The figure of “research teacher” is a figure widely accepted as a key to educational improvement, even considered synonymous for professionalism (Fueyo and Koorland, 1997; Price and Valli, 2005). Currently, we have found research that refers to the teacher as researcher in the field of arts education (Becher and Orland-Barak, 2018; Jokela, 2018). From this perspective, the figure of “arts education teacher” goes from being considered a mere technician to a teacher involved in improvement and an authentic activist agent of change (Becher and Orland-Barak, 2018). But while highlighting the benefits of working from this figure of teacher as researcher, it also highlights the difficulties of implementing it. Firstly, teachers consider that they tend to make little use of  art concepts in their professional development processes (Oreck, 2004), and they also complain about lack of knowledge, lack of time, lack of conditions, etc., to carry out research in the classroom (Becher and Orland-Barak, 2018).

The research model that prevails when talking about the figure of the teacher-researcher is a basic type of  action research cycles, in which modifications in practice are tested for the improvement of teaching in a wide range of subjects (mathematics, science, etc. (Elliot, 1991; McAteer, 2013). However, it should be noted that when referring to the case of research in teaching arts subjects, the features of a type of action research as promulgated by Elliot (1991,) should be analysed and questioned, since it is not the same to research for the improvement of a science or mathematics subjects, as it is for an arts education subjetcs. The ontological and epistemological foundations of research in artistic education are different from research in any other curricular area. Irwin (2013), with his contribution of a/r/tography, guides us on where to situate the figure of the teacher as a researcher. She provides a series of considerations about how research in arts education should be based on a close relationship between art, research and education. But it should be borne in mind that although the research carried out under the guidance of a/r/tography has its own characteristic features, according to Irwin (2013) it is framed within the field of art-based research.

However, although a/r/tography can be placed within the broader framework of the art-based research, when focusing attention on the methodological bases of both approaches,  it should be noted that they present particular differences (Martín-Viadel and Roldán, 2019). It is especially significant to analyse their ontological, phenomenological, axiological and methodological foundations. This analysis leads to the identification of two different ways of carrying out a research process in Arts Education (Navarro Moral. Forthcoming publication).

- A teacher researcher's approach from the arts-based research strand, in which a basic qualitative, and in some cases mixed, research model is applied (Leavy, 2018a, b).

- A research approach for the analysis of the act of artistic creation itself, where a phenomenological and heuristic research model has to be applied (McNiff, 2018; Moustakas, 1990,1994).

In Spain, we did not find many references to research works related to the figure of the teacher as a researcher in arts education. We find references of authors who have considered the figure of the teacher as a researcher in general, associated with the research-action model (Pérez-Gómez, 1993; Porlán-Ariza, 2011). The field of the teacher as a researcher in arts education seems to be unexplored in the Spanish research context. For this reason, the questions that arise when asking what kind of research is carried out by arts education teachers, what are their problems and challenges when they act as teacher-researchers, are the questions that gives rise to this research.

The aim of this research is to know the state of the art in relation to the figure of research teacher in spanish arts education, and the problems involved when teachers adopt this role in practice. The research is based on a collection of opinions, understandings and beliefs of a group of arts education teachers in primary education. Besides knowing the beliefs, understandings and problems in relation to this figure of teacher researcher in arts education, the work tries to deepen the type of research used by the teacher researchers in arts education. It aims to identify whether the research model applied to research in arts education is a basic qualitative research model, with some mixed variant (Hall, 2020), or on the contrary is a phenomenological and heuristic research model associated with lived experiences. The work presented here is a development of the doctoral thesis research carried out on the analysis of the model used in research on artistic creation and its differences with other research models, such as the scientific/experimental research model and the arts-based research model (Navarro-Moral, forthcoming). Based on the research results of this doctoral thesis, a focus group has been set up. Focus groups are identified by Kings, Horroks and Brooks (2019) as methodological strategies grouped under the qualification of group interviews. The type of focus group used, following Frey and Fontana (1991), is exploratory. This type of focus group is used in the early stages of research when the researcher needs to collect basic information in order to enter the field of study (Morgan, 1997). In relation to the sample of subjects selected to participate in the focus group, there were 6 Primary School teachers willing to participate in this research, selected under the Snowball procedure (Patton, 2015). The structure of the focus group was developed by mixing its formal and informal possibilities, and was conducted online following the ethical recommendations for the development of focus groups (King, Horrokcs and Brooks, 2019). The results obtained from collecting information from the focus group will be used to take the next step in the development of this research, which is planned to be developed using a mixed research approach (Hall, 2020). This second phase of research will take as reference the information obtained from the analysis of focus group data, and will be used to elaborate a questionnaire of opinion based on the results of focus group.

The results obtained from the analysis of the focus group essentially show that Primary art education teachers are not very connected to the teacher research movement. The participant teachers consider that they do not usually carry out research to improve their practice and that they do not have it as a habit in their daily practice. They consider that they have not received information about the teacher as researcher in their initial training period and in their professional development period. Teachers are unaware of how to carry out an investigation. They do not have the mechanisms or tools to carry out any type of investigation. The research model they are familiar with is the typical experimental/positivist research model, and to a lesser extent the qualitative research model. The teachers are totally unaware of a type of investigation of a phenomenological-heuristic model associated with a lived research and of a/r/tography developed by Irwin (2013). The idea of a teacher who overcomes the teaching technical features and achives to be an involved and activist teacher, is blurred by the ignorance of the meaning of the teacher as researcher of art education teachers participating in the research. Although, as previously stated, the work is a preliminary step for a larger investigation in which a type of mixed method research will be applied, the implication of this work may be useful to begin to understand the pros and cons of the figure of the research teacher and the challenges associated with it. With the results of this research, it is possible to begin to have a better understanding of the status of the figure of the research teacher in the Spanish context and the possibilities and limitations for possible changes and improvements in initial training and development teacher programs in artistic education in Spain.

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