content and approach 3. Establishing a foundation for the students’ self-development as researchers In summary we see prospects on two levels: First, we see prospects of students who appreciate choices made for the teaching related to qualitative method. Second, we see prospects of students who are taking steps in the direction of thinking and reacting as researchers, and thereby to some extent are able to implement the researcher perspective in their already established teacher perspective. We will of course return to these preliminary results with way more thorough analyses as grounds for our results and conclusions in Glasgow in August 2023.

Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy. Routledge. Biesta, G. (2015). Teaching, teacher education, and the humanities: Reconsidering education as a Geisteswissenschaft. Educational Theory, 65(6), 665-679. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12141 Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. The Free Press. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Kappa Delta Pi.