Units of education need to make explicit what they are aiming at. However, the question remains, to what degree the staff of the unit stands behind that aim, or how they understand it. Teacher education in the University of Helsinki, as well as in the entire country, declares to be research-based (see e.g. Jakku-Sihvonen & Niemi, 2006; 2007). We were intrigued to find out the conceptions of this research-baseness from the teacher educators. A university teacher is both a researcher and a teacher: inquiry into one’s own discipline is expected. However, teacher educators are among the few groups of teachers for whom inquiring into one’s own work as a university teacher is a reality: the target of the research is teaching and learning, and that is what the educator is doing. We were interested, whether this group of people from very different backgrounds and disciplines shared the same conceptions of the department’s mission statement, or what we call it, the organizing theme. Such organizing theme should carry through all the courses that the teacher students take. It should be something that the staff truly believes in and wants to enhance in teaching. However, no actual initiative or course which would make the research-baseness explicit for the teacher educators, has been organized (c.f. Kember, 2009).

Here we present the results of a survey conducted among the teacher educators. We were interested in finding out their attitudes to and understanding of the research-based approach in order to build up a more comprehensive picture. In addition to the survey, by interviewing teacher educators we hoped to deepen our knowledge of its application in this context. The research questions were formulated as follows:

• To what extent do teacher educators appreciate the research-based approach?
• How do teacher educators understand the research-based approach?
• What kind of relevance do teacher educators think the research-based approach may have to the practice of a teacher’s work?

 We received 33 answers from teacher educators from the University of Helsinki in the spring of 2007, and after analysing the results, we interviewed eight of them. Next we expanded the survey by forming a new questionnaire based on the results of the first survey and the interviews, and we contacted all the departments of teacher education in Finland in the spring of 2009. We received only 63 answers to this latter survey. In this presentation we discuss the results of both of these surveys, and conclusions we can draw from these results.

Jakku-Sihvonen, R. & Niemi, H. (Eds.) 2006. Research-based teacher education in Finland: Reflections by Finnish teacher educators. Finnish Educational Research Association. Research in educational sciences 25. Jakku-Sihvonen, R. & Niemi, H. (Eds.) 2007. Education as a Societal Contributor: Reflections by Finnish educationalists. Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang. Kember, D. 2009. Promoting student-centred forms of learning across an entire university. Higher Education 58, no. 1: 1-13.